To the laughter of the other folks standing at the bus stop, they began to serenade me with a rendition of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’, then took a picture of me giving them $2, before thanking me and running off to find their next clue.
Scavenger hunts appeal to a certain audience and provide a great way to see your city. Traditional scavenger hunts involve obtaining a collection of items, usually within a day or short amount of time, and whoever gets the most items (or most hard-to-find items) wins.
Alternately, the low cost of digital cameras and memory makes it possible to organize photo scavenger hunts. Instead of collecting a physical item, teams can collect a picture of that item instead. In Edmonton, a photo scavenger hunt was part of the Edmonton Community Challenge, which I had a small hand in through the Next Gen Committee. Participating community leagues (neighbourhood associations) were asked to collect photos of everything from group members standing in front of different libraries to teammates getting high-fives from the City Councillors.
Another option for cities is to stretch out a scavenger hunt and support the tourism industry at the same time. Relatives in Vancouver have had a great time taking part in the yearly Vancouver Tourism Challenge, which challenges participants to visit a number of attractions, and solve clues or answer questions about the places they visit to get a stamp. Collecting enough stamps would earn them a privilege pass with additional admissions, bonuses, and savings.
Such programs can be used to encourage locals to make certain choices, for example supporting unique local restaurants, as in the case of Edmonton's Original Fare VIP Card program.
Scavenger hunts can help citizens to get to know their city, to put eyes on the street, and to help people meet new friends in their community. They help to create better ambassadors out of your local people, as they will know their way around better, and will get better at pointing out top attractions to people and giving directions. It's a great way to learn about your city while having lots of fun, and not necessarily spending a lot of money.
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Of course, if you were to ask a city planner how much they would be willing to pay to go see a city they have never been to before, especially one that has been highly ranked in the planning literature, inevitably they would give a number higher than $110, by the time you factored in the cost of airfare, hotel, food, and more. So I really couldn't complain.
Sometimes, when you are already booking a trip, you can intentionally schedule a stopover in another city you would like to visit for a relatively low cost.
As an example, I visited both Winnipeg and Thunder Bay en route to Timmins last year, and the difference in airfare versus flying direct ended up being under $100. Even after factoring in an extra night of hotel say, and a couple of car rentals, the price was still very reasonable given I was getting to see two new cities.
Sometimes you can also have luck getting a seat sale fare on a flight with a longer layover. A smaller airport with flights to a given destination only once a day (or every other day) might not allow for this kind of flexibility, but a larger airport that flies out multiple times a day to your final destination could.
Unless the airport is centrally located, two or three hours until your next flight probably isn’t enough time to allow you to take in a decent tour. However, six to eight hours could probably allow you enough cushion in your schedule to go see a few things, take a few photos, stop for a meal, and perhaps even do some walking around.
If you do end up deciding to rent a car, one tip is that you may be able to drop off the car at a different rental location, sometimes at no extra charge. For example, when I rented a car at Reagan Airport in Washington, DC, I was told that I could drop off the vehicle at Dulles Airport if I wanted to. In Victoria, BC, I had the option of picking up a rental car downtown, and then dropping it off at the airport north of the city, by Sidney, BC.]]>
An airport is a very common way for people to be initially introduced to your city, and it provides a great opportunity to say "Welcome" to visitors (and "Welcome home" to your local citizens)...In the case of Omaha, the airport itself is a bit dated, but a brightly coloured sign caught my eye upon getting off the plane and entering the terminal.
I've noticed that Edmonton's airport has improved in this respect, by adding posters and advertising for local services. The city has spent considerable money upgrading the airport, and it now features public art and welcome banners.
Omaha's Eppley Airport was also very clean, and there were posters indicating that it had been chosen as the Cleanest Airport in the USA, I believe.
Coming down the escalator which directed people to the baggage claim area, I was greeted with a wall full of local services and information, including my hotel, and I was easily able to use the well-placed courtesy phone to call for a shuttle.
Upon leaving the airport, which is located very close to the centre of town, the drive out is along a scenic boulevard, with colourful landscaping/flowers, and well-placed trees and light standards. There are signs indicating that the upgrade to the boulevard was completed recently, and large artistic fixtures have been added as well. The boulevard reminds me of my drive in from the Phoenix, Arizona and Mazatlan, Mexico airports.
