In the first episode of Season 2, you'll get to know a little bit more about the new hosts: Mary & Shelley! They'll provide information on how they got interested in city planning, what to expect with the new season, how to be involved, and their hottest city planning takes. Lots of really great discussion and conversation in this episode!
Want to be a part of the podcast? Send in an email!
The team behind the upcoming Better Planners podcast wants to hear from you about the real life issues you handle as a planner. What are the honest, gritty, wicked problems you find yourself managing?
To share your experiences, email betterplannerspodcast@gmail.com
Your message might end up in one of the upcoming podcast episodes. You can be as anonymous or as identifiable as you want.
Where to find us:
Website: https://oregon.planning.org/community/betterplannerspodcast/
Instagram: @betterplanners
In the first episode of Season 2, you'll get to know a little bit more about the new hosts: Mary & Shelley! They'll provide information on how they got interested in city planning, what to expect with the new season, how to be involved, and their hottest city planning takes. Lots of really great discussion and conversation in this episode!
Want to be a part of the podcast? Send in an email!
The team behind the upcoming Better Planners podcast wants to hear from you about the real life issues you handle as a planner. What are the honest, gritty, wicked problems you find yourself managing?
To share your experiences, email betterplannerspodcast@gmail.com
Your message might end up in one of the upcoming podcast episodes. You can be as anonymous or as identifiable as you want.
Where to find us:
Website: https://oregon.planning.org/community/betterplannerspodcast/
Instagram: @betterplanners
Hi, I'm Mary.
Shelley:And I'm Shelly.
Mary:We're the host of the Better Planners podcast from the Oregon chapter of the American Planning Association.
Shelley:The Better Planners Podcast highlights the real. About real solutions. From the ground level work of planners, community development advocates, and allied professionals,
Mary:we hope the Better Planners podcast helps us all become...
Mary & Shelley:better planners.
Shelley:So welcome to the first episode of the Better Planners Podcast, through the Oregon chapter of APA. Mary, what can listeners expect from this podcast?
Mary:Well, we're expecting a couple of things with this podcast. The first being we'll have longer, more interview based episodes, quarterly, about quarterly. That's our goal, with other planners, other experts in allied fields, similar professions or just, community members doing really awesome work. And then we'll also have kind of shorter episodes that are more discussion based, like this one today that we're gonna have.
Shelley:Awesome.
Mary:Speaking of discussion-based episodes, Shelly, how can, listeners be part of this podcast?
Shelley:Yeah, so we actually have a phone number that, listeners can call, leave a voicemail and share with us the challenges that they're facing, the obstacles that they're trying to overcome related to their planning work. Something we are both really interested in are the wicked problems of planning, like the big, hairy, seemingly insurmountable problems that planners face in our work. So this phone number you can call, leave a voicemail, you can be anonymous, you can give us your name, whatever information you wanna give, ask your question. If it cuts you off, call back again and we will play them in our episodes and we'll talk about what we think. So that number to. It is 5 0 3- 4 3 3- 7 5 4 5 and we'll have that number in the show notes as well,
Mary:and people can also email too. We have an email account at Better Planners podcast@gmail.com and planners is plural.
Shelley:So many ways to get in contact with.
Mary:That's right.
Shelley:Yeah. Perfect. So Mary, what are we talking about today?
Mary:Well, we have a couple of questions that we'll discuss, kind of more about our background that we got into planning, kind of learn a little more about us. And finally, what are our hottest planning takes?
Shelley:Oh, that's a good one. I have some hot takes.
Mary:Me too.
Shelley:I definitely have some hot. Great. So I'm looking at this list of four. Really good question. That we're gonna use to help listeners get to know who we are, the context that we're coming from. Yeah. So let's start with the first one. So, Mary, tell me a story from when you were younger that impacted your decision to pursue urban planning as a career.
Mary:Sure. So I have a roundabout way of getting to urban planning, which I think a lot of planners probably have very similar experiences, but mine is really with how I interacted with the city that I lived in. So I am born and raised in Portland, Oregon. I went to high school in downtown Portland, and if you know Portland and downtown it's got lots of really amazing transit options for people. So I, I grew up as a teenager taking the bus, taking our max, taking our street car. Pretty much daily with my friends having this really awesome environment to kind of experience and feel freedom within the city that I don't know every teenager in America had, especially if you weren't in urban sort of environments, like like I was. And they also happened to have, at that time a fare-less square in downtown Portland, and it was basically a certain square blocks, number of square blocks in downtown Portland was free, so you could use transit for free. It was really amazing for a teenager who didn't have a lot of money. And if it were me, I would say you should have that again,
Shelley:Yes, agreed. I would agree.
Mary:But it was just a really amazing way to experience the city that I grew up in. and I didn't quite realize until I was a little bit older that that was basically jumpstarted my interest into city planning and urban planning. I ended up going to a college that had a planning program as an undergrad, which was really awesome because I didn't really know what I wanted to do going into college, which again, I think a lot of people also feel that, and I sort of bumbled my way, way around. I was interested in architecture, but then I didn't end up doing that and I found out about planning because of my interest in public health and transportation. Again, kind of things that I really enjoyed doing as a younger person and realizing,"Oh, You could do this as part of your job." It was kind of amazing. So that's sort of how I stumbled into, into planning, and I've been doing it for the last six, almost seven years now.
Shelley:Yeah. Nice. Awesome. You know, transit's a gateway drug, into civic engagement.
Mary:That's right. What about you?
Shelley:So I got into planning also in kind of a roundabout way. I did my undergrad in philosophy, which, you know, we could have a conversation all day about what studying philosophy means, what it means to do philosophy, but kind of, what I've landed on is that doing philosophy means. Asking why something is the way that it is, and why isn't it otherwise?
Mary:Mm-hmm.
Shelley:And so it's all about unpacking the assumptions that we have about the world, about our experiences, about our thoughts, and digging into them and asking questions like why, why isn't it some other way? So with that kind of intellectual background, my senior year of my undergrad, I knew that I wanted to go to grad school, but I wasn't totally sure what I wanted to. So I was at the public library one day just looking through the shelves and I happened upon a book of hypothetical designs of car-free cities and it really like scratched that itch for me of like that idea of questioning assumptions. And recognizing like, wow, we have all of these assumptions about the way that cities are designed, about how they're designed for. And this book really challenged that, which coming from a background and philosophy I was really interested in. So from there I sort of started learning more about urban design, urban form planning. My husband, I had just gotten married. My husband got accepted to a PhD program at Ohio State and I was looking at grad programs at Ohio State to see if there was something that I would be interested in doing. And they had a master's in city planning. And so I got into that. I learned pretty quickly that, they had a dual degree program where you could do the master of city planning and a master of public administration.
Mary:Oh, nice.
Shelley:Which, which I've always been interested in, like public policy and, and government and governance and all of that. So I did that, and then I worked as a planner in Ohio for a couple of years before I decided I wanted to live in the Pacific Northwest. Moved out to Oregon and I've been a planner out here for three.
Mary:Nice. Yeah. I love the fact that both of us used, public facilities to kind of find out more about planning
Shelley:Yeah. Yeah. That I, that, yeah. That is so interesting. I love that, that it was the publicly funded. stuff, the publicly funded infrastructure that that got us into wanting to participate more in the public realm.
Mary:Yeah.
Shelley:Yeah. That's so interesting. Cool. Okay, so the second question is, good. What do you think are the most significant issues that face planning in Oregon? And do you think those issues are being addressed well, or do you think they can be addressed better?
Mary:I don't think this will come as a surprise. to most people, but I think one of the most significant issues facing the planning profession in Oregon right now is housing.
