Make good urbanism the path of least resistance.
It's much simpler than you think. Plan for traffic jams, get traffic jams. Plan for human flourishing, get human flourishing.
Why is good urbanism so hard? You guys, it doesn’t have to be!
Every few years, there’s a push to reform America’s tax code. Politicians debate the details, but basic investigation shows everything surrounding personal income tax is absurdly complex. The literal statutes passed by Congress have more words than the entire Harry Potter series. Entire industries have evolved around reporting, requesting, and enforcing taxes. It’s no wonder you’ll hear the occasional plea for flat tax rates. “Just give me the movie version, I can’t read all those tax policy docs.” That means using TurboTax, a program with one “easy button” after another.
In the kitchen, I’ll follow a 5-step recipe for a family meal, but I’m not sticking with one that includes tangential supporting documents to gather and prepare everything from scratch. The more complicated something gets, the more likely we are to give up. Psychologists and neuroscientists will tell you humans are hardwired to follow the path of least resistance.
Aesop’s Fox and The Grapes is a fable that researcher Dr. Nobuhiro Hagura applied to human behavior: “Our brain tricks us into believing the low-hanging fruit really is the ripest.”
Urban planning should (and can!) be intuitive.
It’s fascinating to learn about how people behave as individuals and as groups. We so often make shortsighted decisions, interfering with our own desire for the path of least resistance. Some projects are complex, like designing a pedestrian detection system in an autonomous vehicle. But when it comes to urbanism, we have a tendency to overcomplicate things.
I’ve given dozens of presentations at public forums, and every single time someone (or many someones) will come to the mic to pontificate about a plan detail. Maybe it’s the curb height at one intersection in a 15-intersection study. That’ll take the decision makers down a trail of inquiry and discussion when the rest of the room is trying to grok the big picture. Another person will talk about their preference for bluish lights in a study that’s about a 20-year implementation of protected bicycle lanes.
Details are important for design and construction, but don’t lose sight of the Why in urban planning. One of the industry heroes, Daniel Burnham, is often misunderstood because of this famous quote:
Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency.
The phone game has turned “Make no little plans” into “plan every outcome for every parcel in the community.” Burnham was pushing the industry of sitarounds to go for a walk and dream. Aim high!
Entrepreneurs and small business owners often point to the simplicity of a 1-page business plan as a factor of their success. Urbanists would do well to steal that strategy. Make 1-sentence purpose statements for transportation plans, parking studies, downtown revitalization studies, housing studies, and every other plan. Then when you’re in the inevitable and unenviable position of fielding rabbithole questions at a public hearing, you can come back to the simple purpose statement.
Some samples come to mind:
Our streets will be safe for 8-year old bicyclists.
We will eliminate policies that interfere with affordable housing options.
Cars are welcome on our streets, but they will move slowly.
Our streets are for public access and mobility, not for storing private property.
When you have a crystal clear purpose, the steps to get there become intuitive. Your neck hairs will raise when you hear talk of a road expansion, front-yard business policy, and zoning ordinance update.
Do your part to make good urbanism the path of least resistance.