The same rules could be applied to any point of entry in your city, including bus stations and train stations, many of which could use an upgrade today.
Of course, there are many historic "Grand Central Stations" still in existence, though not necessarily serving a transportation function anymore, which traditionally aided the sense of arrival and served to greet visitors in a large way, often with impressive architecture, stonework and arches. Visit one of these stations and make a point to look around and imagine yourself arriving for the first time with thousands of other people to a bustling station in the 1920s.
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B. Take 90 minute bus rides with two transfers to/from work. (180 minutes return)
C. Bike 60+ minutes to/from work. (120+ minutes return)
For those with the economic means, the “choice” is a clear one. But for those without, who either can’t afford or legally drive a car, and can’t realistically bike that distance, they end up “stuck” taking the transit.
The reality is that people, if they can comfortably afford to, will not walk 10 minutes to a bus stop to wait another 20 minutes (especially in bad weather) before taking a 20 minute bus ride to work, when driving takes considerably less time.
It's not so simple to say, "Just get rid of the car," since upwards of 30% of the population don’t/can’t drive and don’t have a car. It's also not realistic to say "Just live closer to downtown," since in many cities, it might be too expensive to live in the core, and selected central neighbourhoods which are not so expensive might not be so safe.
Some interesting references to the idea of choice are made by Peter Calthorpe in his book, The Next American Metropolis. Calthorpe writes:
- “The praise of the status quo is reinforced by the belief that design can’t change human behaviour. Simply stated, building walkable neighborhoods may not get people out of their cars and building front porches and neighbourhood parks may not create more integrated, convivial communities. To this I can only assert that people should be given the choice and that, neither black nor white, the result will probably be mixed – and that is OK. People are not simple and we should not attempt to make them so with cities and suburbs that limit their choices. I believe a diverse and inclusionary environment filled with alternative ways of getting around is inherently better than a world of private enclaves dominated by the car.” (p.10)
This only holds true if the "alternative ways of getting around" are at least equal in speed, practicality, affordability, and accessibility as a city designed for the private. Typical suburban neighbourhoods are designed for cars, and one transit stop in the middle of a spaghetti-street neighbourhood without a bus shelter won't cut the mustard. So the automobile wins because of the volume, size and scale of the infrastructure required to support it. As Calthorpe acknowledges:
– “As the ideas presented here have been implemented, they have become less pure, more contextual, and, some claim, compromised. Design becomes ‘the art of the possible.’ This, in the end, is what interests me most; the intersection between an ideal and the real world.” (p.12)
So the design of an auto-focused neighbourhood is tweaked slightly to allow for some transit opportunities and affordable housing, but is still not ideal. Then compromises are made, tipping the design in favour of the automobile again.
It doesn't have to be this way. We can provide more good job opportunities closer to people's homes. We can also provide transit more frequently and directly, and we can make the transit that arrives travel faster; via dedicated bus lanes, for example. We can design our neighbourhoods for people instead of cars. And we can design our neighbourhoods for everyone, because someone always suffers when we don't.
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Over the weekend, we drove from our home past the University of Alberta, which has a forested and architecturally interesting campus. The university campus is linked to Edmonton’s main commercial strip, Whyte Avenue, which we followed to get to our restaurant of choice. Eventually, from there, we continued east toward the end of the strip, and then drove home via a different route.
Graphically, we could display the journey as follows:
Alternately, we could generalize it like this:
The destinations of choice would vary based on a person’s tastes in tourist attractions or business requirements, but they would include top landmarks, educational institutions, chambers of commerce, shopping districts, and more. Ideally each of a city’s top destinations would be connected to rapid public transit, and the routes taken by that transit would be very scenic and aesthetically pleasing.
Washington DC capitalizes on Pierre L’Enfant’s historic angled street design overlaid on a grid system to create a large number of possibilities for walking around. Although I'm told by locals that streetlights between angled and grid streets can bog down drivers, the ability to take many different routes along triangular streets to and from destinations makes for a very interesting journey on foot.
In Canada, Winnipeg’s layout would allow you to take a bus from your hotel to the legislature, for example, then take a boat to the Forks, then walk back to your hotel along different streets.
If you are visiting Vancouver, a combination of walking, buses, the SkyTrain, ferries, the SeaBus, and horse-drawn carriages (in Stanley Park) enable tourists to sample a large variety of destinations in triangles.