Shelley:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Mary:Not just in Oregon, but all over the country. And we just, for a state that has pretty strong land use planning. At a state level, we just have not been keeping up with the changes and the need needs related to housing in Oregon, especially with change in demographics, change in, in just the population. Like I, I don't think the planners in the 1970s predict would've predicted the amount of people that are now living in Oregon. And so that snowballs into all of these issues related to housing and basically the lack of affordable housing at all income levels, essentially. Not even just lower middle income, all income levels. We just need more housing in general. And so I, I would say that's the most significant issue that we're facing at the moment, especially with how it correlates with housing and, and climate change, like climate refugees. I feel like we're, we're gonna be seeing a lot more influx of people into Oregon, especially with all of those flooding that's been happening in California. And all, all of that going on. We really need to be taking more of an offensive side of things versus we've sort of been lacking and. Like being in defense, if I'm gonna keep using sports references, we're not thinking creatively enough about how to address this in a way that re really, really needs to make a dent because at the moment, the way we're, we're going about things, like we've made a lot of really good changes at the state level, but at the same time, it's a lot of change for people. especially people that have lived in a community, in a neighborhood that has looked and felt the same for the last 50 years, and now their, their neighbor could build a triplex next to them. And that sounds scary to a lot of people. But at the same time, I don't know if we're having enough of a discussion or a deeper discussion about. Yes, change is happening, but here's the reasons why it needs to happen, or here's the reasons why it's beneficial for us to do these things or consider these things, or think about these things versus just having a knee-jerk reaction to change, which again, right. Easier said than done. Change is scary, but I myself, am a millennial. I can't afford to buy a house. I have to keep renting rent. Prices are going up. Because of that, it's, it's gonna keep snowballing if we don't become more aggressive. And I feel like Oregon really is doing. Is being more aggressive probably than other states. Yeah. But I struggle to think, are we really doing enough?
Shelley:Yeah. Yeah. You know, I totally agree. I, I think I agree. I think one of the biggest issues facing planners in Oregon is housing. And all of the issues that orbit housing and, and I, I think we're doing this, I think when we talk about like O APAs legislative priorities, DLCD is the Department of Land Conservation and Development, the state agency, their, their legislative priorities. You know, we are trying to get to a place where we're more proactive instead of reactive. You know, I'm, I'm interested to see kind of going more in that direction. More of a, of a proactive approach to housing planning. I'm really interested in seeing more diversity in legislative approaches.
Mary:Yeah.
Shelley:Someone could argue that we're, we're relying too much on market. When we could benefit from, approaching this from different angles, from different perspectives. And I agree that it seems like Oregon as a state is on the right track in, in getting to a place where we're taking this seriously and we're trying to be proactive in planning for housing and in planning for population growth. You know, I, I work for a smallish town and I a hundred percent sympathize with residents who are not happy about growth, aren't happy about in migration. I sympathize with, with community leaders who are frustrated with, you know, the, the lack of local control. Yes. And so I would, I would love to see something from the state on how we as planners can message these topics.
Mary:Yeah.
Shelley:And how we can communicate these topics better and talk to the people in our communities about how, no, this is actually good for us. This is actually good for our community. So I'm excited to see, you know, what happens. I'm hopeful, but it is definitely a, a really pressing issue that. Multifaceted and has a lot of variables at play and needs to be addressed from multiple perspectives.
Mary:Yeah. And, and planning only has control over so many things too. Right. Which is, which is also the interesting part because, you know, we don't have control over the cost of construction. We don't have control over the cost of land. Those are, are huge factors. When we talk about like market rate development of housing that plays. the end sale price of housing, but you know, I, I would love to see more of an aggressive way of trying to assist market redevelopment to build more middle income housing because in some of the communities that I worked in, yeah, once, like the middle housing legislation kind of went through and you know, the city council approved it and everything. There's some interest, but it still is like the norm to build subdivisions of single family homes.
Shelley:Yeah. Oh yeah.
Mary:And, and where can planners have more of a bigger part or role in one. Okay. Yeah, they're allowed now. Okay, cool. But how can we really help create more incentives or some way to kind of really showcase the, that. We're not trying to get rid of single family homes. You can still build those, but what do you need to kind of go, go in a different way and do things a little bit differently?
Shelley:Yeah.
