Abstract
This article provides an overview of the types of educational goals, pedagogical approaches, and substantive topics in planning education related to issues of diversity and social justice. The study is based on a content analysis of one hundred syllabi collected from more than seventy instructors from North American planning schools during 2012–2013. It presents a synthetic summary of the range of educational goals and pedagogical approaches. It describes the curricular content in the form of substantive topics. The article is intended to support efforts to incorporate issues of diversity and social justice in planning education.
Introduction
As society has changed, so too have demands on planning education. One significant change is increased racial and ethnic diversity in the demographic composition of urban and even rural populations. We have also seen greater income and wealth polarization accompanied by intergroup tensions surrounding issues such as policing, immigration, and environmental justice. While one can argue that there may be greater racial and gender equality and social tolerance for difference today compared to previous generations, social divides clearly remain. Meanwhile, in a neoliberal age of government retrenchment, planning as a profession has been subject to greater constraints in addressing these and other problems. The need for planning education in the United States and elsewhere to prepare students to proactively address issues of social justice and work with multiple publics across cultural, religious, gender, age, class, and other dimensions of difference is evermore pressing.
Attention to equity, diversity, democracy, and social justice is not new for planners, although such topics have largely been relegated to the margins for most of planning’s scholarly history (Sandercock 1998; Thomas and Ritzdorf 1997). Individual educators have long been advancing this area of scholarship and teaching, but only recently have institutional inroads been made. One significant advance is the incorporation of issues of diversity and social justice into accreditation standards for North American planning schools as overseen by the US-based Planning Accreditation Board (PAB). Revisions that became effective in April 2014 state that programs “shall appropriately incorporate issues of diversity and social justice into all required courses of the curriculum” 1 (Planning Accreditation Board 2013, 15). The next challenge for planning educators is to gain a deeper understanding of the discourse and debates surrounding diversity and social justice and the integration of their contents into the broad range of planning courses offered. By examining efforts among planning educators who have already been doing this, we can see how current efforts can build upon the past.
This article synthesizes the existing educational goals, pedagogical approaches, and substantive topics related to issues of diversity and social justice in recent planning school curricula. The first two coauthors oversaw the collection of one hundred syllabi from North American planning schools that was compiled into a compendium of syllabi as a service project done under the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) Committee on Diversity in 2012–2013. The document was titled “Syllabus Book: A Compilation of Planning Syllabi Addressing Issues of Diversity and Social Justice.” But there were clear limitations to a 1,200-page compilation of syllabi distributed through a few relatively small academic networks. How could planning educators identify the relevant issues and pedagogical tools from a dauntingly long document? We decided to conduct a content analysis of the syllabi in order to distill the current topics and techniques among educators. The intent of the article is not to offer a critique of the current pedagogical approaches and topics related to diversity and social justice nor is it to analyze the differences in approaches between different types of institutions. Rather, the main intent is to glean from the syllabi the range of pedagogical activities and substantive topics as a starting point for further curriculum development. We are generalists in the study of diversity and social justice in planning and it is our hope that this article will generate further discussion among specialists within various subfields of planning in order to further advance planning education.
We begin this article with a historical background of efforts to raise equity and social justice concerns within planning education. We then describe the methodology used to collect and analyze the compendium of syllabi. The substantive findings are organized in two sections: (a) educational goals and pedagogy and (b) curricular contents. We provide a synthetic summary of the range of educational goals and pedagogical approaches used. The curricular content is summarized in the form of three substantive areas: (a) planning history and theory, (b) planning specializations, and (c) planning tools and strategies. We conclude with some thoughts about the application of this material and areas in need of further curricular development.
Historical Background
It is beyond the scope of this article to provide a thorough synthesis on the evolution of academic thought about diversity and social justice in planning literature. Instead, we limit our discussion to the evolution of diversity and social justice in planning pedagogy and to defining relevant terms and concepts. Both terms suffer from conceptual fuzziness. “Diversity” is a contentious term and is generally associated with the politics of recognition around issues of race and ethnicity (Sweet and Etienne 2011). It often excludes other dimensions of difference such as age, gender, class, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, culture, religion, family background, and cognitive style (Forsyth 1995; Sandercock 2000; Doan 2015). “Social justice,” on the other hand, is traditionally related with the distribution of public and private resources as well as externalities to the urban poor and working class (Agyeman and Erickson 2012). Critics have argued that defining social justice as socioeconomic redistribution may not remedy the injustice of cultural nonrecognition. Since ills of our cities stem from both socioeconomic inequities and cultural nonrecognition and domination of ethnic minorities, there is a need to address both aspects of justice (Goonewardena, Rankin, and Weinstock 2004). For the purposes of this article, we use the terms “diversity” and “social justice” to encompass the broadest definitions possible, including those that integrate various dimensions and intersectionalities of difference (e.g., race, gender, class, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, physical disability, culture, religion, age), as well as more comprehensive definitions of justice that includes issues of cultural recognition in addition to socioeconomic redistribution (Agyeman and Erickson 2012; Sandercock 2000). We do so while acknowledging that certain identity markers, such as race, ethnicity, and gender have historically held a high degree of salience in the formation of the state and the persistent patterns of inequality in the United States.
