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A “just right” amount of ballast provides steadiness so people can choose where they want to go—and choose a course to get there.
It feels good to fight and argue, but when there’s no pressure to convince others or be convinced, we listen in ways that allow us to improve our communities.
Beth Sanders and Jason Syvixay investigate how their locational, gender, sexual orientation, age and racial identities shape their experience of cities, their work as city planners and some implications for the planning profession. (Note: you don’t have to be a city planner to enjoy this conversation!)
City making, the weaving of city building and city caring, only happens when we have a social habitat in which we choose to weave these perspectives together.
We only organize together if we are in the push and pull of conversation, wrestling with the action we feel we need to take. If not, we are being organized, passive participants in the status quo doing others’ bidding.
In my quest to figure out how planners and everyone else in the city can work better together, I’ve learned the magic of finding the minimal critical structure that enables new possibilities.
Think about an activation like a guided meditation. You can listen to them in order or in response to your intuition--which one catches your eye?
Radical honesty with my ski patrol colleagues makes me feel less scared. And more capable, too.
There are two kinds of inconceivable: 1) the one I tell myself isn’t possible and 2) the one I can’t imagine.
Beth has landed in perimenopause, asking herself the question she asks others everywhere she goes: How do I make my way through this transition with care and compassion? The answer is in thinking not of The Change but of changing. Change as a verb.
What on earth are intersectionality and GBA+? And what do they have to do with city making? Beth Sanders and Soni Dasmohapatra explore intersectionality and Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) in their work as city makers; they land on this understanding: GBA+ is a means to be in a conversation about improvement.
How do you design a public meeting when you believe that everyone has something to say, not just the vocal few?
When we avoid sharing opportunities to make meaning of our experiences and make choices from the meaning we've made, we avoid the challenges and brilliance of community. And the choice, in every moment, rests with each of us. Choosing transition means choosing to participate in our changing.
We want change to happen without changing ourselves, without having to do anything differently. Yet, choosing transition means choosing to participate in our changing.
When we avoid sharing opportunities to make meaning of our experiences and make choices from the meaning we’ve made, we avoid the challenges and brilliance of community.
An emotional upset and a ski trip helped me unearth two limiting beliefs about relationship skills.
Agreements about how we’ll talk and relate to each other are a commitment to be responsible for the quality of our relationships. In this article: 2 symptoms of, and 7 antidotes to, relationship bypassing.
Images created for this episode can be found here.
Assuming that the expertise in the room is in one or a few people disables and minimizes the resilience of a community. In this episode: 4 symptoms of conversation bypassing and 5 antidotes.
Whether online or in-person, how we gather fosters connection between people only when we design in opportunities for people to make contact with each other. When we don’t, we engage in connection bypassing.
Agreements about how we’ll talk and relate to each other are a commitment to be responsible for the quality of our relationships.
In my quest to figure out how planners and everyone else in the city can work better together, I’ve learned the magic of finding the minimal critical structure that enables new possibilities.
Community has a vital role to play when emergencies arise: to enable transition from what was to what could be.
In my quest to figure out how planners and everyone else in the city can work better together, I’ve learned the magic of finding the minimal critical structure that enables new possibilities.
Rescue embodies resilience only when the rescuer takes action the rescued can’t do for themselves (and wants).
In my quest to figure out how planners and everyone else in the city can work better together, I’ve learned the magic of finding the minimal critical structure that enables new possibilities.
I had an “allergic reaction” this summer to some language people around me are using to invite climate action: “be a first responder.” And so, I sit and write as a means to scratch the itch. What I found: As the scale of emergency grows, the ability of community to be proactive, responsive and response-ABLE becomes imperative.
We've built transportation systems that allow the most affluent and privileged to move with ease around the city. Those will less affluence and power do not have the same choices, perhaps access to a car or even a bike. And then the question: is the infrastructure in place for people to move about the city without a car?
6 questions to ask at any time in your career in Beth’s address delivered to the Master of City Planning graduates at the University of Manitoba, June 2021.
In my quest to figure out how planners and everyone else in the city can work better together, I’ve learned the magic of finding the minimal critical structure that enables new possibilities.