Tag Archives: Embedded Planning

Embedded Planning Returns to USC Price

The Strength of Street Knowledge: Embedded Planning as Community-Based Praxis

This talk introduces a new method of urban planning called Embedded Planning Praxis. Embedded Planning revolutionizes practice by emphasizing street-level planning within the community rather than traditional desk-based methods. Developed by Jonathan Pacheco Bell in South Central LA as an outgrowth of code enforcement work, Embedded Planning has evolved into a community-based praxis that seeks to rebuild trust and foster meaningful relationships with marginalized communities historically harmed by inequitable planning.

Embedded Planning is working directly from community spaces and places. Embedded planners engage residents in everyday environments, evolving practice from desk-based policy formation to on-the-ground collaboration in and from the neighborhood. This immersive approach helps planners gain a deeper understanding of local needs and aspirations, ensuring that community voices and needs significantly shape planning decisions. Embedded Planning is a timely evolution in the field that aligns with growing calls for more equity-centered, place-based, participatory practices. By embedding themselves into neighborhoods, planners build strong and authentic relationships, moving beyond one-off, transactional consultations to create lasting and impactful partnerships.

Using a reflective practitioner framework, Jonathan will illustrate what Embedded Planning looks like, explain its role as his motivating throughline, highlight embedded planners implementing these inclusive methods coast-to-coast, while highlighting the challenges and benefits of this praxis. Attendees will learn how 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.

Speaker bio

Jonathan Pacheco Bell is an urban planner with two decades of experience in California working across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. For 14 years, he served as a Los Angeles Zoning Enforcement Officer building partnerships on the ground in communities of color. During this time, he witnessed the harms of inequitable zoning, inspiring him to create new forms of street-level planning advocacy – what he calls Embedded Planning praxis.

Jonathan works as VP of Policy and Programs at Casita Coalition, where he advances middle housing solutions with a strong focus on equity, access, and neighborhood-level impact. In addition to full-time practice, he serves as Co-President of the nonprofit Florence-Firestone Community Organization in South Central LA and was an Adjunct Professor at Cal Poly Pomona Urban and Regional Planning from 2021-2025.

Jonathan has guest lectured nationally on Embedded Planning, with speaking engagements at Columbia University, Duke, Ohio State, University of Utah, Pratt Institute, Stanford Engineering, and UCLA; state and national APA Conferences in California, Iowa, Louisiana, and Indiana; and public forums such as AARP Livable Communities and the San Francisco Urban Film Fest.

A leader in the American Planning Association for over a decade, Jonathan is a member of the Latinos and Planning Division and is published in APA’s practitioner magazine, Planning. He previously served as Social Media Director of APA Los Angeles and was the Southern California representative on the APA National Social Equity Task Force.

Jonathan’s dedication to communities has earned him industry accolades, including the Planning Advocate Award of Excellence from APA Los Angeles and Planning Pioneer Award of Excellence from APA Inland Empire in 2024. He holds an MA in Urban Planning from UCLA Luskin and additional degrees in architecture, political science, and information science.

Vacant Lot Activation in Florence-Firestone

Florence-Firestone Vacant Lot Activation

7700 S. Central Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90001

Saturday, September 20, 2025, 2:00 – 5:00 PM

Project:

We are transforming the vacant lot at E. 77th Street and Central Avenue into a temporary community hub as part of Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell’s Corridors 2 Community Initiative. This initiative focuses on community-led revitalization of small business corridors in unincorporated communities in LA County’s 2nd District, including Florence-Firestone.

Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) and Florence-Firestone Community Organization (FFCO) are partnering with the County of Los Angeles to host a series of pop-up events over 6 months, bringing resources and services directly to the community.

These events will feature:

— Opportunities for residents to share their vision for the future of historic Central Avenue

— Live music and cultural activities

— Food and local vendors

— Services for small business owners

— County and community resources

— Free food for the first 75 participants!