There are plenty of quotes out there (such as those at ThinkExist.com) highlighting the importance of the journey over the destination, but thinking in terms of the linkages between destinations can allow us to appropriately enhance the pathways between them.
Ultimately, allowing people to take different routes each way with major landmarks and transit stops as destination markers can allow them to see more of the city, potentially shop more or see more attractions while visiting, and also have a more interesting, less monotonous experience.
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Whenever a veteran staff member recommends you read a particular master plan or development plan, write it down. When you have time, look it up, and if a good electronic version (i.e., a searchable Adobe PDF) is already available, save a link or bookmark to it so you can access it easily when you need it.
However, if all you can find are hard copies, then scan one in. Make it available on a shared drive and let other planners know you are starting a library of electronic files to speed up everyone's search efforts. Such a resource can make a big difference for departments with a lot of turnover, since you can relatively quickly bring newer planners up to speed on the key documents they need to know.
Searchability in such a system is very important. Down the road, you might remember a particular phrase from a sizable Zoning Bylaw or a Master Plan, but you forget the exact page or reference. Rather than thumbing through a hard copy trying to build the reference you need, you can easily search a PDF for the few words you might remember.
There are few things more frustrating than being asked to go look for something in a hard copy filing system that doesn't work. Folders get misfiled, documents (and folders) go missing, and the folder may have an encyclopedia worth of content for you to go through for the particular page or document that you need.
Every time your municipality prepares a new major plan, even if it is in a different department, either save or make sure you can access a copy. Once you feel you have a handle on the current plans, start finding and scanning in more historic plans. Don't be afraid to spend a bit of money on photocopying from government archives. Although you will encounter the odd sour archivist or librarian, I have generally found that most are only too willing to help you look up information, more information, and to share a story or two along the way. Sometimes they don't get very many visitors, especially ones that aren't carrying a seniors bus pass.
Archives and special library collections are not always open in central locations and they are not always open during lunch hours, but you may be able to get approval to switch your lunch hour around, or to make a trip there in association with another meeting or field trip. If you are smooth, you may even get approval to charge the photocopying to a particular cost centre number (e.g., one for Planning Studies) or even to petty cash.
In historic planning documents, I have come across useful and relevant quotes, maps, chronologies, organizational charts, and ideas. More than a handful of times, I have come across documents, Very possibly, you will also find, as I have, that planning reports produced around the turn of the (last) century - i.e., the 1900s/1910s - are of very high quality, and often have sections which could be applied today.
Historic documents can help you get a good handle on issues in the department that have been debated before, and on processes that have evolved over time. For instance, what sorts of checklists or ranking systems were used to assess capital budget submissions in the 1980s or 1990s? How successful was your department historically at acquiring land, collecting cash-in-lieu, or processing applications? How often were your department's appeals successful? Which worked and which didn't? If a plan set out 25 actions, how many were completed? Are there any outstanding items which are now being debated again today?
Eventually, and especially as more senior staff members retire, your knowledge of historic planning documents could be the thing that sets you apart from another, otherwise similar candidate for a promotion. Other staff will come to depend on your solid knowledge of historic documents. I have been asked numerous times about specific quotes, sections or references from historic documents, and I am happy to provide them when I know them.
More than once, I have attended meetings with community members who researched old neighbourhood association files and spent hours upon hours in the City Archives, becoming familiar with historic plans and documents. Especially where a document has been formally approved, even decades before, and has not been superceded, then that document should still be binding. Eager community members and sneaky legal types and private developers often do this research, and you should too.
You may very well catch a group or individual misquoting historic information, or misinterpreting an approved plan. Be prepared, because it could come up when you least expect it.]]>
- June 16-18: Meeting of the Minds Conference in Lincoln/Omaha, Nebraska
- June 16-17: Infrastructure Finance Conference in Chicago, Illinois
- June 17-19: Innovative Cities Conference: Best Practices in Urban Development in Lowell, Massachusetts
You might be able to attend most of the NASCO Conference and most the Innovative Cities Conference if you wanted to get really creative with flights, but unless you're Superman, it will be impossible to attend all four.
Assuming you wanted to attend sessions at all four conferences, your decision on which single conference to attend will ultimately come down to cost, content and contacts.
