Urban design needs reworking in US
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Washington — Justin Garrett Moore and his partner were walking across a privately controlled public plaza in New York when they were suddenly confronted by security guards asking about their presence.
The night-time confrontation near Penn Station was quickly resolved, but Moore, a Black man in his forties, was outraged. Still, he focused his frustration on his own profession: urban planning and design.
While good design can bolster community bonds, poor planning can have a negative effect on city dwellers, said Moore, who is the executive director of the New York City Public Design Commission.
“This can make places that are not necessarily comfortable for everyone, or can encourage oversurveillance or overpolicing,” he said.
As the US grapples with issues of race, inequality and policing since George Floyd’s death in May, Moore and others say the conversation needs to include a focus on the role of urban planners and designers.
“It's really important for people to understand how much the built environment, public space, housing, land use, development patterns are directly connected to our systems of policing — how we regulate space and people,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Julian Agyeman, a Tufts University planning professor, published an article in July referring to the history of urban planning being used as a “tool of white supremacy”.
He pointed to historical segregation in Minneapolis, where Floyd died in police custody.
Healing cities
Many planners are now focusing on the flip side, too: urban design's potential to heal communities.
Kurt Christiansen, president of the American Planning Association, said the effects of Floyd's death had to be viewed in the light of historical trauma inflicted on Black communities, including discrimination wrought by planners.
Such discrimination had led to inequality in housing, transportation, education, health and employment, he said.
Design and planning should be receiving more attention in conversations about community rebuilding, Christiansen added.
“If poor design decisions pulled us apart, better planning can use the texture of the city to help heal and unite us,” he said.
Efforts to infuse justice into urban design go back a century, but something feels different this summer, said Bryan Lee Jr, a designer and leader of a decade-old international movement called Design Justice.
Thousands of people have committed in recent weeks to working towards the aims of Design Justice, he said, such as no longer “being complicit with the building of prisons, jails, police stations ...
The night-time confrontation near Penn Station was quickly resolved, but Moore, a Black man in his forties, was outraged. Still, he focused his frustration on his own profession: urban planning and design.
While good design can bolster community bonds, poor planning can have a negative effect on city dwellers, said Moore, who is the executive director of the New York City Public Design Commission.
“This can make places that are not necessarily comfortable for everyone, or can encourage oversurveillance or overpolicing,” he said.
As the US grapples with issues of race, inequality and policing since George Floyd’s death in May, Moore and others say the conversation needs to include a focus on the role of urban planners and designers.
“It's really important for people to understand how much the built environment, public space, housing, land use, development patterns are directly connected to our systems of policing — how we regulate space and people,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Julian Agyeman, a Tufts University planning professor, published an article in July referring to the history of urban planning being used as a “tool of white supremacy”.
He pointed to historical segregation in Minneapolis, where Floyd died in police custody.
Healing cities
Many planners are now focusing on the flip side, too: urban design's potential to heal communities.
Kurt Christiansen, president of the American Planning Association, said the effects of Floyd's death had to be viewed in the light of historical trauma inflicted on Black communities, including discrimination wrought by planners.
Such discrimination had led to inequality in housing, transportation, education, health and employment, he said.
Design and planning should be receiving more attention in conversations about community rebuilding, Christiansen added.
“If poor design decisions pulled us apart, better planning can use the texture of the city to help heal and unite us,” he said.
Efforts to infuse justice into urban design go back a century, but something feels different this summer, said Bryan Lee Jr, a designer and leader of a decade-old international movement called Design Justice.
Thousands of people have committed in recent weeks to working towards the aims of Design Justice, he said, such as no longer “being complicit with the building of prisons, jails, police stations ...
