Changes Facing Urban and Regional Planning

What strategies can planners and other urban managers use to envision, communicate, and implement change in cities? Both the general public and individuals within an organization have a tendency to be averse to change and risk.

Compensating for risk aversion and uncertainty is often necessary for a single actor to successfully implement change, but what happens when change is brought by a multitude of forces?

In this session, John Keisler, Innovation Team Director with the City of Long Beach and Paul Moore, Principal at Nelson Nygaard discuss the need for change in urban environments.

John Keisler introduced organizations and people as organisms that must change to survive. Both require leaders to help them change when they either cannot or will not. Keisler argued that change requires a vision and a good leader to both shape and share a vision.

To realize visions, organizations also need missions and objectives to identify key strategies to accomplish the overarching vision. Keisler identified two common barriers to change that affect both individuals and organizations. The first is technical change, which includes the adoption of new applications and may occur quickly. The second is cultural change, which occurs more slowly and is more difficult to implement as it involves history, culture, and values. Keisler stated that the public sector can implement change by fostering a culture of innovation and by supporting innovators. “Have the courage to be a leader,” he concluded, “but also know how to be a follower and to support those with good ideas.”

Following Keisler, Paul Moore challenged that cities are operating under mixed signals and misperceptions of myth versus reality. For example, what some see as urban sprawl may actually be dense nodes of activities. Cities need to change perspectives to see these issues from a fresh viewpoint. Change, Moore argued, comes from two sources: trauma and leadership. Trauma reveals that the status quo no longer functions and that cities cannot continue to operate as they have in the past. This causes people to rethink or reinvent an idea. The second way to implement change is through leadership; strong leaders create and execute visions of the future. Through both of these change mechanisms, planners must remember that the stories they tell are as important as the actions they take.

by Anne Brown