Danielle Dirksen created, “The Planner’s Beginner Guide to the #BlackLivesMatter Movement.”
Dani is one of our Embedded Planning emissaries at USC Sol Price School of Public Policy.
I am proud of Dani for stepping up to educate us.
Mike Davis has been commenting extensively about the current global Coronavirus / COVID-19 pandemic. I’m sharing his analysis on my social media spaces, as I often do with City of Quartz for urban planning students. For better or worse, Davis avoids social media and has no personal website with links to his work. Fortunately for readers, several outlets are making available without a paywall his works on COVID-19. It just takes some searching.
As I usually do with Davis, I found myself scouring Twitter and Google to find these commentaries. I know others are doing the same. We need his analysis to show us a pathway forward — and we need to get it beyond his faithful readers. So, to help boost readership, I’m aggregating links in this post to Mike Davis’s COVID-19 writings, comments, podcast interviews, etcetera.
There will be cross-posted duplicates from the various publications involved. I’m okay with doubling up. This increases reader access and helps overcome potential link rot. Also there will shorter and longer versions of his articles depending on the publication’s version. All is worth reading.
I’ll update this blog post as often as possible. Readers can recommend relevant works at this Contact page. Thank you. ~JPB
Update: New citations will end on May 31, 2020. This post will stay up as a resource on Mike Davis and COVID-19.
Mike Davis on COVID-19: The Monster Is at the Door
Date: March 12, 2020. Source: Haymarket Books
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/110-mike-davis-on-covid-19-the-monster-is-at-the-door
Mike Davis on COVID-19: The Monster Is at the Door
Date: March 12, 2020. Source: International Journal of Socialist Renewal
http://links.org.au/mike-davis-covid-19-monster-finally-at-the-door
Mike Davis sobre COVID-19: El Monstruo Finalmente Está en la Puerta
Date: March 12, 2020. Source: Izquierda Diario
http://www.izquierdadiario.es/Mike-Davis-sobre-COVID-19-el-monstruo-finalmente-esta-en-la-puerta
Who Gets Forgotten in a Pandemic
Date: March 13, 2020. Source: The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/mike-davis-covid-19-essay/
Mike Davis on Coronavirus: “In a Plague Year”
Date: March 14, 2020. Source: Jacobin Magazine
Socialism as Counter-Pandemic — Mike Davis
Date: March 14, 2020. Source: Legal Form: A Forum for Marxist Analysis of Law
https://legalform.blog/2020/03/14/socialism-as-counter-pandemic-mike-davis/
Mike Davis: Social Distancing, Not Home Arrest
Date: March 16, 2020. Source: Haymarket Books
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/113-mike-davis-social-distancing-not-home-arrest
Mike Davis on COVID-19: The Monster Is at the Door
Date: March 19, 2020. Source: Monthly Review Online
https://mronline.org/2020/03/19/mike-davis-on-covid-19-the-monster-is-finally-at-the-door/
Mike Davis: The Coronavirus Crisis Is a Monster Fueled by Capitalism
Date: March 20, 2020. Source: In These Times
http://inthesetimes.com/article/22394/coronavirus-crisis-capitalism-covid-19-monster-mike-davis
Solidarity Is an Essential Vaccine
Date: March 20, 2020. Source: The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/outdoor-coronavirus-exercise-california/
Mike Davis on Coronavirus Politics (podcast interview)
Date: March 20, 2020. Source: The Dig Podcast
https://www.thedigradio.com/podcast/mike-davis-on-coronavirus-politics/
Mike Davis on Coronavirus Plague (podcast interview)
Date: March 22, 2020. Source: Beneath the Surface with Suzi Weissman
https://archive.kpfk.org/index_one.php?shokey=bts_friday
Lessons From Wuhan
Date: March 25, 2020. Source: The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/lessons-wuhan-coronavirus-recovery/
Mike Davis: Why Global Capitalism Is so Impotent in the Face of Coronavirus (video interview)
Date: March 26, 2020. Source: Jacobin Magazine
Mike Davis on Pandemics, Super-capitalism and the Struggles of Tomorrow
Date: March 30, 2020. Source: Mada Masr
Capitalism Is the Disease: Mike Davis on the Coronavirus Crisis (online teach-in FREE)
Date: March 31, 2020. Source: Haymarket Books and Verso Books
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOp9G5hoQnM
Mike Davis: The Coronavirus — Politics vs. Science; plus Rebecca Solnit on Becoming a Feminist (podcast interview)
Date: April 1, 2020. Source: Start Making Sense
In Memoriam: Michael Sorkin, 1948–2020
Date: April 2, 2020. Source: The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/michael-sorkin-obit/
How to Save the Postal Service
Date: April 6, 2020. Source: The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/usps-profiteering-nationalize-amazon/
COVID-19: A Man-Made Crisis — A conversation with Mike Davis, Marianela D’Aprile and Nafis Hasan
Date: April 7, 2020. Source: Democratic Socialists of America
https://www.dsausa.org/calendar/covid-19-a-man-made-crisis/
Mike Davis: Is Coronavirus Ushering in a New World Order? plus Barbara Ehrenreich on low-wage work (podcast interview)
Date: April 15, 2020. Source: Start Making Sense
The Geopolitics of COVID-19: Mike Davis in Conversation with Joshua Clover
Date: April 16, 2020. Time: 5:30pm to 7:00pm. Source: UC Davis Humanities Institute
https://dhi.ucdavis.edu/events/geopolitics-covid-19-mike-davis-interviewed-joshua-clover
The Monster Enters
Date: March/April 2020, No. 122. Source: New Left Review
https://newleftreview.org/issues/II122/articles/mike-davis-in-a-plague-year
Mike Davis in the Age of Catastrophe
Date: April 24, 2020. Source: The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/news/california-chronicles/mike-davis-in-the-age-of-catastrophe
Mike Davis: Back to Work in the Covid-19 Economy? Plus John Powers on Virus Time TV (podcast interview)
Date: April 29, 2020. Source: Start Making Sense
Mike Davis: C’est La Lutte Finale
Date: April 30, 2020. Source: Progressive International
https://progressive.international/blueprint/34da398a-af05-43bb-9778-c27023932630-la-lutte-finale/en
Mike Davis on the Coronavirus (podcast interview)
Date: May 1, 2020. Source: Coronavirus in California
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mike-davis-on-the-coronavirus/id1506426526?i=1000473233887
(Last Updated: May 27, 2020)
This blog is back. It’s more of a “soft re-opening” than a grand re-opening. Stay tuned.
This blog is on hiatus until further notice.
Among the many excellent urban planning programs in the Los Angeles region, UCI MURP has been one of the strongest supporters of advancing #EmbeddedPlanning praxis. To the students, faculty, and staff: THANK YOU!
Looking forward to growing our partnership and developing future critical planners & Embedded Planners.
I was not raised speaking Spanish. When Nana Josephine Pacheco née Ontiveros came to #LosAngeles from #Texas, the school teachers struck her with rulers por hablando Español en clase. So Nana didn’t teach my mom. And nobody taught me. I learned Español in earnest in the last 8 years working as an Embedded Planner on the ground in Florence-Firestone. For real I’m at like 6th grade level, pero sabes que, es mejor que nada!
On arrival Friday in #CDMX, I quickly had to adjust to Español. It was thrilling. I found myself absorbing the spoken word, the unique rhythm, cadence, & dialect of #Chilango, the Spanish of Mexico City. Immediately I found myself translating signs, speech, & writing intuitively. Dormant neurotransmitters began firing. Parts of my brain were trabajando overtime to help situate myself in this new space & culture.
I recognized this feeling. It had been awhile but I’d felt it long before. I told mi esposita that this exhilaration must have been the same stimulating experience of learning Inglés as a child con mi familia on the streets of East Los Angeles y Montebello 40+ years ago.
Órale.
We’re working on a new way to advance #EmbeddedPlanning praxis. It’s an act of mutual aid by our friends at South Central Shirt Printing.
Embedded Planning was born on the streets of Florence-Firestone in South Central Los Angeles. The founders of South Central Shirt Printing grew up in #FlorenceFirestone. We take care of each other. They help me build community power. I rep their gear at public talks. This is how we do.
Stay tuned for more on this project. Meantime, follow @south_central_shirt_printing on Instagram 👊
Thank you #SouthCentral Shirt Printing and fam 🙏
EmbeddedPlanning has spread into urban planning student projects. One among many examples is Hannah Diaz’s MIT master’s thesis on Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) pilot programs in Los Angeles, titled “Bidding AD(ie)U to Homelessness?”
Originally from California, Hannah wanted to write a thesis addressing the highly personal issue of homelessness back home. Affordable ADUs are part of the solution. Hannah interviewed me and several L.A. planning colleagues for this project. I shared my street-level experience with regulation and legalization of informal ADUs. I was honored to see Embedded Planning mentioned in Hannah’s Recommendations, as it implores planners to understand planning’s technocratic work from a “human perspective and weigh the effects of regulations on real, familiar lives.”
YES!
Congratulations Hannah Diaz on completing your Master in City Planning at MIT Urban Planning #MITDUSP! Onward to professional praxis 🙌
You know you’ve made an impact on the culture when your work becomes a meme 😄
This meme was posted today in the Planning Peeps group on #facebook! It references the #EmbeddedPlanning rallying cry: WE CANNOT PLAN FROM OUR DESKS!
Shout out to the meme creator and colleagues who sent this over today 🙌 Please head over to Planning Peeps on fb, like the meme, and post a comment on Embedded Planning.
WE ARE A MOVEMENT 📢💯
The American Planning Association just published the Planning for Equity Policy Guide and #EmbeddedPlanning praxis is featured in the Further Reading section.
Thank you Miguel Angel Vazquez, AICP for your ongoing support and all committee authors for including the #PlanMag op-ed in this important resource for planners.
It’s incredibly humbling to be listed alongside planning luminaries Paul Davidoff, Norm Krumholz, John Forester, and Ruth Glass, who created the term #gentrification.
From Los Angeles to Seattle to Detriot to Boston to Norfolk, VA and back: “WE ARE A MOVEMENT” 📢
TODAY—I’m at @ucimurp delivering the Medina Family ADU Story in Prof. Lynda Hikichi’s class UPPP 275: Site Development. This is the 9th rendition of this public talk and the 2nd time UCI Urban Planning & Public Policy hosts it, thank you! If you’re on campus or nearby, come through: Room 3240 in the SBSG-Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway building, 11:30am—12:30pm.
ABSTRACT: This presentation puts a human face on California’s housing crisis. Through storytelling, reflection and #EmbeddedPlanning praxis, presenter Jonathan Pacheco Bell @c1typlann3r, a zoning enforcement planner in South Central #LosAngeles, presents the story of the Medina Family from the #SouthCentralLA community of @FlorenceFirestone, who built an informal backyard Accessory Dwelling Unit #ADU for extra income after the sudden passing of their head of household. An anonymous complaint triggered inspection and eventual demolition of the dwelling for code violations. Jonathan himself ordered its removal. Attendees will understand the emotional roller coaster the family endured while embroiled in this regulatory process, and Jonathan’s inner conflict with the outcome. To help himself cope emotionally and to spotlight this family’s housing struggle, Jonathan has turned the experience into a speaking tour offering takeaways for planning policy, practice, and pedagogy. Jonathan will explain the @EmbeddedPlanning approach at the story’s core. This talk will inspire emerging planners to adapt and respond to the problem of housing insecurity with empathetic, activist, street-level planning #praxis.
In a letter to the editor of Planning (February 2019), Michigan grad student Nadia Karizat endorsed Embedded Planning praxis.
Nadia and other future planners will lead #EmbeddedPlanning.
Things are underway.
Stay tuned . . .
In a recent op-ed, Virginia urban planning student Gianna Raggio declared that she will lead Embedded Planning praxis in her community when she’s a practitioner.
As Gianna observed:
“Once I become a planner, I don’t want to be glued to a desk. Nor should I be. In order to make a positive impact on my community, I need to be present. To be an embedded planner, I need to be constantly interacting with residents in the community in which I work. Yes, that means attending community meetings. But it also goes above that. Embedded planners should go beyond what the job requires. Be present at community events, and contribute to neighborhood relationship building. Be a familiar face in the community.”
From #LosAngeles to #Norfolk and beyond, #EmbeddedPlanning is the future.
If you’ve been to my Medina Family ADU Story, or plan to attend an upcoming talk, you’ll see I get choked up. Happens every time. I don’t even try to suppress it anymore. This was a harrowing experience for the Medinas, and for me. My #EmbeddedPlanning praxis rejects the technocratic detachment of Rational Planning orthodoxy. When we shed tears, those tears are earned.
For the Medinas, removing the backyard dwelling built to generate income after the passing of their head of household worsened the stress that started it all. Ordering the removal after knowing the Medinas’ story made me question strict enforcement of #InformalHousing. The dwelling was not substandard—it was simply out of zoning compliance. All of this predated California’s relaxed State ADU Laws, so the only option was to demolish it. This was in 2016. After 10 years on the job, I’d finally realized that “Penalties or Demolition” was a false dilemma fallacy in #ADU enforcement. We’re trying to change this outcome for other folx.
The ending part is emotional for me. I conclude with slides featuring each member of the Medina Fam. I wanted audience members to understand the impact of rigid zoning on real people. I wanted to evoke an emotional response. And every time it works . . . on ME.
The final slide is of little Janelle. Janelle represents the future of #LosAngeles.
This effort is for her.
Gracias Derek Ouyang, Tyler Pullen, and Stanford Engineering Sustainable Urban Systems.
People’s lives are at the heart of Planning. Planners: befriend the community, get to know constituents personally, invest your heart into bettering THEIR lives and you’ll always have a righteous mission.
I could not do this series of public talks on #InformalHousing without permission & support of the Medina Family. My regulatory responsibility resulted in the removal of their informal #ADU but ironically brought us closer together. Theirs was a hard first lesson in Planning & Zoning. They knew others endure the same struggle. The Medinas permitted my public talks because they knew sharing their experience would help other residents & Other Planners understand the street realities of informal housing in working-class communities of color. They entrusted me to tell their story. They granted me a righteous mission.
Planners! We must draw inspiration from The People we serve.
The Medina Family—Flora, Josefina, Maria, and Janelle—they inspire me. Janelle represents the future of #LosAngeles. THIS IS FOR HER ♥️
Gracias Fay Darmawi for including us in the 2018 SF Urban Film Fest, SPUR Urbanist for hosting us, & SPUR’s Amy Thomson for photographing this moment.
#EmbeddedPlanning
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