I’m doing the guest lecture “Embedded Planning is the Future” at UC Irvine with the Urban Studies Students Association. The event is free to all on Tuesday, February 11, 2025.
Summary
Jonathan Pacheco Bell’s Embedded Planning approach revolutionizes planning practice by emphasizing street-level planning within the community rather than traditional desk-based methods. Developed by Bell in South Central LA and publicly introduced in 2018, this praxis seeks to rebuild trust and foster meaningful relationships with marginalized communities historically harmed by inequitable planning.
Embedded Planning involves planners working directly from community spaces and places, engaging residents in their everyday environments. This immersive approach helps planners gain a deeper understanding of local needs and aspirations, ensuring that community voices significantly shape planning decisions. By embedding themselves into neighborhoods, planners build strong, authentic relationships, moving beyond one-off, transactional, superficial consultations to create lasting and impactful partnerships.
Despite its support from communities, Embedded Planning has faced resistance from conventional planning practice and management, which has viewed this approach with skepticism. Working from the neighborhood to integrate community directly into planning processes challenges traditional methods and requires navigating complex dynamics between stakeholder expectations and regulatory constraints.
Since its inception, Embedded Planning has gained an international following among emerging planners who are eager to implement more inclusive practices. Bell’s talk will highlight real-world case studies, reflections, and personal experiences, while also showcasing the approach’s challenges and benefits. Attendees will learn how Embedded Planning fosters trust, informs better decision-making, and promotes more equitable community development. This emerging movement represents a crucial shift towards centering planning as an active and continuous process from within the community and represents the future of planning.
I led a driving tour of Florence-Firestone and Watts for Jacob, Terry, and Mike The Poet. Jacob is doing a master’s in urban planning at USC Price. His dad, Terry, is a therapist who’s worked in Watts. Mike linked us up. Everyone learned about the birth of Embedded Planning praxis in Florence-Firestone.
There’s a Mike Norice mural outside the new Starbucks at Century & Alameda. A portion reads: 65, 92, 20.
65 = 1965 Watts Uprising
92 = 1992 LA Uprising
20 = 2020 George Floyd Uprisings
Mural by Mike NoriceMike and Terry at the Watts Towers
Cal Poly Pomona MURP students on a community walk in Florence-Firestone, September 7, 2024. Photo: Richard Belmudez
In Spring 2025, the Florence-Firestone Community Organization (FFCO) — where I proudly serve as Co-President — is partnering with Scripps and Pitzer colleges to integrate the Florence-Firestone neighborhood into these Environmental Analysis courses:
EA 086 SC: Environmental Justice (Scripps College)
MS 090: Ecodocumentary (Pitzer College)
Building on our past efforts, FFCO will host walking tours and discussions, conduct in-class guest lectures, and provide readings and resources to learn about our Florence-Firestone community in South Central LA.
Local news coverage of Florence-Firestone lamentably focuses on social ills. While the community endures challenges and struggles, there is more to it than the clickbait headlines. Our decades-long community-driven work proves it. The creation of Embedded Planning in Florence-Firestone, now a worldwide movement, proves it. The birth of FFCO as a community advocacy voice during COVID proves it. Florence-Firestone is a vibrant and historic community. Students will experience it.
Below is a variety of key resources on Florence-Firestone. I am proud to have worked on nearly all of these projects. These help reframe the narrative about our community. They tell a fuller story of partnerships, solidarity, and hope.
Florence-Firestone Community Organization Latin Labic & Expo Kermesse:
Florence-Firestone Community Organization and SELA Collaborative interview, including Embedded Planning origins in Florence-Firestone (starts at 5:25 min mark):
How a Tire Shop in South L.A. Became a Community Hub for Locals:
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