Cost:
There can be a big difference in the cost of flights and accommodations from city to city and state to state. You might be able to able to find a good hotel room in some cities for $60, whereas in others, finding one for twice that will be a challenge. Regarding flights, short-haul flights are usually cheapest, however, flights to major destinations where new flights have been opened up (e.g., Edmonton to Newark) can be less expensive than shorter flights to closer and more central destinations.
If you are applying for funding, through your workplace for example, then you may have funding limits and you may have to try to stretch every dollar. However, you will probably want to submit a proposal to attend whichever conference is most connected to your work and most likely to get approval.
If you have relatives in the vicinity of one of the conferences, you might be able to save some money on accommodations and perhaps even a rental car if you know a couple of good chauffeurs.
Content:
Again, as a general rule, whichever conference is best aligned with your specific job may be more likely to get you the funding you seek, but you also have to consider what your (and your corporation's) longer-term interests are. If you're working in drainage planning, for instance, you might want to attend a conference on leadership or management to boost your prospects of getting that big promotion. Or you hope to gradually transition into a transportation planning role, you might want to attend a conference on high speed rail opportunities.
Some conference organizers post the presentations of the different speakers online after the conference is over. The idea of this is if you had to choose between multiple breakout sessions, and you wanted to go to two different sessions at the same time but couldn't, then you could at least see the presentation of the one you missed online. Sometimes a password is required for access to these. Each conference has different rules.
Contacts:
Conferences can make great networking opportunities. One of your goals will be to go where the most people you want to meet will be. For instance, I remember reading that walkable communities expert Dan Burden makes an effort to regularly attend the yearly New Partners for Smart Growth conferences.
Typically, you can look up a conference’s agenda and speakers lists ahead of time, to get a feel for who will be attending. You may also be able to search online at LinkedIn, Twitter, or another blog page to get an idea of who else may be attending a particular conference.
If you have to miss a conference, but want to contact a particular speaker, you can usually find them online through your favourite search engine assuming they are "famous" enough. Many will have their own websites. Professors usually have a faculty page. Private sector employees can usually be reached through the main reception phone number posted on the firm's website. Likewise, public sector / government employees can usually be reached through a main reception number for either the particular department (e.g., Planning Department, Transportation Department) or through a primary city number that you can be transferred through.
I recommend contacting the speaker well in advance, and let them know that you had hoped to meet them in person at Conference X but will be busy attending Conference Y in another city. (This is a great reason, as it shows you are active in the field.)
If you try to reach them too close to the conference (before, during, or after), they may be busy preparing notes or presentation materials, or fielding emails from all the people they met in person at the conference, and yours could get lost in the mix.
Just a couple of other thoughts in closing: Consider, when you plan to attend a conference, if it is in, or near, a city you want to visit, for a vacation, family visit, or associated business trip. That way, you can kill two birds with one stone.
Also, be careful when you are applying to present at conferences to make sure that you have enough time to get between events, and don’t double-book yourself for two conferences at the same time.
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Just like other oil spills and releases which have happened in the past, this is completely unacceptable and irresponsible. A long list of references to other oil spills is available at the Global Marine Oil Pollution Information Gateway.
Sadly, not enough enough people with power decided that the Exxon-Valdez spill was unacceptable enough, so by default, we had to accept that it would happen again. And it has. Other oil tankers have spilled oil in other locations around the world. For example, a CN train derailed and spilled "700,000 litres of bunker oil and other chemicals into Lake Wabamun, 50 kilometres west of Edmonton, in August 2005." There was also the Prestige oil tanker which sank off the coast of Spain in 2002, which spilled an estimated 63,000 tonnes of fuel oil.
And it will happen again if enough people with power again do not decide that this is unacceptable.
Each day gets sadder and sadder, and we are told the well may be stopped/capped sometime in August. But what if that plan doesn't work? How is it acceptable that we should have to wait that long? How much more oil will be released by then?
The Reuters article indicates that "the U.S. government and military do not have the technology to plug the leaking well..." If they didn't have the technology, they should have it by now, a month and a half later. Why would the government allow the possibility of any activity which it would not be able to stop, or defend against?
For that matter, why are we as a society pursuing anything, off shore oil drilling included, which has the potential of becoming the "biggest environmental catastrophe"? Only thrill seekers run toward the edge of cliffs, but there is no thrill in watching this disaster unfold.
