Tag: Education (Page 1 of 2)

The Case for a K-12 Planning Education

January 17, 2023 / odrozd

By Isabel Soberal

What would it look like to incorporate principles of urban planning into the K-12 curriculum in U.S schools—could it be the answer to apathy planners are looking for? Dr. Thomas Campanella’s 2011 article, entitled “Jane Jacobs and the Death and Life of American Planning,” reflects on the canonization of Jane Jacobs by grassroots activists, not necessarily for the overall betterment of the planning profession. Blasphemous, some may say, especially in the circle of emerging planners. Jane Jacobs, our fearless grassroots hero, as anything less than saintly? Is nothing sacred? Campanella also acknowledges that many students of the profession lose their enthusiasm once they begin to practice. This got me thinking, and as I read on, I was struck by this idea: by way of remedies, he notes the importance that today’s planners be “versed in key theories of landscape and urban design. But more than design skills are needed if planning is to become… the charter discipline and conscience of the placemaking professions in coming decades” (Campanella 2011). Such an overhaul cannot be borne by adding a few prerequisite studio credits to a given master’s in the city and regional planning curriculum. I think the consideration for a planning-inclusive curriculum for K-12 ought to come before we even begin to fathom a graduate education. We need education in the fields of planning integrated into the K-12 curriculum of our schools.

An interesting 2019 report shows that intervention at the elementary school level could be helpful in this mission. “Planning for Kids: Educating and Engaging Elementary School Students in Urban Planning and Urban Design,” published by University of California, Los Angeles student Alvin-Christian Nuval, synthesizes the experiences of the Rosewood STEM Magnet of Urban Planning and Urban Design program, located in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). “Rosewood provides a unique environment for children ages 5 to 10 to learn more about the processes that occur to shape their built environment… Rosewood provides students opportunities to build on their past knowledge and immerse themselves in urban planning themes as they pass through each grade level”(Nuval 2019). Wouldn’t it be interesting to see this on a larger scale, and more importantly, to note the changes which follow its integration?

Is it not ludicrous that we planners are constantly in search of more effective means of community engagement, yet we don’t tend to engage with the next generation of planners in that search? Children must learn about their environment—to encourage a generation of more informed planners and combat the issue of apathy amongst residents in the planning process. Perhaps town halls will have more appeal if people know more about their context! Every day, I learn of another way in which my chosen profession has irrevocably changed the proverbial and literal landscape of communities. How do emerging planners reckon with this fact, with the knowledge that our plight of imperfect foresight guarantees uncertain (albeit well-intended) outcomes? Herein lies the rub of higher education: the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know much. I’m not saying that this anguish can be avoided, but by introducing concepts of physical placemaking and community building earlier in the lives of the next generation of planners—well, perhaps we stand a chance.

Citations

Thomas Campanella, “Jane Jacobs and the Death and Life of American Planning,” Places Journal, April 2011. https://doi.org/10.22269/110425

Alvin-Christian Nuval. “Planning for Kids: Educating and Engaging Elementary School Students in Urban Planning and Urban Design” (June 2019). https://escholarship.org/content/qt69f8m1p7/qt69f8m1p7.pdf.

Isabel is a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) pursuing a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning with a specialization in land use and environmental planning. She is interested in researching the use of art in public spaces and hopes to pursue this interest further. In her free time, she usually reads at a café.

Edited by Ryan Ford

Featured Image: The Case for Architecture Classes in Schools. Photo Credit: Mary Hui.

From Archives) What XKCD Can Teach You About Planning

December 27, 2022 / odrozd

This post was originally published on March 27, 2018, and is one of the most viewed articles in 2022.

By Nora Schwaller

XKCD is a beloved, online nerd comic that primarily involves esoteric jokes about physics and math with a healthy dose of snark. But that’s not all these humble stick figures provide. They can also offer valuable insight and lessons into some of the finer complications of planning: from big-picture issues, to niche problems. Therefore, through careful review and study, you can use XKCD comics to become a better planner. Here’s a quick tour of some of the top applications of XKCD to the planning field.

From the master planning perspective, XKCD can help you plan an execute a project from start to finish by realizing the importance of big-picture thinking:

XKCD: Planning

And providing helpful tips on time management and organization, such as the best ways to start a project:

XKCD: Making Progress

To budget your time:

XKCD: Time Estimating

And to make a schedule:

XKCD: Time Management

XKCD can also help you address niche problems that come up in core course class work, as well as harder issues that you address in topical classes. For example, XKCD provides ample advice on how to create and present helpful maps.

It can help you set up your GIS project:

XKCD: Map Projections

And teach you how to add that all important design flair:

XKCD: State Borders

So that you can present your work in a convincing way:

XKCD: Heatmap

XKCD has advice for planning specializations as well. Particularly, it has a lot of information on transit problems.

