Land Use Change Processes are from Mars, Place Telling Processes are from Venus - Part I Place Story Telling Defined (January 5, 2023)
... The crises of representation of community place telling in land use change processes.
Vlog Overview
My return to the academy to earn a PhD after 32 years of parks practice (in 2014) uncovered many practice realities extensively studied by researchers. This dual lens gives me a unique inside (practice)/outside (research) perspective (and visa versa) to bridge the two worlds. Each vlog will have a short video presentation followed by some key takeaway notes. I will use lots of “I” and “me” to personalize my experiences, with lots of examples. I will share park development policy and practice decision-making using an academic lens (i.e., institutional theory). My practice experiences were in the Edmonton region in the 1982 to 2014 period. I have perspectives that may or may not be popular with my planning brothers and sisters, or elected officials. The vlog provides a perspective, but informed one, but mine and mine alone, based on my combined experience and research. So let’s get started!
Land Use Change Processes are from Mars, Places are from Venus - Part I The Challenge of Place Story Telling
This is the first of three Ice Sculptures (a.k.a place telling trilogy) developed to interrogate how land use change processes accommodate (or not) place story telling within them. For a video overview see next.
Overview Video
Key Takeaways
Place Meanings are Complex
Place meanings are not told in a direct fashion, but are embedded in narratives in stories of our lived experiences.
By listening to narratives, we understand the social and community contexts upon which place meanings depend.
Place Meanings are Audience Sensitive
We would share park meanings differently if sharing a beverage at a bar with beer league hockey buddies, at our kitchen table with our family, in a community meeting with local residents or at City Hall in front of TV cameras.
Place meanings are only consciously expressed when a proposal is being considered to develop or change a landscape.
Planning processes tend to be adversarial and competitive: one place meaning will win and another will lose.
The Crisis of Representation in Land Use Change Processes
Planning processes locate the discussion of the site of the land use change on a different land use, not a discussion of the meaning of the existing place to site users and the community.
Planning processes tend to be adversarial and competitive: one place meaning will win and another will lose and are often characterized as one way flows of information.
Process researchers have noted that developing consensus, alternatives or changes to applications cannot be reasonably negotiated in a council public hearing setting (Farkas 2013, Hristic and Stefanovic 2013).
Increase authority and prevalence of technical expertise and expedited approval processes can take precedence over public values.
I would also add that neoliberal policy environments focus on expedited decision-making, not developing meaningful place narratives of stakeholders within land use change processes.
The question for the future is (as per Stewart):
What strategies encourage the public telling of place meanings?
What strategies enhance social learning about community place based meanings?
What processes are effective at connecting place meanings, social learning and park planning?
Stewarts research encouraged researchers to focus on the social processes where place meaning and place telling processes can take place. This is ultimately the purpose of this three part trilogy. Part II of this vlog will share park site planning practice examples in Edmonton - the good, the bad and the ugly. Part III will provide an approach to story telling (Venus) to be embedded within future land use change processes (Mars).
References:
Farkas, Kerrie, R.H. “Citizen (In) Action: The Limits of Civic Discourse in City Council Meetings.” Critical Discourse Studies 10 (2013): 81-98. doi: 10.1080/17405904.2012.736702.
Hristic, Natasha Danilovic and Nebjosa Stefanovic. “The Role of Public Insight into Urban Planning Process: Increasing Efficiency and Effectiveness.” Spatium International Review 30 (2013): 33-39. doi: 10.2298/SPAT1330033D.
Stewart, William. “Community-based place meanings for park planning.” Leisure/Loisir 30, no. 2 (2006): 405-416. doi: 10.1080/14927713.2006.9651361