Planning education and practice in the United States have only relatively recently come to embrace concepts and topics related to diversity and social justice. Until the mid-1960s, “monocultural” or “monistic” planning was the bulwark of planning education, reflecting the notion of a unitary nation and national culture in which minority groups were expected to assimilate to the norms, belief systems, language, and identity of the majority (Tiryakian 2003; Kymlicka 2003). The dominant monocultural planning paradigm consisted of adhering to a value-free singular public interest that planners believed that they could promote as technicians through rational or comprehensive planning rooted in positivist epistemology. Planning education was dominated by physical planning, although the role of the social sciences began to increase from the 1950s (Hemmens 1988). Nonetheless, there was little reference to race, gender, or social justice until the mid-1960s in planning education (Thomas 1996). Normative assumptions about cultural and ethnic assimilation underlay public policy and urban planning in the United States. Planners had not been oriented to take issues of diversity and social justice into meaningful consideration in their endeavors despite their embeddedness in structures of inequality (Gunder 2005).
Concerns regarding race, justice, advocacy, and equality gained greater currency in planning education and professional practice on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and 1970s when seminal works on progressive planning began to appear (Friedmann 1973; Grabow and Heskin 1973). Scholars offered illuminating critiques of the many shortcomings and detrimental effects of planning, especially in regards to communities of color (Gans 1967; Thomas and Ritzdorf 1997). Social movements were challenging the primacy of class as the fulcrum of social formation and the primary measure of equity and democratic governance (Young 2000). Planning scholarship began to articulate the concepts of pluralism (Davidoff 1965; Qadeer 1997), multiculturalism (Allen and Cars 2001; Amin 2002; Chan 2007), cosmopolitanism (Sandercock 1998, 2003), and the negotiation of difference (Agyeman and Erickson 2012; Sandercock 2000; Umemoto and Igarashi 2009) as they related to planning theory and practice.
The rise of feminist scholarship also contributed to planning discourse as scholars and practitioners advocated for an increased role for women in planning (Moser 1989; Rahder 1999), highlighted the importance of gender in planning and place-making (Dyck 2005; Fainstein and Servon 2005), and promoted strategies for research and teaching on these issues in planning education (Sweet 2006). Internationalists also challenged the dominance of monocultural planning (Banerjee 1985; Qadeer 1986). Sanyal (1990) and others argued for a “one world” approach to planning education, including bringing American and international students together as equal partners in a mutual learning process to tackle shared issues (Amirahmadi 1993; Lim 1993; Afshar 2001). Over time, scholars began expanding planning thought beyond monocultural planning, paving the way for current debates on diversity and social justice in planning education.
However, it is only in the past twenty years that North American planning educators have come to widely acknowledge the need to integrate issues of diversity and social justice into the curriculum (Rodriguez 1993; Thomas 1996; Burayidi 2000, 2003; Wolfe 2003; Sandercock 2003; Milroy 2004; Rahder and Milgrom 2004; Sen 2000, 2005; Sweet and Etienne 2011). Friedmann and Kuester (1994) argued that such issues should no longer be tacked on as after-thoughts to the curriculum nor should they only be offered solely in separate courses on “planning and women” or “race and planning.” Thomas (1996) criticized planning education for “disjointed pluralism” citing the separation between advocacy and equity planning, feminism, and international movements.
Since then, many scholars have added their perspectives to the debate. Some offered individual accounts of innovative approaches to teaching issues of diversity, such as collaborative models of learning (Forsyth, Lu, and McGirr 1999). Some suggested service learning to expose students to working in and with low-income and racially diverse communities (Harwood and Zapata 2014). These and other pedagogical strategies were suggested to help students become aware of their own positionality and privilege (Forsyth, Lu, and McGirr 2000), understand the meanings of race in society (Harwood and Zapata 2014), and gain cultural competency to appropriately interact with people with backgrounds different from themselves (Agyeman and Erickson 2012; Dearborn and Harwood 2011; Dewar and Isaac 1998; Ritzdorf 1993; Sletto 2010).