Mary:And you know, there's so many factors that play into that. You know, building codes too. I mean, I think we need to have a more holistic look, an approach beyond just what the land use does. And I think planners can be really good conveners of those holistic discussions.
Shelley:Yeah, I think that kind of goes in line with sort of the contemporary planning theory right now as planners, as communicators. And coalition builders. I think that that's a, a, a really important aspect of our profession that is becoming increasingly important. This third question, what do you hope listeners of this podcast do after listening to it? What do you hope they take away from, from these episodes we're gonna be making?
Mary:Yeah, so I think, and I, I think you probably agree as well, we really want this podcast to be. A useful tool for other planners, other community development type professions, other just like community activists or people that are just interested in planning and how it relates to them and their communities. I, I would hope that the episodes we have are something that they can take back to their coworkers, their bosses. Elected officials, they're family, friends, and start discussions of interesting, unique, and innovative ways to handle like planning's biggest issues that are happening today. So, so that. We can start having like these more proactive, innovative ideas and understand that that comes from, you know, the planners on the ground level, the ones that are at the counters, they're local city government, you know, the, the ones that are at the community meetings. We want these to be really ground level type discussions and stories that will be helpful in how you do your day-to-day.
Shelley:Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with that. I would, I would love for this to be like the creation of a toolbox.
Mary:Yes.
Shelley:You know, things that people can take away and implement in their own communities. I would also love to see it be a platform for perspective broadening. I would love it to be, you know, that, that someone who listens to this can come away and, and say, you know, I hadn't considered that before, or I hadn't thought about that issue that way. Yeah. I'm really hopeful that, that we can do that, especially when it comes to planning on social issues. Particularly equity in, in thinking about how we engage with, how we plan, for how we communicate with how we work within and work for. historically marginalized communities.
Mary:Yes.
Shelley:You know, people who have not been traditionally well served by planning in the past, you know, really thinking about how can we, how can we do better moving into the future in, not only in including those populations and our planning efforts, but also leveraging, leveraging the assets that they have in our communities. And recognizing our assets in our communities and i, I hope that that's kind of a, a, a, a very specific thing that people take away from, from this podcast.
Mary:And I would love to have the episodes highlight the good work that marginalized communities are also doing already as well. A lot of them are, are already doing amazing work and highlighting how planners can assist in the work that's already being.
Shelley:Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think that that, that has been kind of an unfortunate trend in planning since, since planners started taking an eye towards the idea of advocacy, the idea of equity, that it's been a lot of like, we're the experts, okay, we're gonna come in and do it for you. And you know, and ignoring like no people in those communities have been doing the work.
Mary:Exactly.
Shelley:Yeah. I think that, that's a really important perspective to understand.
Mary:Yeah. And there's a lot we can learn from that. And, and I would just love to hear o other stories of other planners who have been able to do that as well. Or what are some like tools or things that they've learned that have really helped them shape their work to be more equitable. Like for example, I have a story where, and I tell this a lot to people sometimes, but I have a story where we did a focus group in one of the communities that I used to work in, and it was a Spanish speaking focus groups. So Spanish speakers in the community. And granted they're not gonna speak for all, all Spanish speakers, but it was about housing and they loved the idea of cottage clusters because it just meshed really well with the way that they lived their lives culturally. They were more multi-generational. They wanted their family members to be close to them. They wanted their, the aunts and uncles and siblings and grandparents to be close by in a, in a really close-knit community. And cottage clusters would allow them to do that. But that had been a housing type. Wasn't allowed in since the, like 1950s, and how is that affecting different communities and cultures within our own cities?
Shelley:Yeah. Yeah.
Mary:And so I, I wanna have more of those discussions and have planners bring up those things that they've learned. You know, I'm, I'm a white female and so that's not something that I would've considered in terms of cottage cluster housing. But I was so happy that we gave them the space for them to, to talk about that. So then I did know, and now I talk about it all the time with people.
Shelley:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's so interesting. And then this last question, Mary, what. Is your hottest planning take.
Mary:Okay. I definitely have a hot planning take
Shelley:Tell me. I wanna know it.
Mary:And if you've ever worked with me, you've probably heard me talk about it too. we sort of touched on it a little bit earlier when we were talking about ways that we could like, be doing a little bit better. And how I sort of like head roundabout way of getting into planning. So I, I started out in my undergrad actually trying to get a business degree and then realizing that was not for me. And I was not good at accounting. But I took marketing classes as part of that. And so I've always had this, like in, in the background, have had this sort of business. Backdrop on things when I think about things, and ultimately I think that planning needs to learn how to communicate.
Shelley:Oh yeah.
Mary:Especially with the amount of community engagement that we do, the amount of, I mean, basically we need to be marketing these plans and ideas to the general community. And planning is so technical sometimes, and we can get really in the weeds about things, but it is a skill and it's something that I think we all really need to work on, is to be able to dispel that information. easy, digestible language for the average person.
Shelley:Yeah, absolutely. Yes.
Mary:And a lot of it is story-based, you know, it's like people are attracted to emotion, as much as we want to say like, oh, but here's the facts. If you don't tie it to something, it's really hard for somebody to think about something in a different way.
Shelley:Right.
Mary:So, when we did like community engagement in my graduate program, we had this like final thesis group, thesis process for anyone that's gone to Portland State University for their grad program. You know what I'm talking about. But we had this interesting, we were doing this whole like affordable housing plan for a county in, in Portland, which is kind of a lot to ask of grad students to do, but we did it.
Shelley:Oh yeah.
Mary:And we had this amazing graphic that I think we actually got from Metro, which is a regional government here in Oregon, basically show showcasing the type of worker and what they could afford, what type of rent and what type of mortgage they could afford. But they tied it with a worker and who they were. So a teacher could only afford this amount of money. And I, and these people had not been at, at this event, had not probably bought or rented a house in decades and so they just were a little bit out of touch and they had no idea what it was currently like. But when you put into perspective of this is what a teacher makes, they all, they probably all know what it, who a teacher in their lives are. They've all had'em. Yeah. And it puts a face to a fact. And it's, it's something that you really need to. Work on is not something that everyone's gonna naturally be good at, which is fine, but it needs to be at the forefront, in my opinion, of planning.
Shelley:Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Good planning is, is fundamentally about communication and communicating ideas and marketing those ideas. Right. Getting buy off. Yes. Getting buy off from the plans that you, that you create. Yeah. That's so important. That's so important. I really like how you emphasize this idea. I like how you said it, putting a face to effect and, and telling a story and creating like a narrative to, to communicate the idea is, is really important and really impactful.
Mary:Yeah. Yeah. Because, well, people are more persuaded by things that they can relate to. Right? Not that, you know, we're trying to persuade people and, you know, say that you need to think like us, but it's, it's to give them the opportunity to think differently about something. In a different way that maybe challenges what they thought before, which is fine but it's, it needs to be something that's really digestible and simple, because otherwise it's gonna go over their heads and it's gonna feel like we're just talking over them and not trying to explain to them about things. Yeah. Because like I said, we're, Oregon is going through a lot of change right now, and it's very scary for people. if we aren't gonna effectively communicate to people, it's gonna go over their heads and ideas and plans and tools to stop dead on their tracks before they even get anywhere.
Shelley:Yeah. Especially with just how skeptical people are about government.
Mary:Yeah.
Shelley:That, that, that ability to communicate and to build relationships and to build trust. Mm-hmm. is like integral to get planning.
Mary:Yeah. Yeah. So I would, I would love to have more episodes in this podcast, kind of talking with people that are really good at communicating and they may not even be planner. Quite frankly.
Shelley:Yeah.
Mary:And I think we need to rely on, on people besides like, we need to go outside of the planning field. And work more with visual communicators, work more with artists who can draw out really amazing things. That can really convey an idea to people. You know, we, we have a lot of these really grand ideas, but if you can't visually understand it, it's gonna be really hard for somebody to say,"Oh yeah, I'm okay with the duplex going next to my house" if they don't even know what it's gonna look like.
Shelley:Sure.