Join us for FREE these resources, activities, and services for Florence-Firestone community members & businesses.

RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/corridors-2-community-corredores-hacia-la-comunidad-tickets-1677297204089?aff=oddtdtcreator

#FlorenceFirestone #EmbeddedPlanning

Mike Davis Roundtable at the Urban History Association Conference 2025

I’m on a panel recognizing the legacy of Mike Davis with writer legends Carolina A. Miranda, Kyle Paoletta, David Kipen, and Mike The PoeT Sonksen at the Urban History Association Conference 2025 in Los Angeles. More to come soon.

Join us on Saturday, October 11th, 1:15-2:45pm at the Biltmore Hotel in Downtown LA.

Register for the UHA Conference here: https://urbanhistory.org/Conference-Registration.

Florence-Firestone Walk and Roll Event

Join LA Walks + the Florence-Firestone Community Organization for a Walk and Roll event: Adapting for Community Safety & Accessibility!

What we’re doing:

VISIONING: Envisioning safer, more welcoming streets and sidewalks

WALK AUDIT: Documenting and analyzing current street and sidewalk conditions

ART: Creating a zine with artist Audrey Chan to share community experiences

*Register at Roosevelt Park Senior Center or online here.

Date: Saturday, Sept 6, 2025, 2-5pm

Location: FFCO Office, 6940 Compton Ave, LA 90001

Sponsored by AARP

Thank you, Cal Poly Pomona

My time at Cal Poly Pomona has come to an end. The last 4 years were a dream come true. In 2021, I’d never have imagined that 1 lower division course would blossom into 6 across our bachelor’s and MURP programs, including my personal goal of teaching planning theory (my favorite at UCLA Luskin!). With that accomplished, I’ve decided to exit on a high note. This move makes space for new lecturers . . . new ideas, new lessons, new texts, new assignments, new theories, new planning methods, new pedagogies, new critiques, new praxis.

I’ll miss my students. My greatest joy was being a part of their journeys. I got to see folks new to the field evolve before my eyes into fierce urban planners—change agents. I hope my ramblings contributed to their growth. My students give me boundless hope. The future of urban planning is in good hands. 

I was a mentor before CPP and I remain one. I’ve formed lifelong relationships with CPP students, faculty, and university fam. Many believe in Embedded Planning and other forms of activist praxis. We have momentum.

So this isn’t a “goodbye” but rather a “see you out there, in the neighborhoods, alongside our community members, planning and organizing, with your feet on the street.”

Scenes from Embedded Planning is the Future at Duke

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.

This is chapter 3 in the #EmbeddedPlanning story.

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!

Embedded Planning is the Future at CSUN

Infographic by CSUN Professor Brettany K. Shannon

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.

Shout out to Dr. Brettany Kane Shannon for the invitation to return to CSUN URBS!

Building Embedded Planning Praxis at USC Architecture

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.

This is chapter 1 in the story of Embedded Planning praxis.

I lay out my path to Embedded Planning which includes coming up as graffiti writer and hip hop kid in the 80s & 90s, dropping out of architecture school in ‘98, and then finding urban planning thanks to Mike Davis and Edward W. Soja (both rest in power). Embedded Planning was co-created with community members in Florence-Firestone in South Central LA.

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!

Embedded Planning is the Future at Whittier College

Infographic by Whittier College Hartley House

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!

Embedded Planning is the Future at Duke with a UNC Big Up

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.

Also can we do flyers like this for UCLA Luskin / USC Price events?!

Embedded Planning is the Future at Duke University

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.

After the talk, we’ll hold an extended Q & A to discuss my work on Middle Housing (Casita Coalition), Community Empowerment (Florence-Firestone Community Organization), and Urban Planning Education (Cal Poly Pomona Urban & Regional Planning).

Open to students, planners, and community — if you’re in Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill come through!

Big thanks to Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability for sponsoring our event.

Embedded Planning is the Future at UC Irvine

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.