Conducting urban land use surveys safely and efficiently

No matter how much information is available online or in your database, you will still need to do in-person surveys to determine land uses, building conditions, occupancy, and architectural details. Here are some tips for doing so safely and efficiently.  

1. If you don't have existing or relatively current land use data, go onto Bing maps (formerly Microsoft Live Maps) to get a bird's eye view of your survey area.
This free service offers a good amount of detail that can help you get started in your survey. Using the bird's eye view at the highest resolution, you can see sharp images that provide useful information about a property (number of stories, general architectural style, accessory structures). The zoom is not high enough to look at building conditions. The aerial photographs appear to be relatively recent (at least since 2005).

2. Surveys should always be done with at least two people

If you think it's dangerous to drive and text message at the same time, imagine doing a land use survey while driving. Don't do it. The driver should focus on driving, the passenger(s) on collecting data. Use a car, van or SUV with large windows. If you are working in an area with active drug, gang, or prostitution activity, avoid driving the same street multiple times, or making visible notes while in the middle of a dangerous area. You are probably going to be watched by people who don't like to be watched themselves.

If you're planning a walk-around survey, you might think you could save money by having one person do it instead of two.  Actually, it might cost more.  There's usually too much data for one person to absorb.  So a surveyor working alone is more likely to work more slowly, make more mistakes, or simply miss important details.  If your budget can't handle two professionals conducting surveys, consider asking for volunteers and use the process as a way to teach ways of reading the urban environment.

3. Let local community organizers and police know if you're going to be doing a land use survey in an area with drug or prostitution traffic
If you're in an area with a high amount of drug or prostitution activity, police might get the wrong impression about why you are in the area. Local community organizers, or other representatives from community-based organizations, can guide you to help you avoid embarrassing or uncomfortable situations. Ask your partners about any places where you need to be especially careful.

4. Do walk-around surveys early in the morning, preferably with someone from a local organization
The safest time to do your surveys is in the mornings, especially around rush hour. This is when more people are around, and there is less likelihood of gang or other dangerous criminal activity. In safer communities, it is better to do your surveys when residents are around so that there is less likelihood of your being mistaken for a burglar or a robber.

5. Wear clothes that make you stand out
You're less likely to be seen as a threat -- either to residents, police or criminals -- if you wear clothing and accessories that clearly show that you're in the neighborhood to do work. Utilities workers and delivery people typically wear uniforms or have vehicles with clear labels. You may want to get a light colored safety vest (such as what road repair people wear) or wear bright clothing to show that you want to be visible. You may also want to wear a name or organizational badge to stand out even more.

6. Trust your feelings
If at any point you feel unsafe, get out of the area and come back another time.

lf you have a professional development tip you'd like to share,

please send your tip to Leo Vazquez at vazquezl@rutgers.edu.

Getting to the point: An exercise

Busy people have little time to read and listen.  You want to get their attention?  Present your best arguments quickly, clearly and concisely.

Here's an exercise that can help.  You will need a large index card, a small index card, and a smaller sheet of paper (such as a 3x3 square).

First, write down everything you want to say on a regular sheet of paper.  Use as many sheets as you'd like.  (If you don't want to write something new, use something already prepared, such as a memo.)

Now write it again, on the larger index card.  Use one side only.  You have less space; think about what's most important.  (No fair writing in a smaller size.)

Now write it again, on the smaller index card.  Use one side only.

On the smallest piece of paper, write down the "key" words or phrases that you most want your audience to remember.

For an added challenge, try to write a headline for what you wrote on the small index card.  A headline is typically is one sentence that presents the key facts of the entire article.  (Check out headlines in your favorite newspaper or news site for inspiration.)

What you prepared on the smaller index card is your "elevator speech."  It may also serve as the executive summary of your memo or report.  On the smallest piece of paper are the key words and concepts that you would want to emphasize in any longer presentation.
   

--Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

Do you have a professional development tip you would like to share?  Have a question that you would like to see answered here?  Please send it to Leo at vazquezl@rutgers.edu

Building sustainable collaborations

Everyone likes the idea of collaboration. Leaders, directors, and funders often call for more of it. Why is it so hard to do and sustain -- and how can you be more successful at it?

First, let's talk about why collaboration is worth the trouble. It is one of the keys to the dominance of Japanese automakers in the American market and the increased safety of air travel.

The biggest challenge is that many organizations and funding programs implicitly promote not collaboration, but competition. Executives who distribute limited resources based on individual success and funders who use traditional means of selecting grant recipients foster environments where people and groups fight against one another. Some competition is good, in that it challenges employees and grantees to be more effective and efficient. But it also leads to behaviors that drain resources and energy: power plays, hoarding of information and resources, and pretenses of collaboration. Bring together a bunch of organizational directors from the same industry, and they'll say they should work together. Check with them a year later; see how many have.

Under these conditions, those who initiate collaborations take on risks and added costs. Everyone else can sit back and get the windfall benefits of these efforts. Or they can focus on what will get them more resources, while the initiators spin their wheels.

If you want to see more collaboration, you have to do more than ask. You have to reward it. Here's how:

If you are an organizational director:
*Institute 360-degree performance evaluations. Employees tend to cooperate more with one another when they know they will evaluate one another.
*Reward efforts at collaboration in individual and group performance evaluations. Do not just reward outcomes; an indifferent worker or group could scuttle a successful effort at teamwork.
*Model collaboration yourself. You want employees to work across divisions and levels? You do it too.
*Ensure that employees understand that teamwork is a core principle of the organization, and highlight it in organizational communications.
*Have confidential conversations with staff to find out if individuals or divisions are engaging in "silo" behavior. Then through carrots, sticks, or some combination of the two, encourage the isolators to change their behaviors.

If you are a funder:
*Give more money to collaborative efforts than individual ones.
*Ask applicants to describe who they will collaborate with and how. Putting someone on an advisory board that does nothing is not collaboration -- it's tokenism.
*If applicants are seeking funds for themselves, ask them why they chose not to collaborate with other, similar groups.

If you are a team leader:
*Design tasks so that different members of the team work together.
*When tensions first arise, encourage teammates to talk about how the team should make decisions.
*Be alert to information hoarding, power grabs and back biting. Deal with it quickly. If you don't, your teammates will assume you're tolerating the behavior.
*Remember that everyone has different reasons for collaborating. Some are inspired by the team mission and feel comfortable in teams. Others may want to protect their interests. Understand your teammates' interests, and further them with teamwork.

People do tend to work together more effectively when they feel there is a crisis that they can't handle themselves. Of course, you want to avoid a crisis. But if it has to be dealt with, it's better to do it together.

--Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

Do you have a professional development tip you would like to share? Have a question that you would like to see answered here? Please send it to Leo at vazquezl@rutgers.edu

A new role for planning in a culturally fractured society

An interesting article in Miller-McCune (by way of Planetizen) on growing segregation in the United States: Re-crafting the United States as Disunited Duchies

What can and should urban planners do about this troubling trend? We’ve tried inclusive zoning and promoting more public spaces as a way to bring people together. Culturally competent urban designers work to make disadvantaged communities more visible by developing streetscapes that reflect the art and voices of their culture.

But we need to go beyond land use solutions. Planners should use their ability to see the relationships among people and the built environment to transform how communities address diversity. What distinguishes planners from other land use professions, such as architects and civil engineers, is our focus on the dynamic network of relationships in places. (In other words: architects design boxes. Engineers design the connections between the boxes. Social workers help people who use the boxes and connections. Planners develop and manage the relationships among all these things.)

A plan can be a first draft of a community. Both plans and drafts are similar in that you learn as you do. You can see connections, opportunities, mistakes and bad assumptions as you plod through. Of course, the more you try to accomplish, the more you struggle.

By engaging leaders and power brokers over time, planners have the opportunity to shape how they think about diversity and integration, and build their confidence to do the right thing. But here’s the thing: It’s not going to happen in one meeting with a bunch of good data and charts. It’s not going to happen in a single public hearing with a bunch of pretty pictures. Transformative leadership requires commitment, patience and persistence, as well as excellent strategic communication skills. The quiet conversations together are more powerful than the soapbox orations.

To do transformative leadership that promotes sustainable solutions involving diversity and inclusion, you need to be culturally competent. Cultural competency is more than “being nice to people who are different than you.” It is a set of analytical and communication skills – a competency – that allows individuals to better understand and adapt to culturally diverse environments. For more on this, read the works of Leonie Sandercock, a professor at the University of British Columbia.
We need to work on these issues now because our society is becoming more fractured. It’s not just that people are moving away from one another and clustering with people who look and think like them. The explosion of different media means that many people are not seeing the same information or hearing common interpretations of the facts. We are in a society with a shrinking mainstream and less common ground.

Why is self-segregation so bad? Shouldn’t American planners and other land use professionals respect the rights of people to live how they want – and with whom – even if we don’t agree with their decisions? I believe that the most critical responsibilities of American planners are to enhance opportunities for all people to fully partake in society, protect individual freedoms that do not restrict opportunities for others, and develop solutions to sustain the world so future generations have equal opportunities and freedoms. When people move away from one another physically, intellectually and emotionally, conflict is easier to start and harder to resolve. History tells us that dominant groups in society will use their powers to restrict opportunities and freedom for others. (Low-income housing built on the opposite side of the highway. Ordinances banning taco trucks. Exclusionary zoning.) Whether we do neighborhood or regional planning, the problems we face – environmental, economic, traffic – are spread wider than the communities in which we work. We need people to work together to promote opportunity, protect freedom and pursue sustainability.

Planners can help. But it means spending less time looking at maps and spreadsheets and more time leading conversations.

Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP