Category Archives: Los Angeles

Reelected as Vice President of the Florence-Firestone Community Organization

With my fellow FFCO Board Members Ramsey Nicholson and Art Jones. Photo by Aditi Peyush

My fellow Board Members have reelected me to serve as Vice President of the Florence-Firestone Community Organization (501c3) in South Central LA. I greatly appreciate the Board’s vote of confidence and I’m honored to continue uplifting our neighborhood in this role.

FFCO has many wonderful things planned for community members in 2024. Our resource fairs, community food giveaways, and holiday events will continue, and we’re expanding community education programs with generous funding from our partners.

Building on last year’s Vision Zero advocacy, we’re upping our community engagement and planning service. I’m stoked to work on FFCO’s community planning initiatives, including our new public engagement partnership with Metro for the Rail to River Segment B project, community walks and bike rides, client projects with universities like CPPURP and UCLA Luskin, urban planning workshops, Embedded Planning advocacy, community assistance navigating LA County planning efforts underway, and more.

The Florence-Firestone community welcomed me with open arms when I was a “baby zoning enforcement planner” nearly 17 years ago. I figured out my life’s purpose here — as a planner and a person. I’m humbled to be an adopted FF resident serving my friends and neighbors. Thank you for the boundless support and inspiration!

Senior Project 2024 at Cal Poly Pomona

Infographic by Jonathan Pacheco Bell

I’m back this semester teaching URP 4620 Senior Project. Building on research proposals developed in 4600A, this course is independent and student-driven. I’ll be guiding the student’s research process leading to an undergraduate capstone paper, project, or design.

Check out past Senior Projects here: https://c1typlann3r.blog/category/mentee-research-and-projects/

[ Background photo by Misty Fong. A view of Downtown LA and South Central taken from the iconic pedestrian bridge over the Metro Blue Line in Florence-Firestone ]

Cited in Mike Davis Tribute

I thank Professor Genevieve Carpio for citing me in her article on Mike Davis’s enduring impact and City of Quartz. Mike lives on in us.

“Now, as a teacher, I introduce his work to my own students. As one example, with Davis’s words, I try to open my students’ eyes to how our built environment shapes what is possible and what is unlikely, or at least discouraged. I ask them to look for what he calls “Carceral Architecture”: the Twin Towers or dividers on park benches or glass smashed into walls. In this way, I’m among other educators, like Jonathan Pacheco Bell and his work on hostile architecture, who continue to draw on Davis for our pedagogical interventions, especially among future urban planners, architects, and even developers. Indeed, I think one of Davis’s greatest contributions is the ways he underscores the power of the built environment in urban processes, his attention to which has shaped a generation of urban planners and urban historians.”

Dr. Genevieve Carpio. “Mike Davis’s Enduring Impact: A Reflection on Sunshine and Noir in the Junkyard of Dreams.” 105, no. 4, Southern California Quarterly (Winter 2023): 404-408.

Navigating the Nexus Panel

Shout out to Cal Poly Pomona students in URP 5400 for organizing the panel, “Navigating the Nexus: Politics, Planning, and Policy.”

I enjoyed sharing space with fellow panelists and students.

We shared stories, reflections, and tactics for navigating the politics of planning.

I got the chance to talk with a new audience about Embedded Planning as a method to bridge the theory/practice gap.

Vision Zero Community Bike Ride in Florence-Firestone

In support of Vision Zero, join us for a community bike ride in Florence-Firestone this Sunday, August 6th from 10a-1p. No registration required! Just come thru 🚲

Meeting place:
Florence-Firestone Community Organization (501c3)
6940 Compton Avenue, Los Angeles 90001

Route includes:
E. 70th Street, Makee Avenue, Slauson Avenue, Miramonte Boulevard, Florence Avenue, Compton Avenue

📍 Florence-Firestone Community Organization in partnership with Estolano Advisors, BikeLA, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, & California Office of Traffic Safety

Vision Zero Community Walk in Florence-Firestone

In support of Vision Zero, join us for a community walk in Florence-Firestone Sunday, July 23rd from 10am to 1pm. FFCO’s Ramsey Nicholson and I will highlight landmarks, social history, and community issues on the route. No registration required! Just come through.

Meeting place:
Florence-Firestone Community Organization (501c3)
6940 Compton Avenue, Los Angeles 90001

Route includes:
Compton Avenue, Florence Avenue, Maie Avenue, Graham Avenue, Miramonte Boulevard, E. 66th Street

Florence-Firestone Community Organization in partnership with Estolano Advisors, BikeLA, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, & California Office of Traffic Safety

Embedded Planning Is Worth The Struggle at UCLA Luskin

Originally developed for Columbia GSAPP’s Lectures in Planning Series, my talk “Embedded Planning is Worth The Struggle” is now home and coming to UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs on Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at 5pm. Attend in person or through Zoom with registration.

Session Description:

Planning is political. Decisions about the built environment inherently impact people’s lives. Everything planners do involves a struggle over “who gets what, when, where, how, and why?” Planners respond to this debate but many of our practices have resulted in unjust planning.

In this time of increasing interrogation of planning’s legacies of inequity, planners are moving with intention to be better partners. As part of repair and healing, planners are seeking more ways to build meaningful community partnerships. No longer is technocratic rational planning the default. But while the pivot to participatory methods helped democratize the planning process, professional practice still prefers project-based, one-off, transactional engagement.

Orthodox planning must evolve.

A better way is possible.

Los Angeles-based urban planner Jonathan Pacheco Bell urges practitioners to consider Embedded Planning praxis. Developed by Bell on the ground in South Central LA, Embedded Planning is a way to fundamentally restructure community engagement & practice. Embedded Planning means planning from the street, not from a desk. Embedded Planners work in the spaces & places of community members, building bridges with marginalized communities harmed by inequitable planning. Embedded Planning is a praxis that puts theory into action to better this world. Since Bell declared Embedded Planning exists in 2018, it has grown into an international movement among emerging planners. Bell will show how Embedded Planning is being used to transform engagement into lasting community partnerships rooted in trust.

Community members have embraced Embedded Planning because they feel seen and included. Yet despite the praxis bringing ignored voices to the table, Bell encountered blatant hostility from planning figureheads who judged Embedded Planning as “too political.” Through storytelling and personal reflection, Bell will illustrate the struggle to carry out Embedded Planning in the face of power. Attendees will learn the challenges and benefits of this unorthodox approach and understand why this praxis is the future of planning.

Creating Equitable Public Spaces Through Embedded Planning

Last month I returned to UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs to deliver my annual talk, “Creating Equitable Public Spaces Through Embedded Planning.”

This new version of the talk traces my trajectory in planning that has always included having feet on the street. With my background as a high school 90s graffiti writer as the jumping off point, the story follows my path after UCLA Urban Planning: creating #EmbeddedPlanning praxis in Florence-Firestone as an LA County Planner, advancing park equity at the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, returning to South Central LA to help launch the Florence-Firestone Community Organization (501c3), continuing my 20+ years of critiquing #HostileArchitecture, and now educating emerging critical planners at Cal Poly Pomona Department of Urban and Regional Planning.

My talk concludes with this message: Critical practice is possible. Move with intention to do it as a planner. How?

1/ Develop your own praxis
2/ Embed yourself in communities
3/ Reclaim public space

Embedded Planning at Columbia University

Mark Your Calendars, 11-29-22

“Embedded Planning is Worth The Struggle”

Columbia University, Lectures in Planning Series, in-person & online

By: Jonathan Pacheco Bell, MAUP+MLIS @c1typlann3r

Session excerpt:

In this time of increasing interrogation of planning’s legacies of inequity, planners are moving with intention to be better partners. And as part of repair and healing, planners are seeking more ways to build meaningful community #partnerships. No longer is technocratic rational planning the default.

But while the pivot to participatory methods helped democratize the planning process, professional practice still prefers project-based, one-off, transactional engagement.

Orthodox planning must evolve.

A better way is possible.

