University-Based Planning: Faculty Advocacy Roles. (2001)

Introduction The most outstanding challenge to the design professions for the twenty-first century is the rebuilding of America's cities. This challenge calls upon those with the competence, credibility, and courage to take the leadership in acquiring resources, training change agents, and engaging the political risks in becoming the new contractors (Gordana, 1996). If we in the design professions accept this challenge, and we have no alternative, then it is necessary to move with dispatch to correct the ills of our cities. If we are to rebuild our nation's cities, then we must accept the responsibility for the efforts that will be mixed with success and failure. We must, however, become the new millennium city contractors (Rabrenonic, 1996; Halpern, 1995). Many problems beset our urban communities (Beauregard, 1993). Racial separation, violence and crime, poverty among people of color, women, and children, environmental degradation, urban design deterioration, homelessness, and apathy for the political process are but few of the major problems that challenge those who live, work, and recreate in urban areas. For more than three decades, these problems have intensified and continue to lower the quality of life for citizens. The fix for these problems is not simple; they are complex and require a range of skills and approaches for solution (Jargowsky, 1997). The demands placed upon those who serve to solve these problems are varied and often uninviting. This paper limits its discussion to three areas of problems that urban design professionals may employ with a variety of skills and approaches toward solutions. The three areas of consideration are community development, environment and land use, and urban design. The purpose of the paper is to explore the three areas of challenge and the roles of urban design professionals in the academic context as advocates or contractors taking the leadership in bringing about purposeful social change to remedy the conditions. Planners have a multi-dimensional function in society. Planners serve as technicians, bureaucrats, experts, and advocates. Since its debut in 1965, advocacy planning has played a significant role in the development of the planning practice and deserves a closer look. It has literally changed the profession and urban America by meeting many of the social, economic, and political challenges with the myriad of complex problems that continue to plague our urban society. Paul Davidoff firmly believed that planners should be advocates for the poor, the underrepresented; even for the political party of their choice. In his treatise entitled Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning, Davidoff underscored his theory with legal and political analogies to effectively demonstrate how the planner could be an effective advocate. He said convincingly, [t]he legal advocate must plead his own and his client's sense of legal property and justice. The planner as advocate would plead for his own and his client's view of good society (Davidoff, 1965; Heskin, 1980). The times in which Davidoff published Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning played a factor in the development of advocacy planning. The year 1965 provided the country with significant social, political, and legal upheaval. Riots in Los Angeles and Detroit were set against a backdrop of America's deepening involvement in Vietnam. The Civil Rights movement was bolstered by the 1965 Voting Rights Act and provided the catalyst for social change that was needed and required in America. The face of urban America was changing also. Blacks were moving to the cities and living in ghetto areas that were often blighted with staggering unemployment, poor educational and healthcare systems with substandard housing and infrastructure (Checkoway, 1994). Meanwhile, whites were fleeing to the suburbs in order to protect their middle class lifestyle. New residential construction in the suburbs was at an all-time high. …