Mary:I, I would love to be able to, to have more creative ways of, of communicating to people and showing planners how they can rely on, like, planners don't have to be the ones to do everything. But we can know who to go to that can help, you know, market or, or communicate an idea to people.
Shelley:Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Mary:What's your hottest take?
Shelley:My, I have two. I have two hot takes.
Mary:Okay, great.
Shelley:The first one is about the profession of planning, which is that I think this really unfortunate thing happens to planners at some point in their careers that is, it's a virus and it. when planners become cynical about the work that we do.
Mary:Yep.
Shelley:I think that we are at this unfortunate point in our profession where we equate cynicism with wisdom. And we think that if you are idealistic, that you're just naive and you just haven't been in the field long enough. And I hate that because it's. lazy, and it's boring and it's unimaginative. I think planning attracts idealists because it, it fundamentally planning is about this idea of, hey, this, this thing is a problem now, but we can create a set of conditions. To actualize a future in which this thing is better. Right. That's like the poor fundamental assumption of planning, and so it attracts idealists and we just do this thing where, you know, if you're a planner and you're an idealist, it just hasn't been beaten out of you yet. You just haven't like come to your senses and realized that there are all of these. Bureaucratic and economic and social and political and legal systems that you have to wade through in order to make anything happen. And here's the thing, like I think planning, good planning operates in this like liminal space between idealism and realism, it's, it's fundamentally idealistic in that it says we can create a better future, but it's also very realistic because there are all of these systems that you have to work through to try to make that better future happen. And I think there, there is space between being naive and being cynical. And that is a difficult space to occupy, but I think it's very important to learn how to do it. And I, I hate, I hate when I see planners think that it's a, it's an all or nothing. It's an either. That, you know, if you're in the field long enough, you become cynical. Yeah. That's my, that's my first hot take.
Mary:Yeah. Well, and I've even, I've even found myself, you know, I've worked in city government planning for six years and I totally have found myself in that scenario as well, being like, somebody's telling me what they wanna do, and I'm like, well, good luck getting that through I, I'm aware of that mindset because I also have noticed it in other people and it really bugs me and I check myself when I have that kind of mindset because I don't wanna be the person that automatically right away is like, I already know the systems. I know what it's gonna take. To even think about this and it's not worth. Whereas, whereas we could be the ones to kind of help navigate somebody through Yes, it's gonna be complicated. Maybe sometimes, or it's like a completely, totally different idea than what we've ever thought before about something. But planners can be the ones to help entertain that idea versus the ones to squash it.
Shelley:Yeah, I like that. That planners ought to be the ones to, to more broadly about what's possible.
Mary:Well, cuz I think people get into planning and if you, you've talked about this before. They get, they get into planning because they have this really amazing idea of wanting to create change in communities to benefit everyone. And there's a lot of hoops that you have to jump through sometimes and it can be really alarming sometimes when you first get into planning and maybe having like more resources, especially for younger planners, to help them navigate that change. Cuz when you go from a school environment where you're talking about all these really grand, big ideas and then you get into the planning world. And you start working and you go, oh, like this is different. You know, which I, I'm probably not even just in, in planning, probably a lot of, you know, types of degrees, but if there's a way that we can help keep that level of enthusiasm, enthusiasm and radicalness and just general wanting to really, really tackle some of these wicked problems that we have. I, I think this podcast maybe could help be part of that, of, of helping people keep that mindset no matter how many years you've been implanting.
Shelley:Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. And then my second hot take, probably not a hot take among planners, but I think definitely a hot take among the population at large is that I hate lawns They're an incredible waste of space at a huge waste of water.
Mary:Oh my gosh.
Shelley:There are parts of the country where like they, they just need to be illegal. We're planning these non-native. Grasses these super water intensive grasses in places that like experience massive amounts of drought and don't have enough water for everybody to water their lawn. And they just, they're just this weird like relic of English aristocracy that we adopted in American suburbia.
Mary:Yeah. Boo grass. Let's find creative different ways for green space.
Shelley:I'm not anti grass. I'm anti-lawns!
Mary:Yes, that's fair.