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> Planners do important work moulding how our cities grow. Lost me at the first sentence. Let me fix it: “Planners follow the flavour of the day while committ

by voisin 2y ago

> Planners do important work moulding how our cities grow. Lost me at the first sentence. Let me fix it: “Planners follow the flavour of the day while committing the same sins over and over, their failures recognizable only in retrospect once replaced with a new (also faulty) paradigm based on centralized planning. Despite their repeated failures, as an industry or field of study they show no contrition and continue to act as if they and only they know what’s best.”

philips 2y ago
I have personally been involved in a few planning and “traffic engineering” issues where I live. And although this comment is heavy on the sarcasm it is very reflective of my experience. As a whole planning departments seem unable to defend decisions with relevant data and instead rely on indefensibly old manuals and standards. Some of which themselves use indefensible statistics- particularly traffic manuals (lets plan our roads based on a survey of a similar road in Atlanta in 1994!). Or worse municipalities follow each other in circles and trends. This would all be fine if the downstream effects weren’t affecting investment with a floor of tens of millions dollars. I don’t know what the answer is but Parking Reform, Strong Towns and Not Just Bikes are my north stars on this stuff. Do you have any others?
- voisin 2y ago
  I am not actually intending to be sarcastic at all - I think the entire industry is morally bankrupt. I am a real estate developer (re-developer actually - specializing in heritage buildings and other complicated adaptive reuse projects), so I deal with planners, committees, official plans, zoning by-laws and the building code daily. It is painful to see indefensible requirements being thrust on projects - even those projects (like mine) that the municipality seems predisposed to desire (saving old buildings, intensifying the core, etc etc). What’s worse, is to watch governments now rush to “fix” the mistakes that they are solely responsible for by punishing people - retroactively changing the rules - and costing average folk their savings. I refer to Canada specifically which made it so challenging to build housing for 40 years that we have a massive scarcity and housing crisis that is being “fixed” by taxing / fining people for having a second home.
  - BenFranklin100 2y ago
    What is your opinion on the recent SCOTUS decisions declaring that forcing developers to pay for community improvements qualifies as a taking? Do you see this having a material effect on housing development?
    - alistairSH 2y ago
      Do you have a link to a summary? I missed it, if it ever made the front page news. IANAdeveloper… if a developer is otherwise within code/zoning, SCOTUS is probably correct. If they’re asking for zoning changes, there should be room for negotiation on nearby improvements.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        The takings clause was ratified in 1791. Unless the current zoning restrictions predate that, there is an element of cheating to imposing a restriction and then "negotiating" to remove it in exchange for something that would otherwise be a taking.
      - carbocation 2y ago
        News article about it: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/supreme-court-ruling-could-pave-way-for-more-housing-developments-in-california/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/supreme-court-ruli...
        BenFranklin100 2y ago
        This is the ruling, thanks.
      - voisin 2y ago
        > If they’re asking for zoning changes, there should be room for negotiation on nearby improvements. The problem is that in many areas (of Canada at least), zoning bylaws are horribly outdated and inconsistent with municipal priorities. But municipalities don’t have an incentive to change them because if they allow things to be done “as of right” with modern zoning, they can’t shake down developers to fund their pet projects. So everything is a negotiation, which again adds uncertainty and cost. Governments need to get out of the way and let developers build, or accept that they are the source of the housing scarcity.