Why would we pursue anything in our cities and regions which has the potential to seriously damage our ecosystems, diminish biodiversity, increase our ecological footprints, increase the number of homeless, or injure opportunities for entrepreneurship? The answer typically has something to do with the almighty dollar, but I do not believe this is a good enough answer anymore.
We should be hearing some serious debate about whether the oil economy should even continue, given such potential for disaster, and the fact that we have multiple other viable sources of energy available to us (e.g., solar, wind, geothermal).
We should also be hearing more about alternative plans of action, plans which can be implemented prior to August. What is Plan B, C, D, etc. If the flow could at least be slowed down with a number of different methods, that would help.
It is sad to watch the area residents in tears, powerless to do anything about it, and many in tourism and fishing industries are even powerless to work.
Each day gets sadder and sadder, and we are told the well may be stopped/capped sometime in August. But what if that plan doesn't work? How is it acceptable that we should have to wait that long? How much more oil will be released by then?
Some models have suggested that the oil will gradually end up on the Eastern coast of the United States and Canada. What will this mean for cod fishers and coastal tourism operators? There are a lot of questions that remain unanswered.
This did not have to become the "biggest environmental catastrophe" in U.S. history, had the proper safety controls, policies and backup upon backup in place.
This should not have dragged on so long, and this should not be allowed to drag on any longer.]]>
My advice, if you are traveling between cities for work or conferences, bring a good watch and set the alarm 15 minutes before you reach your destination. Having your cell phone battery charged up is also important in case you ever did get trapped somewhere - on a plane or elsewhere - and needed to make a call.
Another challenge facing travelers, of course, is the baggage restriction. Each airline has different rules and fees for bringing luggage with you, so you should read the policies before you travel, especially if you tend to fly with a variety of airlines.
I find it cumbersome to wear dress clothes on a plane, especially for long flights, but it couldn’t hurt to at least wear or bring a collared shirt and a decent light sweater or jacket on board, just in case your luggage gets lost before that big meeting. Been there, and so comfortable shoes and pants that can go either dressy or casual are also a good idea. Once I got caught with a T-shirt and jeans before an important event when my luggage was misdirected, and I had to purchase dress clothes in a new city in an expensive part of town (downtown) on short notice.
If it happens to you too, you might also be able to get the airline to pick up the tab or issue you a credit if you save your receipts. :-)
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The Canadian Institute of Planners should be involved in and leading more of just these sorts of actions. Planners have a right and an obligation to work for the common good, and we are often in a position to impact, hopefully positively, people’s lives.
Every individual or family that is homeless has a different story. Many have addictions and/or mental illnesses. A great many have been unable to overcome a particular challenge in their life.
In many ways, it is getting easier and easier to become homeless. The numbers are increasing. So many North Americans are living paycheque to paycheque, and all it takes is an injury or a job loss to cause three missed mortgage payments or a certain missed number of rent payments to be out on the street. At the same time, inflationary policies continue to drive all sorts of costs upwards, and the mighty dollar can only be stretched so thin.
At the same time, it is getting harder and harder to access subsidized housing. A Toronto Star article about this Charter challenge (referenced in the Cities Centre e-newsletter) indicates that “almost 120,000 Ontario households are waiting for subsidized housing – an increase of almost 10 per cent since 2009”. This means we’re going the wrong way.
We should be doing everything in our power to reduce costs for the general public, reduce taxes, grow food closer to home, eliminate the expense of vehicles, and foster healthier environments.
The AICP Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct cites a principle to which we aspire, within our overall responsibility to the public, as follows:
“We shall seek social justice by working to expand choice and opportunity for all persons, recognizing a special responsibility to plan for the needs of the disadvantaged and to promote racial and economic integration. We shall urge the alteration of policies, institutions, and decisions that oppose such needs.”
So again, I commend the efforts of David, Emily, and all others involved in this Charter challenge. I also imagine the positive effect of our full complement of planners and civic improvement specialists worldwide doing likewise, in legal challenges on affordable housing and other necessary and worthy causes.
On a slightly unrelated note, today’s Toronto Star online also features an article on the new green roof at Toronto’s City Hall, in case you want to recommend your city do likewise. ]]>