Such as, how to set up roads for everyone’s use:

XKCD: Highway Engineer Pranks

And prepare for the advances of the future:

XKCD: Driving

XKCD can also assist with your studies by translating abstract concepts to ‘real-world’ situations, like supply and demand and the tragedy of the commons:

XKCD: Hotels

Or the real reasons for considering the best years for Census data:

XKCD: Suckville

And, finally, it can help you connect with the public. Whether that is explaining your most recent research project:

XKCD: Like I’m Five

Or the most recent disaster:

XKCD: Worst Case Scenario

About the Author: Nora Schwaller was a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning, where she focuses on disaster recovery. Prior to UNC, she worked for an architecture firm in San Francisco. Outside of class, Nora enjoys long bike rides and short walks, delicious food with good people, and casually perusing information on the design history of contemporary video games and systems.

Astronaut. Athlete. Artist. Why not Urban Planner?

September 28, 2018 / odrozd

What do you want to be when you grow up? This is the definitive question of childhood, with the answers often changing…quickly. 2nd grade career aspirations went something like this: Monday, I’ll be a scientist; Tuesday, an artist; and by Friday, a professional soccer player.

For many kids, the notion of urban planning as a career is never on the table—planning isn’t the most common field to learn about at elementary school career day. Many current students can reflect back on two distinct moments that helped lead them to the field: (1) the realization that this field called urban planning even exists; and (2) the decision to pursue it. But what would the implications be if these moments could happen much earlier? If students could learn about urban planning the same time they learn about so many other career tracks?

In recent years, non-profit organizations, private firms, schools, and universities have been working on just that. This post provides an overview of some of the most compelling urban planning youth education projects happening across the country. While they vary in method and medium, the projects and organizations below share the goal of sharing urban planning with younger audiences.

Urban planning embedded in school curriculum

Perhaps the most obvious intervention of planning education is incorporating it into school curriculum. The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) is a New York City based nonprofit which “uses the power of design and art to increase meaningful civic engagement.” They have a rich breadth of ready-made urban planning focused curricula for teachers to use in the classroom or in extra-curricular activities. Projects vary in both design and intended ages, from longer project-based work to small in-class assignments.

Extending the concept of embedding urban planning in school curricula to a comprehensive scale, there are a handful of urban planning themed high schools across the country. These include the Academy of Urban Planning and Engineering in Brooklyn, which focuses on “building communities of learners,” and the East Los Angeles Renaissance Academy School of Urban Planning and Design, which partners with a local university and one of the largest global architecture firm, among others.Both use these promote platforms to engage in advocacy and interact with local communities. These schools also offer a comprehensive and immersive introduction to planning and potential launch pad for university paths to this field.

Creative arts with an urban planning mindset

Planning education doesn’t need to be confined to a formal classroom or workshop setting; it is also a natural companion to more creative fields. Just last August, the Chicago Architecture Foundation published a graphic novel, No Small Plans. No Small Plans centers on the escapades of Chicago teens as they design their city throughout time, in 1928, 2017, and 2211. Closely referencing Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago, it provides a beautiful and engaging crash course to urban planning and how it shapes our lives. Urban-themed coloring books targeting older audiences, such as Steve McDonald’s Fantastic Cities, presents urban form in a stunningly beautiful way, encouraging artists to perhaps view their own cities just a little differently.

Planning programs driving outreach

There are also a number of ways for professionals to engage with the next generation through a variety of organized activities and events. For example, in March 2018, faculty, planning students and professionals came together at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs to host a workshop on urban planning for 100 high school students in Los Angeles. High schoolers who attended received a crash course in urban planning and were able to ask questions and advice from current planning graduate students, practitioners, and faculty. 400 miles north, the Institute of Urban and Regional Development at UC Berkeley houses the Center for Cities + Schools (CC+S). One of the core missions of CC+S is youth engagement in urban planning and social change, through which they facilitate programs such as Y-PLAN (Youth: Plan, Learn, Act, Now!). Y-PLAN is an educational strategy that can be implemented in schools to encourage students to make change in their communities. Similar educational tools and mentoring programs are operating in graduate urban planning programs across the country.

Moving forward

High schoolers of today are the planners of the future. Actively engaging youth in planning can open doors beyond the typical occupation buffet of career musings. With programs and workshops, in-school curricula, and creative arts like the ones mentioned here incorporating planning, perhaps future planning students won’t have to stumble into this field. Instead, they’ll deliberately drive towards it.

Furthermore, as current planning students, we occupy a unique space. In these brief two years, we transition from non-planner to planner. We can pause and look both to the past and future: remembering when we didn’t know what we now know, while also visualizing how to use this knowledge and experience to create meaningful impact. This positioning makes us ideal ambassadors to young students now.

Feature image photo credit: Chicago Architecture Foundation, No Small Plans

About the author: Margaret Keener is a second year Master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning, focusing on land use and environmental planning and hazards resilience. Prior to UNC, Margaret worked as a graphic designer for a global city network. Outside of class, Margaret enjoys listening to podcasts while running, playing outdoor team sports, and exploring new places on foot.