- tmnvix 2y ago
  > I don’t know what the answer is but Parking Reform, Strong Towns and Not Just Bikes are my north stars on this stuff. Do you have any others? I think you might like this planning talk given in the 90s. One of my favourite videos on youtube and quite hilarious at times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMvwHDFVpCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMvwHDFVpCE
- screye 2y ago
  Any profession whose communities disagree on the very building blocks of their discipline is not a science, but an art. Urban planning, architecture and economics toe that line. Over the last century, economics has build some of the necessary concensus to move closer to a science and architecture has moved closer to art + compliance, leaving the rest to civil engineers. But global urban planning communities remain at each other's throats, and if anything, have diverged even further. Traffic engineering is a joke because Uber and Google Maps run better traffic simulations than any planning committee in the country. The science has been available to those who want to find it. It's avoidance by planning groups (not blaming the engineers so much as the overall organization) evokes the incompetence/malice comparison from Hanlons razor. The Urban planning outcomes of the anglophone vs the rest of the 1st world might as well be spitting in each other's faces. Given similar policy goals, cultural values and weather....one of them is wrong. And I know I have placed my bets.
Angostura 2y ago
What's your preferred solution? Laissez-faire development?
- davidw 2y ago
  I think some of the discussion in this book - written by a former planner - is pretty sensible around what we should be doing: https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines#desc https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines#desc By getting planners out of some of the unnecessary minutiae of their jobs, they can, well, actually plan for things. Ensure that we have good street grids, land set aside for parks and schools that are harder to retrofit into a pure 'anything goes' system, and also try to do some planning to keep genuinely noxious uses away from where people live, rather than "keeping apartments away from the 'nice' neighborhoods".
- renewiltord 2y ago
  Whatever Tokyo is doing is nice. I liked it. Mixed use is fantastic.
- voisin 2y ago
  Yes. I think the canonical fear that there would be nuclear power plants next to daycares is nonsense and that private developers acting in their own interests would manage to identify market demand, experiment in fulfilling that demand, and the result would be the creation from the ground up of best practices for creating vibrant communities - until market preferences shift. And when those preferences shift I think private developers would be far quicker to adapt than central planners. I find it wild how much the west abhors eastern communist central planning and then adopts it for the very fabric of its communities.
alistairSH 2y ago
In my experience, local planners usually try to do what’s right/best/useful. And then end up hamstrung by state law or state DOT. I’m in Fairfax County, VA FWIW. I’ve seen them be quite proactive with plans near the Metro extension. But then VDOT does dumb shit like failing to build out multi-modal transit to meet the vision of the local planners.
k99x55 2y ago
The Lively & Liveable Neighbourhoods that are Illegal in Most of North America : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKIVX968PQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKIVX968PQ The Suburbs Are Bleeding America Dry | Climate Town (feat. Not Just Bikes) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc

by voisin 2y ago

philips 2y ago

I have personally been involved in a few planning and “traffic engineering” issues where I live. And although this comment is heavy on the sarcasm it is very reflective of my experience. As a whole planning departments seem unable to defend decisions with relevant data and instead rely on indefensibly old manuals and standards. Some of which themselves use indefensible statistics- particularly traffic manuals (lets plan our roads based on a survey of a similar road in Atlanta in 1994!). Or worse municipalities follow each other in circles and trends. This would all be fine if the downstream effects weren’t affecting investment with a floor of tens of millions dollars. I don’t know what the answer is but Parking Reform, Strong Towns and Not Just Bikes are my north stars on this stuff. Do you have any others?

voisin 2y ago
I am not actually intending to be sarcastic at all - I think the entire industry is morally bankrupt. I am a real estate developer (re-developer actually - specializing in heritage buildings and other complicated adaptive reuse projects), so I deal with planners, committees, official plans, zoning by-laws and the building code daily. It is painful to see indefensible requirements being thrust on projects - even those projects (like mine) that the municipality seems predisposed to desire (saving old buildings, intensifying the core, etc etc). What’s worse, is to watch governments now rush to “fix” the mistakes that they are solely responsible for by punishing people - retroactively changing the rules - and costing average folk their savings. I refer to Canada specifically which made it so challenging to build housing for 40 years that we have a massive scarcity and housing crisis that is being “fixed” by taxing / fining people for having a second home.
- BenFranklin100 2y ago
  What is your opinion on the recent SCOTUS decisions declaring that forcing developers to pay for community improvements qualifies as a taking? Do you see this having a material effect on housing development?
  - alistairSH 2y ago
    Do you have a link to a summary? I missed it, if it ever made the front page news. IANAdeveloper… if a developer is otherwise within code/zoning, SCOTUS is probably correct. If they’re asking for zoning changes, there should be room for negotiation on nearby improvements.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      The takings clause was ratified in 1791. Unless the current zoning restrictions predate that, there is an element of cheating to imposing a restriction and then "negotiating" to remove it in exchange for something that would otherwise be a taking.
    - carbocation 2y ago
      News article about it: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/supreme-court-ruling-could-pave-way-for-more-housing-developments-in-california/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/supreme-court-ruli...
      - BenFranklin100 2y ago
        This is the ruling, thanks.
    - voisin 2y ago
      > If they’re asking for zoning changes, there should be room for negotiation on nearby improvements. The problem is that in many areas (of Canada at least), zoning bylaws are horribly outdated and inconsistent with municipal priorities. But municipalities don’t have an incentive to change them because if they allow things to be done “as of right” with modern zoning, they can’t shake down developers to fund their pet projects. So everything is a negotiation, which again adds uncertainty and cost. Governments need to get out of the way and let developers build, or accept that they are the source of the housing scarcity.
tmnvix 2y ago
> I don’t know what the answer is but Parking Reform, Strong Towns and Not Just Bikes are my north stars on this stuff. Do you have any others? I think you might like this planning talk given in the 90s. One of my favourite videos on youtube and quite hilarious at times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMvwHDFVpCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMvwHDFVpCE
screye 2y ago
Any profession whose communities disagree on the very building blocks of their discipline is not a science, but an art. Urban planning, architecture and economics toe that line. Over the last century, economics has build some of the necessary concensus to move closer to a science and architecture has moved closer to art + compliance, leaving the rest to civil engineers. But global urban planning communities remain at each other's throats, and if anything, have diverged even further. Traffic engineering is a joke because Uber and Google Maps run better traffic simulations than any planning committee in the country. The science has been available to those who want to find it. It's avoidance by planning groups (not blaming the engineers so much as the overall organization) evokes the incompetence/malice comparison from Hanlons razor. The Urban planning outcomes of the anglophone vs the rest of the 1st world might as well be spitting in each other's faces. Given similar policy goals, cultural values and weather....one of them is wrong. And I know I have placed my bets.

Angostura 2y ago

What's your preferred solution? Laissez-faire development?

davidw 2y ago
I think some of the discussion in this book - written by a former planner - is pretty sensible around what we should be doing: https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines#desc https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines#desc By getting planners out of some of the unnecessary minutiae of their jobs, they can, well, actually plan for things. Ensure that we have good street grids, land set aside for parks and schools that are harder to retrofit into a pure 'anything goes' system, and also try to do some planning to keep genuinely noxious uses away from where people live, rather than "keeping apartments away from the 'nice' neighborhoods".
renewiltord 2y ago
Whatever Tokyo is doing is nice. I liked it. Mixed use is fantastic.
voisin 2y ago
Yes. I think the canonical fear that there would be nuclear power plants next to daycares is nonsense and that private developers acting in their own interests would manage to identify market demand, experiment in fulfilling that demand, and the result would be the creation from the ground up of best practices for creating vibrant communities - until market preferences shift. And when those preferences shift I think private developers would be far quicker to adapt than central planners. I find it wild how much the west abhors eastern communist central planning and then adopts it for the very fabric of its communities.

alistairSH 2y ago

In my experience, local planners usually try to do what’s right/best/useful. And then end up hamstrung by state law or state DOT. I’m in Fairfax County, VA FWIW. I’ve seen them be quite proactive with plans near the Metro extension. But then VDOT does dumb shit like failing to build out multi-modal transit to meet the vision of the local planners.

k99x55 2y ago

The Lively & Liveable Neighbourhoods that are Illegal in Most of North America : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKIVX968PQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKIVX968PQ The Suburbs Are Bleeding America Dry | Climate Town (feat. Not Just Bikes) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc