Scenes from Duke University from my 4/10 guest talk, “Embedded Planning is the Future.” The invited lecture was delivered in partnership with the undergraduate group Duke Our Urban Future and Duke Urban Studies.
We begin in medias res amidst my high stakes confrontation with unnamed powerholding figureheads suspicious of Embedded Planning because it subverted top-down control. I retrace my steps and epiphanies as a zoning enforcement planner to create Embedded Planning in South Central LA’s Florence-Firestone community. Drawing from personal experiences, I reflect on the challenges and benefits of street-level planning in the face of power. I then present case studies of others doing Embedded Planning coast to coast — and beyond!
When you hear planners today talk about “meeting people where they are,” know that we’ve long called it Embedded Planning praxis. And now we’re a worldwide movement.
Photos by AJ Adovor & Avery Smedley of Duke OUF and Dr. Ashley Hernandez of UNC Chapel Hill Carolina Planning. Thank you, Duke urban planners, for inviting me to speak on your campus!
Join us 5/8 at CSUN Urban Studies and Planning for “Embedded Planning is the Future,” a public talk on the present and future of street-level activist planning.
Embedded Planning praxis shifts the planner’s work from a desk to the streets. Created during my Zoning Enforcement days in South Central’s Florence-Firestone community, this praxis aims to rebuild trust and foster meaningful relationships with marginalized communities harmed by inequitable planning.
We’ll highlight the spread of #EmbeddedPlanning coast to coast (and beyond!), with case studies, reflections, and personal experiences examining the challenges and benefits of street-level praxis.
Scenes from USC Architecture from my 4/3 guest talk, “Building Embedded Planning Praxis.” The invited lecture was delivered in the USC Master of Heritage Conservation graduate course, Heritage Conservation Policy and Planning.
Who’s the cat in the photo?! In 2003 in the MAUP program at UCLA Luskin Department of Urban Planning, I took an architecture theory course where I learned Professor Gregory Ulmer’s CATTt method for writing a manifesto. I would go on to use the CATTt to write my 1-page manifesto on Embedded Planning titled, “We Cannot Plan From Our Desks,” published in the October 2018 issue of APA’s Planning Magazine.
And now we’re a worldwide movement in planning theories and practices.
Photos by Meredith Drake Reitan, Professor & Associate Dean. Thanks for the invite to speak with your MHC students!
Join us at Whittier College Hartley House for “Embedded Planning is the Future,” a public talk on the present and future of street-level planning, followed by a feet on the street walking tour of Uptown Whittier.
Embedded Planning shifts the planner’s work from a desk to the streets. Created in the Florence-Firestone community in South Central LA, this praxis aims to rebuild trust and foster meaningful relationships with marginalized communities harmed by inequitable planning.
The talk features case studies, reflections, and personal experiences highlighting both the challenges and benefits of Embedded Planning in these times.
Coffee, tea, and pan dulce will be served. OUR EVENT IS FREE TO ALL.
When: Saturday, April 19, 2025, 10:30am to 1pm Where: Hartley House, Whittier College, 13741 Earlham Drive, Whittier, CA 90602
Thanks to Whittier College Hartley House Hub for Integrative and Applied Learning in Social Justice for event support!
Infographic by a UNC Chapel Hill Urban Planning student
Here’s an alternative flyer designed by Duke’s neighbor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Shout out to the urban planning student in Dr. Ashley Hernandez’s class who dreamed up this remix!
I love the subtle rivalry at play here ha. But for real, my virtual talk in Dr. Hernandez’s UNC class “Diversity & Inequality in Cities” in 2023 led to our in-person event at Duke on April 10, 2025. See how Embedded Planning praxis brings us together?
Students, planners, and community: if you’re in Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill on 4/10 come through.
Infographic courtesy of Duke’s undergraduate student group, Our Urban Future
On April 10th, I’m at Duke University with Our Urban Future for the invited public talk, “Embedded Planning is the Future.” I consider this Chapter 3 in the Embedded Planning speaking series. We’ll discuss Embedded Planning’s trajectory — including origins, challenges, and benefits — and examine why this praxis is the future of planning.
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:
In 2024, what began in Florence-Firestone transformed into an international movement. Embedded Planning won.