One argument that remains relevant today is that issues of diversity and social justice must be integrated into all parts of the planning curriculum and not reserved for separate courses that often remain on the margins of the core curriculum. There is, however, no evidence that planning schools are following such a path. Furthermore, there is little literature on how to achieve this except for Thomas’s (1996) seminal article. Most of the literature consists of individual accounts of innovative approaches to teaching various dimensions of diversity and social justice. Although our analysis does not directly examine how diversity and social justice can be integrated in the curriculum, it can provide some direction through a synthetic summary of the topical issues in recent syllabi to the various planning specializations. Our analysis also reveals that the separation between advocacy and equity planning, feminism, and international movements has been narrowed.
Research Methodology
We took a grounded theory approach to the analysis of syllabi to inductively examine the ways that issues of diversity and social justice are presented in recent planning curricula. Content analysis was used to examine the educational goals, pedagogical approaches, and substantive topics contained in one hundred course syllabi submitted by more than seventy instructors that were collected as part of an effort on behalf of the Special Committee on Diversity of ACSP during 2012–2013. Syllabi were collected for the initial purpose of simply sharing curricula among planning educators. A call for syllabi was made for courses that in any way addressed issues of diversity and social justice through the nonofficial “PLANET” list server of the ACSP as well as the list servers of ACSP’s Planners of Color Interest Group (POCIG) and Global Planning Educator’s Interest Group (GPEIG). Solicitation emails were sent in 2012 and again in 2013. Most syllabi collected were for courses offered in 2012 and 2013, though some submissions were for courses offered as early as 2010. These list servers are largely populated and used by faculty in planning programs accredited by the PAB, though institutional accreditation was not a requirement for the purposes of the article; all syllabi submitted were included in the compendium and in this study.
Two of the coauthors coded the contents of the one hundred syllabi according to types of educational goals, pedagogical tools and approaches, and substantive topics. Course assignments were inconsistently included so this was not examined as a separate category. A third coauthor reviewed a random sample of the syllabi for consistency in coding. 2 This led to the recoding of some of the syllabi and discussions about the interpretation of codes among the coders to increase intercoder reliability. There was no predetermined list of codes. We then clustered the coded items and identified patterns and themes. Since we were simply identifying the range of ideas rather than the most common ideas, we did not record the frequency with which topics or ideas occurred, though certainly some topics or ideas were more commonly included than others. To identify the range of educational goals and pedagogical tools and approaches, we took the various learning objectives and pedagogical approaches and techniques by cluster and gave each a descriptive label. We similarly coded and clustered teaching techniques—such as fieldwork, service learning, site visits, and journals—that went beyond the traditional exams and term papers. We synthesized each of these two sets of clusters and created for each set a single list that included, respectively, discrete but interrelated goals and techniques.
For the substantive topics in the curricula, we conducted two rounds of coding and clustering. The first round focused on planning topics. We coded each article by the topic area(s) that could be gleaned from the referenced titles when the intended topic was not listed. Some readings were listed under multiple topics. Twelve topics emerged, which largely corresponded to the different subfields of planning covered by many accredited planning programs: community planning; diversity and social justice–related theory; demography, poverty, immigration; disaster planning and mitigation; environmental planning and sustainability; economic development; food systems; history and theory; housing policy; research methods and evaluation; transportation; and urban design and land use. Across these topic areas, we conducted a second round of clustering by type of knowledge, and the following categories emerged: theory and concepts; contextual knowledge; specific planning issues (such as housing segregation or workplace discrimination); planning strategies for social justice; and issues related to research methods and ethics. We used this second set of themes to create a “curriculum map,” an outline of substantive topic areas addressed in curricula concerning issues of diversity and social justice. This map was used as the main organizing framework for the narrative and embedded the first set of themes within it. We used the topics that emerged in the course of clustering to further structure the narrative under each of the main categories of knowledge. We present the findings in a way that would be useful for educators looking for ways to integrate issues of diversity and social justice into their courses.
This was a fundamentally interpretive inquiry shaped in large part by our understanding of these subjects in the absence of additional data about the educational philosophy and pedagogy of the instructors themselves. We had to surmise the general content of the course from the descriptions offered on the syllabi and the titles of the readings. A more detailed analysis of the readings was not feasible and is beyond the scope of this article. Thus, a major limitation of the study is that we did not have the benefit of interviews or other qualitative data that would clarify the intent of the instructor in assigning those readings nor were all article or book titles descriptive enough to categorize. We also acknowledge that the topics covered in the compendium of syllabi are not exhaustive and there may be others that planning educators are including in their teaching. Lastly, we also recognize that an analysis of syllabi tells us nothing about student outcomes and what was actually conveyed and received in the course of instruction, which is an important area of inquiry for the future.