What XKCD Can Teach You About Planning

March 27, 2018 / odrozd

From the master planning perspective, XKCD can help you plan an execute a project from start to finish by realizing the importance of big-picture thinking:

XKCD: Planning

And providing helpful tips on time management and organization, such as the best ways to start a project:

XKCD: Making Progress

To budget your time:

XKCD: Time Estimating

And to make a schedule:

XKCD: Time Management

It can help you set up your GIS project:

XKCD: Map Projections

And teach you how to add that all important design flair:

XKCD: State Borders

So that you can present your work in a convincing way:

XKCD: Heatmap

XKCD has advice for planning specializations as well. Particularly, it has a lot of information on transit problems.

Such as, how to set up roads for everyone’s use:

XKCD: Highway Engineer Pranks

And prepare for the advances of the future:

XKCD: Driving

XKCD can also assist with your studies by translating abstract concepts to ‘real-world’ situations, like supply and demand and the tragedy of the commons:

XKCD: Hotels

Or the real reasons for considering the best years for Census data:

XKCD: Suckville

And, finally, it can help you connect with the public. Whether that is explaining your most recent research project:

XKCD: Like I’m Five

Or the most recent disaster:

XKCD: Worst Case Scenario

About the Author: Nora Schwaller is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning, where she focuses on disaster recovery. Prior to UNC, she worked for an architecture firm in San Francisco. Outside of class, Nora enjoys long bike rides and short walks, delicious food with good people, and casually perusing information on the design history of contemporary video games and systems.

Zombie Preparedness: A Communication Strategy for Emergency Preparedness

October 31, 2017 / odrozd

Zombies have become a fixture in literary and cinematic culture over the past century. The list of on-screen zombie productions is extensive, ranging from White Zombie in 1932 and Night of the Living Dead in 1968, to this year’s Patient Z and dozens of others in between. In 2016, Netflix boasted a buffet of 19 zombie-themed shows to satiate their viewers’ appetite for the undead. Yet over the past decade, zombies have broken free of their cinematic chains. Runners can now have their zombie fix on-the-go, with zombie-themed races in which costumed zombies chase runners, or via zombie running apps. For the extreme among us, there are even zombie survival camps: “the ultimate weekend apocalypse adventure.”

The cultural capital of zombies has not gone unnoticed. Since 2011, the threat of a zombie outbreak has been used in a more unexpected way: as a communication strategy for emergency preparedness. In response to low engagement in previous emergency preparedness campaigns, in May 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) opted for a creative thematic pivot in their preparedness communication. And so, Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse was born. This campaign first manifested as a humorous blog post detailing key steps to take in the event of a zombie apocalypse,¹ such as building an emergency kit and developing a family emergency plan.²The CDC’s goals for this campaign were to widen the reach of emergency preparedness awareness materials and draw in younger audiences.

A quick glance at the post’s engagement metrics renders their strategy an unequivocal success; the post received unparalleled traffic, crashing the blog platform within nine minutes of the tweet directing viewers to the blog. The campaign was covered extensively by media outlets for more than a year following the original blog post. By 2013, two years after the original posting date, the post had garnered approximately 1,332% more views than average posts on the CDC Public Health Matters Blog, and 1,233 comments, compared to the average of five comments. The CDC’s social media followers across various platforms also grew significantly in response.³ Moreover, the immense popularity of the post led the CDC to develop a host of Zombie Preparedness materials, including a dedicated blog, posters, lesson plans for teachers, and even a graphic novella.

The CDC’s extensively shared and liked tweet referencing the Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse campaign. Photo Credit: CDC’s Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (@CDCemergency).

Excerpt from original Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse blog post (May 16, 2011) on CDC’s Public Health Matters Blog. Photo Credit: CDC Public Health Matters Blog.

Since 2011, other organizations in cities across the country have followed the CDC’s creative lead, and further capitalized on the Halloween season to launch preparedness education and trainings with a zombie theme. For example, REI offers a Zombie Preparedness – Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse workshop, which covers important survival strategies adequate for any disaster. From Zombie Scavenger Hunts in Anchorage, Alaska (2012) to Zombie Artwalks in Abilene, Texas (this month), zombie preparedness has consistently captivated geographically diverse audiences and has catalyzed unique partnerships around emergency preparedness.

Anchorage’s haunted zombie scavenger hunt is fun for the whole family. Photo Credit: Anchorage Public Library.

Perhaps more interesting, however, is the adoption of zombie preparedness at the state level. Each October since 2014, Governor of Kansas Sam Brownback signs a proclamation declaring October “Zombie Preparedness Month.” This tradition, spearheaded by the Kansas Division of Emergency Management echoes the sentiment of the CDC’s campaign, insisting that “if you’re prepared for zombies, you’re prepared for anything.”⁴Furthermore, in February of 2017, the state House of Illinois passed House Resolution 0030 declaring October “Zombie Preparedness Month.” This law “urges all Illinoisans to educate themselves about natural disasters and take steps to create a stockpile of food, water, and other emergency supplies that can last up to 72 hours.”⁵

Kansas Division of Emergency Management fb

Kansas Division of Emergency Management employing their own zombie preparedness campaign on Facebook earlier this month. Photo Credit: Kansas Division of Emergency Management.

