The suburbs
Between a gentrified inner city and an expanding outer suburban development, there is the inner suburb (where in many cities the low-income households are mostly found). A ton of issues; access to jobs, services (particularly transportation) and an issue of city identity, lacking vibrant commercial activity and natural areas and new-style houses. Do you care or do you not? What is the nature of your planning?
Planning Law
A dosage of legal matters were offered on Tuesday, as we are as professionals to work with the two contentious issues of PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS and PUBLIC INTEREST. The number of issues to be rooted in these two interests are not few, and approaching them has to be done balanced and correctly – LOGICAL: TRACEABLE: REPLICABLE, remember. The virtue of planning is good analysis, but this is often left behind when blinded by the nature of planning (value based and biased).
But also, remembering our history of Walls
On a historical note, as urban planners we are obliged to remember the Berlin wall, as well as witness the erection of current Israeli walls, the American-Mexican walls, the Iraq-Baghdad walls or any other planned walls that aim to separate and discriminate. (This is only my critical thinking surfacing, not directly relevant to my week at the university. But my research does however focus on public space and public place, thus I am immediately attracted to criticizing walls…my bias at play.)