Los Angeles-based urban planner Jonathan Pacheco Bell urges practitioners to consider Embedded Planning praxis. Developed by Bell on the ground in South Central LA, Embedded Planning is a way to fundamentally restructure community engagement and practice. Embedded Planning means planning from the street, not from a desk. Embedded Planners work in the spaces and places of community members, building bridges with marginalized communities harmed by inequitable planning. Embedded Planning is a #praxis that puts theory into action to better this world.

Since Bell declared Embedded Planning exists in 2018, it has grown into an international movement among emerging planners. In this talk, Bell will show how #EmbeddedPlanning is being used to transform engagement into lasting community partnerships rooted in trust.

Community members have embraced Embedded Planning because they feel seen and included. Yet despite this praxis bringing ignored voices to the table, Bell encountered blatant #hostility from planning figureheads who judged Embedded Planning as “too political.” Through storytelling and personal reflection, Bell will illustrate the struggle to carry out Embedded Planning in the face of power. Attendees will learn the challenges and benefits of this unorthodox approach and understand why this praxis is the future of planning.

[… is that Kenny Uong on the cover?!]

Thank you, Mike Davis

When I abruptly quit architecture school in 1998 and was depressed and lost but found my way to critical planning practice, the book that got me there was City of Quartz.

Thank you and rest easy, Mike Davis.

We will keep up the fight.

South Central YLEAD

Infographic by South Central YLEAD at CDTech

This week I joined Youth Leaders Empowered Active & Diverse (YLEAD) at CDTech for a conversation on urban planning and gentrification in South Central LA. I shared my story of working on the ground supporting the community with tools and knowledge to preserve South Central history. We shed light on the importance of urban planning for a South Central future without displacement.

We Saw Ourselves in Cypress Hill

Representing Cypress Hill in my 1992 yearbook photo at Montebello High School

I wrote about the impact of Cypress Hill’s trailblazing self-titled debut album that dropped 31 years ago today, and explained why I represented them to the fullest in my 1992 yearbook photo at Montebello High School.

The #HipHopHistory microessay is on my Instagram (private but I add): https://www.instagram.com/c1typlann3r/

Excerpt:

“We saw ourselves in Cypress. They talked like us. We looked like them. Or tried, if you could grow a goatee.

This foolio went all in. I wore out that cassette tape. I grew a whiskery #brocha. I joined the Cypress Hill fan club, scoring stickers, newsletters, and the OG Cypress Hill t-shirt with the skull, weed, & globe in compass album cover on the front, and on the back it read: “The Phuncky Cypress Hill Shit.” The iconic gear got me suspended from Montebello High and gaffeled up by Magic Mountain security —“harassed by a pig real fast,” to quote B-Real.

When it came time for my 1992 yearbook photo, I had to represent. Vatos don’t smile ey. But I was moody too. The night before I’d phucked up my mustache trim. I cut it all off rather than leave it #chueco in the yearbook. I told myself that I was still down for mine. That’s not Johnny, it’s SKUZ ONE.”

Quoted in LAist on Student Debt

Image: LAist

I’m interviewed about the history of student debt in this excellent long form reporting by Julia Barajas at LAist. I thought about my urban planning students at Cal Poly Pomona and Pitzer College for this one.

Excerpt:

In May 2022, the Washington Post reported that White House officials were exploring the promised cancellation of $10,000 in student debt per borrower, but limiting efforts to people who earned less than $150,000 last year.

Opponents to this proposal can be found across the political spectrum.

Jonathan Pacheco Bell, an urban planner and adjunct professor at Cal Poly Pomona and Pitzer College, said he appreciates that Biden has not forgotten his campaign promise, but $10,000 is insufficient.

“It’s a way to split the difference so that you make some people happy and some people mad, but you’re not going to piss off the other side of the aisle, because you didn’t wipe away all the debt. It’s a very comfortable and extremely safe position,” he said.

Some of his students have taken on tens of thousands of dollars in debt, he added. “Meanwhile, the U.S. seems to be endlessly funding wars and other priorities with almost no hesitation, but it hesitates to invest in its own workforce.”