Educational Goals and Pedagogy
A range of educational goals emerged from the syllabi. The preeminent educational goal related to diversity and social justice in planning is to introduce students to applicable theories and concepts as well as historical cases and contemporary issues. Courses do this in different ways; some are entirely devoted to this subject, while others integrate them as readings or topical modules. There are, however, distinct educational goals as follows:
Developing a positive ethos toward learning about critical concepts and issues related to diversity and justice in planning
Building knowledge and individual capacity for community engagement in issues of social equity and community development, including the ability for critical self-reflection and awareness of one’s own positionality
Developing skills to work in a variety of community settings with individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds, including communities of color
Learning research and professional practice methods and methodological approaches that are equity-oriented, culturally and gender-appropriate, socially responsive, and environmentally sensitive
Collaborating with others in creating a safe, open, and participatory learning and working environment that is respectful of difference
Contributing to positive social change while gaining professional experience in addressing issues of diversity and social justice issues through community engagement
Engaging with and generating multimedia materials that advance our understanding of issues of diversity, equity, and social justice
Of course, many of these educational goals are interrelated, and some are embedded within a course’s broader educational goals. For example, teaching key concepts and methods of community development may include promoting capacity for engagement in social equity and community development.
One of the most characteristic pedagogical approaches was service learning. Service learning can be a powerful vehicle through which to convey both the knowledge and firsthand experience of planning for diversity and social justice. This approach (a) exposes students to lived experiences in low-income and historically marginalized communities, (b) increases awareness of class and racial privilege as well as the conditions and causes of racial disenfranchisement and poverty, (c) facilitates critical thinking about the techniques of power that perpetuate inequality and injustice, and (d) encourages culturally tailored approaches to participatory planning. Immersion in community action initiatives can also nurture appreciation for the ways that grassroots groups and organizations work toward greater empowerment and justice by offering vivid examples of active agency in community change.
Planning education strategies used by faculty range from engaging in hands-on community mobilization and grassroots organizing to more technical planning projects. Many choose to highlight how adopting a particular analytical lens (gender, racial equity, etc.) changes what questions are asked and what data are collected. Classes focusing on or incorporating diversity and social justice include data collection and analysis of demographic data, GIS mapping, economic and spatial analysis, analysis of existing plans from the framework of social equity, and program evaluation. Educators also turn to fieldwork-based projects that rely on popular planning methods such as survey research, charrettes and visioning workshops, photography, windshield and walking surveys, and interviews and focus groups. In many cases, the community is explicitly positioned as a collaborator rather than an object of study.
Some instructors engage students in participatory research and action: forming collaborative partnerships in communities; attending or participating in community meetings; observing or participating in consensus building processes; skill-sharing through activities such as creating a community garden; helping to organize a planning event; and carrying out modest action projects such as social media calls for action. Such classes can foster an open and participatory learning environment that help address issues that often arise at the interpersonal level and find ways to negotiate social tensions and communication difficulties that can come with working across cultural and other differences.
Courses also feature group activities intended to create a more cooperative and self-reflexive classroom atmo-sphere, including Freire-style co-teaching and co-learning approaches, student-facilitated class discussions, interactive in-class activities, group projects, team-based learning, peer assessments, personal evaluations of class performance and progress, and self-guided tutorials. For students new to or less familiar with conversations about topics such as racism and injustice, which can seem quite personal, written journals provide a less intimidating space through which to engage in conversation.
Required “readings” include alternative or online resources such as social media, podcasts, e-journals, and online class sessions. Films and video are also helpful pedagogical tools for courses that underscore the epistemological diversity inherent in planning practice. Educators develop assignments designed to facilitate and encourage nontraditional learning styles through the use of art, skits, and role-playing; collaborative documentary filmmaking; the crafting of personal narratives drawing on students’ experiences with social justice and community organizing; and autoethnography informed by theoretical frameworks as well as students’ positionalities.
Action-oriented assignments also include writing letters to Congress; preparing plans and policy documents for agencies and community organizations; designing an action project; developing profiles of community development and planning practitioners; writing op-eds; making documentaries; and contributing to a publicly accessible wiki or database. Many of these projects focus on creating a final product for use by the public or sharing research findings in a public format, emphasizing the need for planning knowledge to be accessible to nonexpert audiences and diverse groups.
