designing public consensus

Late in 2006, Atlanta’s Mayor Shirley Franklin invited friends and colleagues to a book signing for Designing Public Consensus in Atlanta City Hall.

I’ve learned a lot from Mayor Franklin. During the Olympic years in Atlanta, 1994 to 1996, she took the new Olympic plans for neighborhoods and venues into the community and listened to what the people
living in the redevelopment areas wanted. The projects were built without much angst and the city went on to have a successful Olympics.

Mayor Franklin is a rock star of a mayor, rated among the best of this country’s leaders. She is a role model for women in both the public and private sector, and I was thrilled to listen to her speak on her accomplishments in the public process world. Mayor Franklin’s main theme is to listen to what people are saying. And I’ve taken that advice to heart, as many of you have. It sounds very simple, but we all know it’s not easy.

In the end, it is all about how the public reacts to the issues before them. They can expand, promote, or kill a project.

Many designers need to figure out that this is how to make projects successful. Just listen. You may have to make some changes, but in the end it is a better project.

I had a great time at the book signing. Thank you to all who attended.

Just about any day you can pick up a newspaper and read something about the dynamics of The Public vs. Fill-In-The-Blank. That is how our country works.

Nowhere is it working harder than in New Orleans. The residents of this embattled city face the roughest of decisions—when and where and how to rebuild. This is why the recently published book, Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina (Eugenie L. Birch and Susan M. Wachter, eds., University of Pennsylvania Press), is such a good overview of this hot topic. For the record, I am one of many contributing authors.

The introduction by Dr. Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania, tells us the decisions are up to the community. It is the planners’ task to enlighten and educate the community about the good and bad choices they can make in rebuilding their communities. The issue, of course, is that disasters can happen again. There are many distinguished scientists who tell us the mighty Mississippi River will continue to change course. (See the fascinating illustration in the book of the many course changes the river has taken over the years.) The next time the Mississippi changes course, New Orleans could be gone. For good. Not to mention the next hurricane.

This book is important. It tells the story of how the problem began, what has happened, and where it stands now. It is now in the hands of the community. Do the residents have the best information available and are they making the right decisions? What do you think?

USA Today recently featured a story about cities reinventing themselves, part of a “shrinking cities movement.”    

“Everybody’s talking about smart growth, but nobody is talking about smart decline,” says Terry Schwarz, senior planner at Kent State University’s Urban Design Center of Northeast Ohio. The center runs the Shrinking Cities Institute in Cleveland, a city that has lost more than half its population since 1950. “There’s nothing that says that a city that has fewer people in it has to be a bad place.”

The article highlights Youngstown 2010, the comprehensive planning process that put public involvement front and center, discussed in detail in Chapter 3 of Designing Public Consensus.  Youngstown sets an example as a city that has “fully embraced its shrinkage.” The Youngstown 2010 planning process received the American Planning Association’s 2007 National Planning Excellence Award for Public Outreach.

You can follow Youngstown’s progress at the Youngstown 2010 website.