Although the CDC’s novel campaign has certainly been effective in garnering significant attention and replication across the country, measuring the extent to which this messaging campaign led to increased actual emergency preparedness actions is more difficult to quantify. A 2015 study conducted by PhD students at the School of Communication at Loyola University Chicago investigated this question by administering an online survey about emergency preparedness to two groups of undergraduates: one previously exposed to Preparedness 101 Zombie Apocalypse, and the other exposed to CDC’s traditional preparedness messaging campaigns. Their findings indicate that the zombie material did not have significant impacts on their performance on the preparedness survey compared to the traditional messaging group.⁶

Even with these results, there is clear value in zombie preparedness, beyond the laughs. According to a national survey conducted in 2016 by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, almost two-thirds of US households lack sufficient emergency plans. More than 30% of US households with kids are unaware of their school evacuation plans, and over 40% lack understanding about their child’s evacuation location in the case of an emergency.⁷Zombie preparedness can only help this, especially due to its potential for youth education. Additionally, true to both their nature and their historical staying power in popular culture, zombies aren’t likely to go away anytime soon. Bundling zombies with preparedness education every October is nothing but good (and perhaps spooky) news for emergency preparedness – planners, public health advocates, and hazard mitigation experts take note.

¹FEMA. 2012. “Zombie Preparedness: Effective Practices in Promoting Disaster Preparedness,” Webinar Transcript. https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/20130726-1913-25045-3339/20130430_final_zombie_preparedness_transcript.pdf

² Khan, Ali S. 2011.“Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse,” CDC Public Health Matters Blog, May 11. https://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2011/05/preparedness-101-zombie-apocalypse/

³Kruvand, Marjorie and Maggie Silver. 2013. “Zombies Gone Viral: How a Fictional Zombie Invasion Helped CDC Promote Emergency Preparedness” Case Studies in Strategic Communication. http://cssc.uscannenberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/v2art3.pdf

⁴Barber, Elizabeth. 2014. “Kansas Will be Prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse.” Time, September 24. http://time.com/3424392/kansas-zombie-preparedness-month-sam-brownback-natural-disasters/

⁵Illinois General Assembly. 2017. “Bill Status of HR0030.” http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocTypeID=HR&DocNum=30&GAID=14&SessionID=91&LegID=99787

⁶ Kruvand, M and FB Bryant. 2015. “Zombie Apocalypse: Can the Undead Teach the Living How to Survive an Emergency?” Public Health Reports. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26556937

⁷ National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. 2016. “Children in Disasters: Do Americans Feel Prepared? A National Survey.” National Center on Disaster Preparedness Research Briefs. https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:194073

Featured image: A zombie flashmob (fleshmob) takes on London in 2007. Photo Credit: CGP Grey via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

About the Author: Margaret Keener is a first year master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning, focusing on land use and environmental planning. She is particularly interested in resilience and climate change adaptation. Prior to UNC, Margaret worked as a graphic designer for ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. Outside of class, Margaret enjoys listening to podcasts while running, playing outdoor team sports, and exploring new places on foot.

Science Fiction and Planning

March 10, 2017 / odrozd

As planners, we often engage in visioning processes with communities to identify and elaborate on the kinds of communities we want to plan. Our vision plans build an image of what could be in order to inform the agenda, strategies and policies we then develop and implement as planners. Vision planning can be an imaginative space to respond to the needs and desires of a community’s stakeholders and to consider alternative ways of negotiating and organizing our communities within existing constraints.

Science fiction also offers an opportunity to envision a different world. Science fiction creates images of worlds free from poverty, capitalism and war and/or consumed by futuristic technologies, tragedies and disease. Science fiction, unlike planning, is free to imagine beyond reality and constraints from our social structures and norms. This opportunity has become the foundation for an emerging movement of social justice science fiction writers who are free to dream new realities.

The inspiration for many of these social justice science fiction writers comes from author Octavia Butler, a black science-fiction writer whose protagonists were young women of color, primarily black women. One of the most exciting works from this new movement is Octavia’s Brood, an anthology of radical science fiction by activist writers.

Toshi Reagon. Photo by Bernie DeChant.

While planners and science fiction writers have so much in common in the work they do, I’ve never really heard of any overlapping work between the two…until now! This semester, musician and activist Toshi Reagon begins a multi-week, multi-year DisTIL (Discovery Through Iterative Learning) residency through Carolina Performing Arts. This innovative arts fellowship intends to cultivate productive intellectual and creative relationships between artists and academics, which for Toshi will be primarily with the Department of City and Regional Planning. Toshi has created a new opera based on Octavia Butler’s post-apocalyptic novel Parable of the Sower. The opera blends science fiction with African-American spiritualism, and through her DisTIL residency, will further blend in ideas and concepts from city and regional planning. Toshi’s DisTIL residency is also meant to bring planning faculty and students into her world to engage in imaginative and creative thinking about the future of human civilization.

Toshi will return to the UNC Chapel Hill campus for the second time during the week of March 27th to engage in conversations with planning faculty members around systems modeling, housing policy, hazard mitigation and disaster recovery, environmental justice, and negotiation theory. Hopefully, her presence will encourage planners to vision beyond the confines of reality for a just a moment, to tip toe into the world of science fiction and to dream a new world.

About the Author: Hilary Pollan is a first year DCRP student specializing in Economic Development and pursuing a dual degree MPH in Health Behavior. She is interested in workforce development, participatory planning, and building healthy communities, and she strives to be a planner for social justice. She is thrilled to be the Graduate Assistant for Toshi Reagon’s DisTIL Fellowship through Carolina Performing Arts.

References:

Flanders, Laura. “Why Science Fiction Is A Fabulous Tool In The Fight For Social Justice”. The Nation. N.p., 2017. Web. 10 Mar. 2017.

“UNC-Chapel Hill Receives $1M Grant From The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation For Innovative Arts Program – The University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill”. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. N.p., 2016. Web. 10 Mar. 2017.

Women in the Workplace: 4 Takeaways

February 22, 2017 / odrozd

The following is a collaborative piece between Angles and the Center for Community Capital.

UNC’s Center for Community Capital (CCC) works with seven female Graduate Student Fellows from DCRP. In anticipation of our transition into the workforce, we met with researchers and analysts at the CCC to reflect on women’s roles in the fields of research and planning. We discussed how gender intersects with our career decisions with work-life balance, compensation and negotiation, communication, and personal growth. Here are four takeaways from our discussion:

1. Sexism can be subtle and obvious in the workplace. It should be corrected as soon as it occurs, whether it is overt or covert. Sexism can show up in less obvious ways, such as who absorbs extra, unpaid tasks. Women might, for instance, take on the “emotional labor” of the spaces we occupy and the maintenance of important workplace relationships. Emotional labor can take the form of women acquiring duties such as maintaining and improving the aesthetic of the workplace, taking responsibility for first impressions and hospitality with clients or partners, and being the ones to absorb extra responsibilities when someone leaves a position.

2. Obligations, such as family care, may influence promotion and productivity. Outside-of-work activities and obligations like exercise, community commitments, friendships and partnerships, vacations, child- or elder-care, and general down-time are important aspects of life that can affect productivity at work. And, as The New York Times noted last year, many of these care obligations fall disproportionately on women—women in the United States perform an average of 4.1 hours of unpaid work per day. Whatever you prioritize, you will likely succeed in, and these decisions come with trade-offs. For example, putting in the time to be promoted may require sacrificing some of the things that keep you grounded. Having a family is also time-consuming, but it is up to each individual and their partner, if they have one, to communicate priorities and needs when balancing work and family.

3. Effective communication is key. Women can sometimes be drowned out by louder voices, interrupted, or talked over. If you recognize this happening to one of your colleagues, speak up and direct the conversation back to what she was trying to say. Verbally affirming each other’s voices will not only build solidarity but can also support women’s voices in the workplace. Also, taking detailed meeting minutes and notes that you can refer back to if there is any misunderstanding or need for reiteration can be a helpful tool if and when responsibilities become unclear.

4. Negotiate compensation. When it comes to negotiations of salary and pay, it is essential to be prepared with labor data and to negotiate the first salary offer. Use the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics website to find your industry and job title and look up the average, minimum, and maximum pay for that position considering your work experience. Take into account the unique skills you can leverage. If you are a rare asset, the demand for your labor will be higher and may put you in a higher pay range. Also, consider the cost of living where you are applying for a job and adjust for additional expenses.

As students we are used to living with minimal costs, paycheck to paycheck, and it is easy to be blown away by an initial offer because of its comparison to what we had been living off of in graduate school. Resist this temptation and do your research. If the employer won’t increase your salary, negotiate for additional vacation days, paid time off, relocation costs, and other workplace benefits.

For online applications that request a desired starting salary with no example range, consider auction theory as a guide: If you under-bid, you will be paid less than you like. If you over-bid, you are less likely to get the job. Bid your reservation wage – the least amount of money you will accept that will meet your needs and quality of life goals. Looking up average pay for your sector and experience is also helpful with these applications. In the long run, negotiating your first salary is crucial to addressing the income gap between men and women. Often, your subsequent salaries will be based off of your previous salary, so negotiating at the outset is especially important.

The knowledge and experience of the women at CCC was insightful and gave us perspective on how to make decisions about priorities, to support each other in the workplace, and to stand for what we deserve as equals in the workforce.

Featured photo: 2016-17 Center for Community Capital Fellows. Photo Credit: Julia Barnard.

About the authors: Julia Barnard is a Research Associate at the Center for Community Capital where she assists with the center’s work in consumer financial services, affordable housing, communications, and outreach. She is also the facilitator of the Center’s Fellowship Program for graduate students. Julia obtained her Master’s degree from UNC’s Department of City and Regional Planning, and served as an Editor for the Carolina Planning Journal.

Colleen Durfee hails from Ohio as a first year master’s candidate for City and Regional Planning at UNC Chapel Hill. Prior to UNC, she received her bachelors from The Ohio State University where she studied economic and political geography. She is interested in the impact planners can have on land use decisions in disaster recovery and how residents confront post-disaster challenges. Outside of coursework, she enjoys playing pick-up basketball, procrastination via cooking, and exploring unfamiliar cities.

Fall 2016 Workshop Review

December 2, 2016 / odrozd

Each year, UNC Department of City and Regional Planning students have the opportunity to take a hands-on workshop course; the course is required for second year Master’s students. Workshops usually include client-facing work, collaborating with large teams on complex challenges taking place in a North Carolina community. This fall, the department organized two workshop courses: one focused on economic development, the other on transportation. Below is a description of each of the workshops and reflections about the value of practical, skill-based work in preparing Master’s students for the real world.

Economic Development Workshop

The economic development workshop was facilitated by Professor Bill Lester. It tackled two client projects and students worked on both projects, taking multiple “lead” and “support” roles on each. The clients for the projects were the National Employment Law Project (NELP) in Washington, DC, and the Word Tabernacle Church Impact Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

Economic development workshop students visited the Impact Center in Rocky Mount, NC. Photo credit: Rachel Wexler.

The National Employment Law Project (NELP) provides legal assistance and support to local, state, and National efforts to raise the minimum wage, pass workplace protections, and support a variety of related labor market interventions. The North Carolina Word Tabernacle Church (WTC) and its non-profit organization, the Impact Center of Rocky Mount, is a grassroots, faith-based community service advocate.

The two organizations stand in strong contrast: While NELP works on a national scale, the Impact Center focuses its efforts on local community assistance. NELP’s work is supported by high-level lawyers and policy-makers in DC and the Impact Center is run mostly by part-time volunteers. At the outset of the semester, the two client projects seemed worlds apart; but by the end of the semester they were united by common concern for access to resources and environmental justice.

Students were briefed on the public programming at the Impact Center. Photo credit: Rachel Wexler.

The workshop class provided social science analysis and developed an interactive web-based tool for NELP to share information on the possible effects of raising the minimum wage in cities across the U.S. (The site, still under construction at time of publication, will be reachable at 15forall.web.unc.edu). The Impact Center of Rocky Mount proved a more organizationally challenging project. A dearth of existing data required the class to redesign its scope of work from data analysis to creating data collection methodologies for the Impact Center to implement.

In addition to having the opportunity to work with a well-resourced Washington, D.C., organization to create a polished finished product, the team was also challenged to be adaptive. The team was forced to adjust to unforeseen circumstances in Rocky Mount, due, in part, to geographic location. The workshop provided a valuable example of the substantial advantages that the combination of social capital and geographic proximity to resources can afford a city.

A tour of the Impact Center illustrated its needs and capacity. Photo credit: Rachel Wexler.

Transportation Workshop

The transportation workshop was facilitated by DCRP PhD candidate and former land developer Bill Bishop, whose research focuses on Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) and maximizing the impact of mass transit through value capture. The workshop was tasked with taking a critical look at the city of Charlotte’s Blue Line Extension, a light rail line connecting the central business district with the UNC Charlotte campus about 13 miles to the north. City of Charlotte Planning and regional transit agency staff worked with the UNC workshop team to lay out the successes and shortcomings of TOD surrounding new light rail stations. The workshop team was then given the ever-so-easy task of rethinking TOD for the Charlotte Blue Line Extension.

TOD is hard to define, multidimensional, context-specific, and almost never gets built the way it looks on paper in the planning office. As much as the workshop team gravitated towards relatively simple policy changes, spurring private investment in close proximity to transit infrastructure is no small feat. Fortunately, City of Charlotte staff (serving as clients for the workshop) narrowed the scope of work by highlighting three specific station areas to explore in detail.

Transportation workshop students on a site visit in Charlotte. Photo credit: Jonathan Ahn.

The final report focused on four distinct “strategies” that, after much deliberation and exploration, the workshop team determined were key components to creating the type of development near stations that the City of Charlotte was seeking. In addition to our four strategies, the team also delivered Charlotte staff a package of tools and recommendations to help implement new development strategies around station areas not currently receiving private sector investment. Recommendations included zoning and land use amendments, community outreach strategies, placemaking and design recommendations, connectivity and accessibility improvements, and much more.

Transportation, especially large-scale investments like light rail, is inherently interdisciplinary. This transportation workshop showed how interconnected transportation planning can be. It also gave the team an opportunity to look behind the curtain and learn more about how inter-agency collaboration, bureaucratic biases, institutional momentum, and political and regulatory environments further complicate already inherently challenging projects.

The workshop process is integral to synthesizing technical skills with practical application and team and client management. These courses also serve as a reminder that planning projects are never simple–even without a Hurricane thrown into the mix. While each workshop was challenging for different reasons, each gave DCRP Master’s students an opportunity to collaborate on tackling some real-world planning challenges and gave students great experience to carry forward.

About the Authors: Chris Bendix is a second year Master’s student in DCRP. He is specializing in Housing and Community Development and plans to work at the intersection of housing, real estate, and mass transit planning.

Rachel Wexler is the co-editor of the Carolina Planning Journal and is pursuing her master’s degree in City and Regional Planning. Her bachelor’s is in english from UC Berkeley; prior to beginning her master’s she worked as an editor, cook, and musician. Her academic work focuses on economic development, neighborhood revitalization, and placemaking. Her non-academic work focuses on playing in general and playing cello in particular. She also thinks frequently about Oakland, California and Berlin, Germany, both of which she calls home. These are also the urban spaces that brought her to this charming small town to study planning.

Historic Stagville: This Place Matters

November 23, 2016 / odrozd

The largest plantation in North Carolina stretched for 30,000 acres across the boundaries of present-day Orange, Durham, Wake, and Granville counties. Established in 1787, more than nine hundred enslaved people lived and worked on the plantation by 1860.

Today, the remains of the plantation cover 175 acres in northern Durham County amid a forest of slender trees, which during the plantation’s zenith would have been exposed fields of tobacco, wheat, corn, and potatoes. The preserved site, Historic Stagville, has the only surviving two-story slave cabins in North Carolina, and focuses on the lives of the thousands of enslaved individuals who lived here over the course of the plantation’s history.

“The Great Barn” was constructed by enslaved people at Stagville in the summer of 1860.

Plan for All organized an early November trip to Stagville for a group of Department of City And Regional Planning students. Plan for All is a student group dedicated to making planning more inclusive. A newcomer to North Carolina, I participated in the trip to learn more about the state’s history. On our minds were questions such as:

What is the importance of this site?
What is the value of preserving and visiting such a site, particularly from a planning perspective?
How can its buildings help us to understand the past, and what role do they play in shaping the future?

As a profession, planning has not always recognized or prioritized the importance of places occupied by the disenfranchised. Our history is full of painful actions that disrupted places – preventing people from living in certain neighborhoods, destroying communities through urban renewal, and creating a built environment that is bad for our health and the environment. We have a lot to learn from our history.

Much of the land surrounding the Historic Stagville site, which previously belonged to the Cameron-Bennehan family, has been sold, incorporated into new towns, and slowly redeveloped (we passed a pharmaceutical building and a few secluded office parks on our drive to the site). The houses at Horton Grove remain as part of Historic Stagville, which has been on the National Register of Historic Places since the 1970s. The houses in Horton Grove are the only two-story slave cabins still standing in North Carolina. Built in 1850, they depart from the typical slave cabins of the time.

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A two story slave cabin at Horton Grove, which enslaved people constructed between 1851 and 1860.

The circumstances of their construction adds depth to our understanding of Horton Grove: they are unusual for slave houses, both in the construction material and stature. What was the landowner’s motivation for having these structures built? There are two theories: one, that recent outbreaks of disease compelled the construction of better and more sanitary living conditions. The second is that these were “showpieces” intended to defend the institution of slavery and impress (or appease) visitors to the plantation.

Under much different circumstances, motivations of appeasement and keeping up appearances still plague planning and design today. City beautification programs, debates about affordable housing, and NIMBYism represent our ongoing societal struggles with place: who it is meant for, who benefits from it and gets to use it, and who has control over it.

The buildings in Horton Grove were continuously occupied nearly a century after emancipation by formerly enslaved people and their descendants. Its application for the National Register of Historic Places noted it as a residence until the 1970s, despite a large migration from the community to Durham that occurred in the 1930s–possibly due to the Great Depression, agricultural decline, and new farm ownership resulting in changing working conditions. The decision to continue living in slave quarters might have been unimaginably complex for the freed people. The opportunities for resettlement in nearby Durham and the options for work as a freed black person in the South must have played a role. So too must the uncertainty of finding separated family members and remaining where there was shared history. While a few families are known through the historical record (such as the Hart and Holman families) and genealogical research, we unfortunately do not definitively know about their decisions to stay or leave.

Because these structures have been preserved, Horton Grove brings these big questions into the present day. What do we really know about our places? How does the history of a building shape our understanding of history, and whose story gets to be told (and by whom)? What do buildings constructed today say about power dynamics and motivations of those involved? What makes a place important, worth preserving, and why? How can buildings help us to understand the past, and what role do they play in shaping the future?

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A kitchen outbuilding behind the Horton Home.