Curricular Content
In this section, we present major ideas and concepts contained in the syllabi related to issues of diversity and social justice. Table 1 outlines the organization of this content under three main headings: planning history and theory, planning specializations, and planning tools and strategies. Some of the specializations mentioned earlier are combined because of the overlap in ideas and the limited number of syllabi in some planning subfields.
Outline of Topics Related to Diversity and Social Justice in Planning Education.
Planning History and Theory
Historical and Contemporary Processes
The study of historical and contemporary processes helps to explain how social, political, economic, and cultural changes at the global and national scales affect racial, ethnic, gender, economic, and other groups in disparate ways. Attention is paid to the cumulative impacts of colonialism, globalization, financial speculation, neoliberal market-oriented governance, and the dismantling of the social welfare system that negatively affect historically marginalized groups. Planning processes are examined in historical context, shedding light on the attitudes, beliefs, laws and practices promoting inequality, such as residential segregation, exclusionary zoning, red-lining, racial covenants and ordinances, uneven environmental risk, and the historical lack of inclusion of marginalized groups in planning processes. Course content also includes cases of agency and activism of communities combating inequality or exclusion through broad-based social movements that reshape institutions and social relations. Theoretical approaches range from political economy perspectives to discursive analyses of planning in both the subjugation and empowerment of diverse groups.
Normative Political Theory
There are normative theories that problematize diversity and issues of social justice in very different ways. The historically dominant Anglo-Saxon Protestant assimilationist view has given way to greater acceptance of a pluralist ideal where people of different racial, ethnic, gender, religious, and cultural identities should coexist equitably and harmoniously without necessarily conforming to “mainstream” cultural norms. Normative theories include multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, interculturalism, and indigenous sovereignty, with various models projecting a unique vision of a just society. Theorists have argued for the “right to the city” and the “just city” with an increasing recognition of the diasporic, hybridized, and evolving nature of race, ethnicity, and culture. Normative theories are applied to current planning controversies to define problems and solutions. Similarly, readings on utopian visions of the city and images of the city serve as entry points into discussions of the good life, social justice, and diversity in the theoretical and pragmatic realms.
Planning Traditions
Planning theory courses integrate issues of diversity and social justice into the study of various planning traditions, such as rational planning, advocacy and equity planning, communicative and deliberative planning, collaborative planning, radical planning, transformative planning, and indigenous planning. Courses highlight how each has tended to treat the notion of diversity and social justice. Examples of case studies include collaborative planning to address racial and class inequities in disaster recovery and radical planning’s critiques of technocratic planning in the destruction of African American neighborhoods through urban renewal. Transformative planning looks more deeply into human and social growth through community engagement while indigenous planning has distinct roots in movements for self-determination, as in the case of Native Americans. Students are encouraged to connect the various planning traditions with cases of community and social change among historically marginalized groups.
Spatial and Distributive Justice
Conceptions of distributive justice and spatial justice provide frameworks for understanding the impacts of planning on multiple publics as well as rationales for planning. Courses address questions such as, How can questions of social justice and equity be foregrounded? What means of analyses are helpful in understanding claims? How can students prepare themselves to deliberate politically contested decisions with an eye toward justice? Spatial and distributive justice claims are made in planning controversies of all types. The idea of spatial justice is useful in exploring the manifold ways that planning, especially in land use, may produce, exacerbate, or address inequality (e.g., access to jobs and housing, transportation mobility, the location of green space or hazardous facilities). The idea of distributive justice is useful in understanding equitable allocation of goods and services, amenities, capital, and opportunity. Course readings also highlight ways that communities pursue justice and create and maintain their own place-making capacities, such as in the face gentrification or in the midst of environmental change.
Dimensions of Difference
Issues of diversity and social justice in planning can be studied along different dimensions of difference, including race, class, gender, sexual orientation, culture, citizenship, religion, national origin, age, language, and geography. No course examined all dimensions, but many explicitly acknowledge the importance of considering their centrality, salience, and meanings as well as understanding how power and inequality operate to influence the status and position of individuals and groups in society. In the syllabi, students were urged to understand how planning and development seldom have neutral impacts and to examine the impacts of plans at the intersections of these categories. By foregrounding such impacts, educators can unsettle assumptions of a unitary “public good” and the equality of access and opportunities. Race and gender along with class were recognized as having particular salience in the history of US social formation relative to other important cross-cutting markers of identity or association. Course readings often addressed the hybridized and evolving nature of many of these categories.
