This weeks Journal Entries
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Advocacy planning
After the readings from the past two weeks, I think I still have trouble distinguishing participatory planning(design) and advocacy planning. If I were asked to tell the difference, I would say that in participatory design, the “story” or the “process” seems more important (featured?) than the outcome, whereas in advocacy planning, a more traditional planning process,…
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Advocacy Planning – Planning and Institutional Top-Down Engagement
The humanists turn in geography and planning during the 1960’s and 1970’s led the planning investigation to focus directly in the life-world in order to learn and understand the way people are living their life. It was not an abstract call for collaboration between parts of society, as it was before, but a pragmatic approach…
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Advocacy in Planning- New Paradigms?
The readings were supposed to be talking about advocacy. As I understand the term it implies a situation where an entity with more power steps in to aid and/or speak for one that has less power in a given context (following a request to do so, or otherwise because they feel compelled to); or to…
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Advocacy Planning
Davidoff’s piece is well-intentioned, and written in a context in which the notion of plural planning is a positive departure from the planning establishment of the time. That said, there are limitations to what Davidoff proposes. To bring the conversation back to the Stein and Harper reading from last week, this is an instance in…
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Appropriate planning action
“Appropriate planning action cannot be prescribed from a position of value neutrality, for prescriptions are based on desired objectives” – Paul Davidoff Paul Davidoff is calling for the planners to be advocates of their own values rather than maintaining himself as the neutral figure. The ability to advocate and work towards an effective planning policy…
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Advocacy Planning
Paul Davidoff acknowledges the a need for humility and openness on the part of planners, but that advocacy can be an opportunity to use expertise and knowledge of the functional aspects of ‘the city.’ He seems to say that a good advocate is able to develop social goals with the client’s best interests in mind,…
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Can Planners Be Community Advocates?
“Postmodernism…takes matters too far… nothing remains of any basis for reasoned action… Worst of all, while it opens up a radical prospect of acknowledging the authenticity of other voices, postmodernist thinking immediately shuts off other voices from access to more universal sources of power by ghettoizing them from within an opaque otherness…” – David Harvey…
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Advocacy
Paul Davidoff offered an alternative to the traditional unitary plan model by proposing a pluralistic model. Planners would advocate on behalf of different interest groups and serve as the translator or intermediary (note the assumption that the planner doesn’t impose any of their own values) between the client and the city planners. This proposal recognizes…
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The relationship between communities and advocates
I found it important that many of the readings for the week not only touched on the planner’s role as an advocate, but also talked about the role that individuals and communities play alongside advocates to work towards achieving a goal. The New Global Frontier article referred to strategies that OUPs enacted that went far…
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Week 4
Week 4 Journal Entry 1: A Woman’s Role One fact I found interesting when reading”Mobilizing for Water and Sanitation in Mozambique” is the fact that within their society, the woman are the individuals that are responsible for organizing and planning the neighborhoods. They are the ones who discuss how the areas should be designed and…
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Doing Development Differently
It was heartening to read Gabriela’s words about the ‘new models’ of development being devised by OUPs (organizations of the urban poor) that help “bring to light alternative strategies of development that work – showing that top–down and bottom–up models are both obsolete. These groups are showing that development initiatives have to flow in both…
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Advocacy for or against?
As a lawyer and a planner, Davidoff promotes the idea of planners as advocates working on behalf of their client to advance a particular cause or goal. He argues for the importance of ‘plural plans’ that reflect diverse interests. This is in direct contrast to the traditional planning process in which professionals create a unitary…