Historic Stagville tells this story of buildings and the history of enslaved people prominently, in contrast to many other preserved and historic plantation sites around the nation. A sign in the visitor’s center attests to why these places, and the places of enslaved people in particular, deserve to be preserved, and the significance of witness:

“Still standing: why slave dwellings matter. Enslaved workers built the United States from before the founding of the nation to emancipation, but many of the places they called home are now gone. Some still stand. From coast to coast, in every shape and size, these structures bore witness to the lives of enslaved people. What stories can these buildings tell us today?”

A poster inside of the Stagville State Historical Site Welcome Center. Photo: Brian Vaughn

Credit to all photos unless otherwise noted: Karla Jimenez

About the author:
Katy Lang is a Masters student in the Department of City & Regional Planning specializing in transportation and land use. She spent seven years in the Washington, DC area and as a result, she has a love-love relationship with DC’s Metrorail and all things urban. She is passionate about pedestrian safety and the pedestrian’s right to the city and the street. Prior to coming to UNC, Katy worked in change management. She likes long runs on Carrboro’s short bike trails and eating popcorn.

Planning for Schools in Raleigh, NC

December 3, 2015 / odrozd

Wake County, North Carolina is growing, and fast. In 2013, to better manage this exponential growth that adds 63 people per day, the city of Raleigh (at the heart of Wake County), adopted a new “Unified Development Ordinance” (UDO). The UDO has been successful in many respects by encouraging compact, pedestrian-oriented development to preserve natural resources and enhance overall quality of life¹.

Olds Elementary School, an example of a school that would be illegal under the new ordinance. Photo Credit: Karen Tam for the Raleigh Public Record

In spite of this success, the UDO has a major flaw with respect to the siting and size of schools². This flaw comes in a new provision³ that states that “Schools must be located on a lot with a total area of 500 square feet per pupil enrolled.”⁴ A school’s lot, which includes its building as well as its playfields and parking lots, would therefore need a studio apartment-sized chunk of land for each enrolled student. A school of 500 students, for example, would need to sit on a 5.7-acre lot at minimum. In effect, this onerous new rule requires schools to be located in the suburbs, where acres of land are more readily available for development.

Moore Square Magnet Middle School, an example of a school that would be illegal under the new ordinance. Photo Credit: DesignShare

Inside the I-440 Beltline which encircles downtown Raleigh and its first-ring neighborhoods, nearly 30% of K-12 schools would be illegal under the new ordinance. This includes older neighborhood schools such as Olds and Partnership Elementary Schools (303 and 276 SF per pupil, respectively) as well as high-performing and non-traditional schools in downtown such as Raleigh Charter High (287 SF), Moore Square Magnet (401 SF) and the Longleaf School of the Arts (155 SF).

Table 1: Schools Inside Raleigh’s I-440 Beltline. Data Source: Author analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics and Wake County iMaps.

This new rule will be particularly challenging for charter schools, private schools, and early childhood learning centers seeking new spaces. Charter schools tend to make use of non-traditional spaces such as vacant office or strip retail buildings that are on small lots before finding a permanent home. Given the lot size requirement, the diminishing amount of developable land inside the beltline, and rising land values that are already some of the highest in the southeastern U.S., charter schools are effectively forced to look outside of the Beltline for cheap land and large lots. This may not be a problem for many charters, but for those which seek to locate close to low-income families in Southeast Raleigh to improve racial disparities in education, there are very few (if any) sizable lots in the neighborhood to spare, much less for a price that a charter school could afford.

A suburban high school that would be the new ordinance requirements. Photo Credit: Victor Rush, “Arial Monroe Locals High School”

Why was this anti-urban provision included in the UDO? Regardless of the reason, it seems likely to drive development even farther into the suburban fringes of Wake County rather than to allow for the flexibility to site schools in ways that are compatible with compact neighborhoods and school choice. For the sake of developing neighborhoods that can accommodate families and allow for a range of school options including public, charter, and private, the Raleigh City Council should change the provision to dramatically decrease, if not outright eliminate, the school lot size requirement.

^[1] Raleigh UDO §1.1.1.1.4.

^{^[2]} In Raleigh UDO §6.3.1.D.1, schools are given the following definition: “A public or private (including charter or religious) school at the primary, elementary, middle, junior high or high school level that provide basic academic instruction.”

^{^[3]} Raleigh UDO §6.3.1.D.2.b.

^{^[4]} Additional requirements for schools include: schools must not be located in the airport or watershed overlays, nearby roads must not fall below “D” level of service given increased traffic, and the school site must A1 or A2 protective yard for res uses or C2 for public right of way.

About the author: Tim J. Quinn is a second year master’s student in City and Regional Planning specializing in real estate and economic development. Prior to coming back to graduate school, Tim worked as an elementary teacher for three years in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His experience in the classroom continues to inform his research interests, which include innovative apprenticeship programs, school siting policy, and innovation districts.