Dimensions of Social Justice
How to define and measure social justice is an ongoing debate reflected in the course readings. Planning educators seek to define key concepts, such as equity, equality, fairness, justice, recognition, democracy, participation, rights, inclusion, and equal opportunity. Underlying conceptions of justice are drawn from variety of political philosophers, such as John Rawls, Martha Nussbaum, and Amartya Sen, as well as feminist and radical social theorists. How issues are framed and from whose positionality they are seen influences planning deliberations and decisions. One key planning debate is whether social justice should be measured according to the fairness of the outcomes of a planning process or according to the fairness of the process itself. Courses provide subject familiarity and a vocabulary to articulate and analyze social justice issues in order to better facilitate constructive discussion and debate involving conflicting claims (e.g., inclusionary zoning can be understood as an infringement of individual property rights or as fair access to affordable housing).
Recognition and Inclusion
The ideas of political, social, and cultural recognition and inclusion were used to provide a framework for planning a diverse and socially just society. In examining the social and political barriers to justice and inclusion, course readings examine whose voices are included, whose epistemic worldviews are recognized as legitimate, and whether planning decisions fairly reflect diverse interests, experiences, and points of view. Topics covered included citizenship and citizenship rights, language rights, voting rights, participatory planning, participatory budgeting, inclusionary planning, cultural empowerment, the politics of recognition, and everyday urbanism. Readings include the experiences of planning practitioners who have undertaken projects aimed at expanding cultural or social inclusion, with recent attention paid to place-making and the role of culture and the arts.
Planning Specializations
Housing
How has planning for housing and development produced differential social and spatial outcomes affecting diverse groups? What have been the shifting approaches to providing affordable and integrated housing and what approaches toward inclusionary housing appear most promising? In the historic context of redlining, racial covenants, and other laws and practices that have supported residential segregation and marginalization, courses examine strategies for the provision of public, affordable, or rental housing along with policies promoting homeownership and changes in funding at the federal and local levels to understanding present-day housing issues. Readings on policies targeted at combating racial segregation and concentrated poverty, such as fair housing and inclusionary zoning, include both their achievements and shortcomings. Persistent homelessness, how homelessness is experienced by different groups (e.g., victims of domestic violence, parents with children, substance abusers), and the contrast of approaches from punitive to restorative are also examined. Case studies of alternative and inclusionary housing include community land trusts, self-help or informal housing, shared equity, cooperatives, and post-disaster reconstruction models. Some courses focus on the impact of immigration on traditional ethnic enclaves as well on outlying “ethnoburbs.” The interactions over time between different groups sharing the same neighborhood (e.g., gay residents moving into historically black neighborhoods) highlight conflict and negotiation over community identity, affordability, and expectations about community life.
Community Development
How have community development efforts hindered and/or advanced issues of diversity and social justice? What frameworks of analysis can be used to deepen community development praxis? Community development courses address the contested definitions of community and the multiple approaches to community development—from technical assistance to empowerment and asset-based self-help strategies. Readings feature the many ways that planners can seek to expand grassroots involvement of perennially marginalized or tokenized groups, including strategies for capacity building and community mobilization. This involves an understanding of neighborhoods as complex social structures as well as formal and informal networks of actors and institutions, such as neighborhood associations, banks, local nonprofits, private developers, and government agencies. Courses consider the history of community development, emergence of community economic development finance tools and institutions as strategies for economic, social and political empowerment in historically marginalized communities and populations. Other development strategies include immigrant and women’s entrepreneurship, social enterprise, place-making, and cultural tourism.
Economic Development
How has economic development and the laws governing it shaped social stratification and inequality? What economic development strategies can narrow with wealth divide and provide real equality for women, communities of color, and other historically marginalized populations? Approaches to poverty alleviation emphasize the historical, economic, and spatial processes that have led to structural inequality. Students are asked to contextualize cycles of disinvestment and reinvestment and think about who benefits from urban revitalization or job creation policies. Also included are critiques of the major economic theories that undergird community and regional economic development strategies within a globalized economy. Planning educators ask students to familiarize themselves with a range of macro and community-based economic development strategies and tools, institutional and political frameworks, and financial institutions. Some strategies focus on labor rather than capital, such as education, living wage campaigns, and worker protection policies. Many courses include the role and impact of growing immigrant populations, particularly Latino communities, on economic development and the labor market, including the role of immigrant entrepreneurs, day laborers, and the informal economy. Readings include perspectives from the Global South, including the imbalances in power, wealth, and quality of life as well as innovative development strategies.
