Shout out to the Whittier College Sustainability Club for hosting my talk tonight on Embedded Planning. Special thank you! to Ashley Dueñas for her leadership bringing this talk to students. Street-level praxis resonated. It is the future of planning. We cannot plan from our desks.
On March 5, 2022, Mike the PoeT Sonksen was the guest speaker in my Advocacy Planning course at Cal Poly Pomona. He taught us about geographic literacy and the power of place. Mike opened with poems, transitioned into a vivid slide deck lecture, then led our class through two writing exercises connecting personal memory and action to planning praxis. He stayed to co-facilitate our week’s discussion of Latin@ Urbanism.
Mike bleeds LA. If you’re looking for your next guest speaker, tour guide, essayist or poet, Mike is the one.
The latest instance of our Embedded Planning movement coming up favorably in a job interview.
We are everywhere.
We cannot plan from our desks.
Background image: The book I recommend to every critical planner and embedded planner — especially the Fortress LA chapter — is City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, by Mike Davis.
My guest speaker role at the 2021 Environmental Justice Enforcement Symposium connected me with Dr. Rebecca Overmeyer-Velazquez at Whittier College.
Earlier this month, I joined the professor’s class sharing #EmbeddedPlanning with students in the “Jobs for Justice” series.
We didn’t stop there.
Next month, I’m at the campus Sustainability Club talking career pathways into city planning and Embedded Planning praxis.
We cannot plan from our desks 📢
This semester at Cal Poly Pomona Urban & Regional Planning I’m teaching URP 4620 Senior Project, Part Two. Building on research proposals developed in URP 4600A, this course is independent and student-driven. I’ll be guiding the student’s research process leading to a capstone paper, project, or design.
I’m interviewed in the New York Times about the human dimensions of informal housing enforcement in South Central Los Angeles. I’m grateful to the family in @FlorenceFirestone who trusted me to share their story.
Conor Dougherty’s December 18, 2021 article is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/18/business/economy/california-housing.html
This week I joined the SUNY Buffalo classroom of Wes Grooms, Ph.D. for a lunchtime chat on #EmbeddedPlanning praxis. It was one talk in a 2-part conversation about equity, with Carlton Eley, MSURP delivering the companion talk on equitable development.
Shout out to Dr. Grooms and students for the discussion. Dialog helps this praxis grow. I appreciated Dr. Grooms’ observation that while planning theory typically develops in the academy, Embedded Planning is a product of the community.
Next semester at Cal Poly Pomona I’m teaching a course on Advocacy Planning, Community Organizing, and Social Change inspired by the work of the late Paul Davidoff: pauldavidoff.com
Cal Poly Pomona seeks a Dean of the College of Environmental Design
The new Dean must be an innovative, strategic, and collegial academic leader who embraces the mission of Cal Poly Pomona, is committed to student success, and will be a champion for CPPENV. Ideally, the new Dean of ENV will take office in the spring but is expected to do so no later than June 2022. Review of applications will begin December 6, 2021.
Academic Search is assisting Cal Poly Pomona in this search. Please see the profile for the position here:
To ensure full consideration, inquiries, nominations, and applications (PDF preferred) should be submitted electronically, in confidence, to: CPPENVDEAN@academicsearch.org
Nominations are encouraged. If you have a nomination for the position, please send the name, position, and institution along with an email address if you have it, to: CPPENVDEAN@academicsearch.org
Nominators and prospective candidates may also arrange a confidential conversation about this opportunity with the senior consultant leading this search, Cynthia M. Patterson, at: Cynthia.Patterson@academicsearch.org
I spoke about #EmbeddedPlanning praxis at the 2021 AARP Livable Communities Workshop on engaging older adults. Shout out to my co-panelists. And big up to AARP organizers for the session transcript and video. Check it out.
Transcript and video together: https://www.aarp.org/livable-communities/about/info-2021/2021-Livable-Workshop-Collaborating-With-Community.html
Thank you to AARP Livable Communities Workshop organizers and my fellow panelists for this week’s conversation on engaging older adults.
On September 13th, we lost Ms. Mary Rose Cortese, one of our community elders in South Central LA’s Florence-Firestone community. Mary has joined her brother Joe Titus in the next chapter. I know they’re up there still advocating for Florence-Firestone.
Mary and Joe welcomed me into the community on Day 1 in 2009. They were honorary abuelitos to me and many others. Hug your elders. Ask them to tell you stories. Document their lives. Cherish them every day.
At the end of this #AARP session, I dedicated my presentation to Mary Rose Cortese 🙏🏽💛
I’m speaking about #EmbeddedPlanning praxis at the AARP Livable Communities Workshop, Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10am Pacific. We’re exploring ways to engage older adults and community elders in these times. The virtual event is FREE TO ALL. Come through.
Register here.
With Supervisor Janice Hahn’s fine-free library motion going to the Board of Supervisors tomorrow, I wrote a piece urging Supervisors to abolish fines at LA County Library.
Shout out to Laura Scarano and UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs for spotlighting my work and C1TYPLANN3RCo in Luskin Forum Summer 2021, “Alumnus Founds Company to Promote Embedded Planning.”
WE CANNOT PLAN FROM OUR DESKS.
The Boyz N The Hood film and years of street reporting on NWA albums helped me become an urban planner in/for South Central LA.
I learned the word “gentrification” from Furious Styles’s speech on the street corner in Compton.
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