When I started this praxis in South Central LA, some planning figureheads viewed street-level planning work with skepticism. Today, planning organizations are implementing Embedded Planning praxis as official policy. The City of Fort Wayne didn’t just adopt our approach — they embraced it fully, showing what’s possible when management supports planners working directly from community spaces.
This year validated what our community knew all along: We Cannot Plan From Our Desks.
Key transformations: • Fort Wayne’s formal implementation of Embedded Planning with full institutional support • Florence-Firestone Community Organization’s expansion of street-level programs • FFCO’s Latin Labic + Expo Kermesse bringing creative placemaking to South Central LA • Growing recognition through APA Planning Advocate and Pioneer awards • Cal Poly Pomona Urban and Regional Planning students advancing community-centered research
Looking ahead: As Embedded Planning expands globally in 2025, our focus remains clear — rebuilding trust through street-level planning while keeping our trailblazing work in Florence-Firestone as our north star.
To every planner now embedding themselves in communities, and to every community member who showed us the way: this transformation belongs to all of us. The future of planning isn’t in our offices. It’s on the streets, in the neighborhoods, with the people.
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.
Jonathan Pacheco Bell is a Senior Embedded Planner at 4LEAF, Inc., Lecturer in Urban & Regional Planning at Cal Poly Pomona, and Vice President/Public Information Officer of the nonprofit Florence-Firestone Community Organization in South Central Los Angeles.
A practicing urban planner with over 20 years of experience spanning the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, Jonathan has expertise in community engagement, participatory design, inclusive public space, long-range plans, zoning enforcement, ordinance development, planning studies, and project management.
During his tenure as a County planner in South Central LA’s Florence-Firestone community, Jonathan created Embedded Planning. This praxis situates the work of planners on the street-level, not behind a desk, to increase equity and participation for historically marginalized populations harmed by inequitable planning. What began in South Central is now an international movement of Embedded Planners with feet on the street. Jonathan has guest lectured widely on Embedded Planning praxis. His speaking engagements include Columbia University, UCLA, Ohio State, University of Utah, Pratt Institute, Stanford Engineering, Woodbury University, and East LA College Architecture; state and national APA Conferences in California, Iowa, and Louisiana; and public forums such as AARP Livable Communities, City Parks Alliance, and the SF Urban Film Fest.
Jonathan has been a leader in the American Planning Association for over a decade. He’s a member of the Latinos and Planning Division and is published in APA’s practitioner magazine, Planning. He previously served as APA Los Angeles Social Media Director and was the Southern California representative on the APA National Social Equity Task Force. This year, Jonathan proudly received the Planning Advocate Award of Excellence from APA Los Angeles and the Planning Pioneer Award of Excellence from APA Inland Empire.
Born and raised in LA’s Latino/a Eastside, Jonathan serves as a mentor to First Gen students and emerging planners. A product of the California public school system from kindergarten to graduate school, he holds an M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and additional degrees in library and information science, political science, and architecture. Connect at c1typlann3r.blog.
Florence-Firestone Community Organization. Photo by Aditi Peyush
In Fall 2024, the Florence-Firestone Community Organization (FFCO) — where I proudly serve as VP — is partnering with Cal Poly Pomona and UCLA to integrate the neighborhood into these Urban Planning and Chicano Studies courses:
URP 5050: Planning and Place
URP 5120: Planning Ideas and Action
URP 5010: How Planning Works
CCAS M122: Planning Issues in Latino Communities (UCLA)
Building on our past efforts, FFCO will host neighborhood walking tours and discussions, conduct in-class guest lectures, and provide readings and resources (see below) to learn about the Florence-Firestone community in South Central LA.
Local news coverage of Florence-Firestone lamentably focuses on social ills. While the community endures challenges and struggle, 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 most of these projects. These help reframe the narrative about our community. They tell a fuller story of partnerships, solidarity, and hope.
Note: This is a living document updated as needed throughout the semester/quarter. Any revision history will be indicated at the bottom of this page.
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:
I was interviewed by Abigail Bassett in the Observer for this article on fake jobs. I told the story of receiving a cold call offering me a job at an architecture firm that does not exist.
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