Environment and Sustainability
What does an environmental justice lens add to our understanding of sustainability? How can planning for disaster resilience, food security, public health, sustainable urban design, and other areas achieve social justice goals in addition to desired technical or material outcomes? The long-standing environmental justice movement and scholarly literature help to frame many of these interdisciplinary debates over social justice as it relates to sustainability and the environment. These range from issues of equal access among all to clean and safe environments, fresh and healthy foods, walkable communities, and a variety of environmental amenities. Concepts such as environmental gentrification, in which environmental advances can result in displacement of low-income and minority residents, challenge students to find the nexus between issues of social justice and sustainability. Study of sustainable food systems and other resource systems include critical analyses of the spatial and political dimensions of race, class, gender, and citizenship in order to understand issues of access and control, such as over food at different scales from neighborhood gardens to global trade agreements. The influence of the built environment on community health is also included in planning curricula, including concepts such as junk food oases and healthy food deserts.
Transportation, Land Use, and Urban Design
Courses encourage students to pay attention to patterns of inequality and disparity in the use, allocation, and regulation of land and infrastructure in cities and regions. Courses also challenge students to think about how land use, urban design, and transportation planning and processes can lead to improved conditions for women, communities of color, differently abled, elderly, and other populations who have been underserved or have special needs. Courses cover the concepts such as transit equity, including transportation access across populations (and subsequently jobs), environmental and public health impacts of transportation infrastructure and operations, progressive and regressive forms of infrastructure funding, equity implications of transit-oriented development (TOD), and the value of infrastructure in improving economic and health outcomes for low-income, minority, homeless, and female-headed households and communities. Topics of equity and justice also apply to urban design more generally, such as the impacts of urban design on social, physical, and psychological well-being, access to open space and public amenities, walkability and mobility, engagement in creative placemaking, and access to goods, services, and recreational spaces. Special attention is paid to equity and justice in light of the unique physical needs, lifeways, histories, and social dynamics among and between different populations.
Disaster Management
Courses examine how some communities, especially low-income and racially and otherwise subordinated groups globally, face greater vulnerability to natural disasters by virtue of the quality of lands they have historically occupied. Readings include the politics of land development, segregation, and the uneven geography of disaster risk. Once disasters hit, there are also inequities in government responses to disasters. Case studies of Hurricane Katrina and others are used to illustrate differential responses by income and race and the particularly slow response to the needs of African American communities. In the face of disasters, there are also opportunities and challenges for building resilient communities. Courses cover different approaches, with critical examination of how disaster management efforts have often lead to greater displacement of the urban poor during the process of reconstruction and redevelopment. Case studies examine the possibilities for social change in times of community recovery and rebuilding and encourage students to think about ways to plan and implement equitable and community-appropriate recovery in postdisaster contexts.
Planning Tools and Strategies
Strategies for Change
Courses provide students with a critical understanding of strategies for change as well as planning approaches that can be considered in seeking social justice. By acknowledging the “dark side” of planning and the damage done under colonial and modernist planning paradigms, planning educators set the stage for a more reflexive practice that aims at undoing structural inequities and creating new, more just planning futures. These attempts focus on planning and place-making processes that are more democratic, emancipatory, and transformative. Some examples include citizens’ academies, guerrilla urbanism, and various approaches to political mobilization. Course readings help students understand and assess the effectiveness of various planning methods, models, and strategies to achieve a more just and equitable society. For example, courses examine the concepts of power and social capital and the role that planning can play in helping community development achieve social and institutional change. Courses also examine the tensions inherent in many university–community partnerships and in university efforts to assert itself as an anchor institution for community reinvestment and development. Drawing from diverse strands of political theory and organizing, including the labor and Civil Rights Movement, readings contrast multiple approaches to movement building along with their underlying values. Students are asked to critically analyze the role of planners in agenda-setting and strategy-making, juxtaposing planning with a community and planning for a community. Case studies also highlight organizing and policy activism in immigrant and LGBTQ communities.
Tools and Techniques for Change
There are specific tools and skills that planning education provides that foster more inclusive and empowering planning processes and outcomes. These are centered on communication, collaboration, participation, facilitation and mediation, self-awareness, and reflective praxis. Students study different process designs and practice these various techniques in class and in field settings, such as public workshops and meetings. Some courses train students in cross-cultural communication and nontraditional forms of knowledge production and transmission such as personal narratives. In some cases, instructors use storytelling to build a sense of community in the classroom as well as in projects involving relationship building with community members. Some planning educators include research techniques to measure inequality and unjust outcomes, such as the use of GIS in analyses of spatial disparities across groups or disproportionate impacts across communities; statistical measures of inequality, segregation, and spatial mismatch; culturally appropriate survey methods; and indicators of community well-being. By learning to apply a social justice lens, planning students are trained to think more critically about which planning tools and techniques support more inclusive and equitable planning processes or outcomes and which may work to perpetuate unequal structures of power. Readings also include the importance of attending to emotions in planning facilitation as well as language access in multilingual cities.
Planning Ethics and the Role of the Planner
While ethical questions are woven throughout the various specializations and courses, we highlight some of the key questions here. Growing inequalities, scarcities, nationalist bigotry, and wealth-bound power imbalances have magnified the need for planners to confront related ethical issues that arise in planning processes. Planning education trains students to be reflective practitioners—to make thoughtful and deliberate decisions that acknowledge their own positionality. Courses encourage planners to examine their actions and their implicit or explicitly held principles, ideologies, and beliefs in relation to the various rationales of planning, such as equity and social justice. Why do we plan, for whom do we plan, how should we plan, who benefits, and who gets to decide? Courses highlighted various ethical dilemmas for planners, such as how planners listen to marginalized voices while being mindful of their own positionalities, how they design processes in an effort to mediate and minimize imbalances of power and knowledge, and how they bring disparate parties together to resolve differences that are embedded in different epistemic worldviews. Course topics related to planning ethics focus on the politics of planning and policy and role of the planner as an agent of social change. Some of the case studies examining planners’ political roles are drawn from the Civil Rights and other social movements and the history of advocacy planning.
Research Methods
Some of the ethical issues discussed above apply to the use of different research methods, particularly in the study and practice of planning in diverse communities. Some courses include critiques of positivist approaches to research while turning the gaze of research to the social constructions that perpetuate injustices and inequalities. Methods are tied to theoretical approaches, and some related to issues of diversity and social justice include critical race theory, queer theory, and feminist theory, which favor methodological approaches such as narrative analyses, phenomenology, grounded theory, participant observation, action research, and case study. Quantitative methods include a variety of ways to measure demographic, social, economic change, and well-being across groups. Included are readings that emphasize the use of methods that integrate the perspectives of multiple publics and acknowledge multiple epistemologies, especially indigenous epistemologies that integrate the physical landscape with larger knowledge and value systems. Students are encouraged to think critically about the relationship between the researcher and historically marginalized communities for or with which a researcher is working, especially given long histories of exploitation of many communities of color by researchers. Planning education helps students develop self-awareness and an understanding of how their own race, gender, sexual orientation, class, religion, or any intersections of identity or belonging might affect their research in specific communities and situations. Readings also explore issues of reciprocity and human integrity related to a chosen method or planning practice.
Future Investigation
Our review of syllabi shows that planning education in the United States has made significant progress in teaching issues of diversity and social justice. This is especially clear in terms of the depth and breadth of course offerings, pedagogical and methodological approaches, the application of concepts and theories, as well as increasing variety in the topical areas. There is also an expanding body of literature since the time these syllabi were created that are not captured in this study. Though this article tended to focus on racial and ethnic diversity and social justice, there are other important dimensions of difference that can be included in future course development. Several syllabi did include readings on gender, including gendered experiences and issues of sexuality and a few classes used gender as their primary lens of analysis. However, a full treatment of planning curricula on gender, religion, physical ability, language, age, and income—among other dimensions of difference—remain for future inclusion.
This article focused on topical issues more than pedagogical ones. There is a great deal to learn about how best to teach these issues in ways that lead to a deep understanding of the ways that difference matters to planners. Facilitating classroom discussions on issues that may be sensitive or conjure controversy or strong emotion may be challenging for faculty and students unaccustomed to engaging in such conversations. Much more should be done to help faculty and students overcome the challenges in engaging in constructive and critical dialogues about difference and how they affect planning. For example, while friction and disagreement should not be avoided, planning educators should ensure that students in the minority do not to bear the burden of such discussion. As experience has shown, simply launching into a discussion about racial privilege without also discussing economic inequalities would be counterproductive to students whose lived experiences reflect the disadvantages of class just as much as the advantages of whiteness (POCIG Roundtable 2015). Many instructors are quite skilled and experienced in transforming the classroom into a safe space to engage students in discussions about difference, diversity, and justice, but more lessons in this area are needed.
A major challenge identified by planning educators has been the difficulty in locating research on diversity and social justice in the major planning journals. Oftentimes, planning educators draw from scholarship in geography, urban studies, and American studies in order to find pertinent articles. We hope to see more articles on issues of diversity and social justice generated from within the planning academy in planning journals that meet the challenges facing our changing cities and societies. It is incumbent on planning educators to bring fuller treatment of and sensitivity to issues of diversity and social justice into our classrooms if we are to train professionals who can effectively work in the urban landscapes of the new millennium.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.