All of the articles read so far on planning have made one thing increasingly clear; urban planning is no easy feat. This week’s reading, “Justice and Urban Transformation: Planning in Context” by Fainstein continues to highlight the shortcomings of ongoing urban planning policies. The main focus is that these policies take a biased approach that mainly succumbs to the interests of the upper and middle class and obliterates those of the lower class. Considering that a majority of the public is made up of lower class families, this essentially causes the effects of urban planning to go beyond just aesthetics and architecture. As Fainstein has mentioned, theorists have transformed city planning into a social science, which it has always been but has never been acknowledged as such before. The very building blocks of how the city is structured geographically, economically, and politically all allude to social relations within the communities formed in the city. For instance, last week’s article talked about how bias against Blacks have affected their social development; due to discrimination, a majority of Blacks frequent low incomes, choose neighborhoods that are affordable, and in this way choose neighborhoods that are mostly Black. This has led to a segregation that was for the large part unintentional, but still completely preventable. City planning policies have gradually created a pattern of living that has affected whole communities on a psychological level, violating the potential for a just city.

In our meeting with Ray Reyes today at Melrose Commons, he mentioned the psychological impact that planning has had on the community in terms of community gardens. In his words, “A flower garden would be growing flowers, a vegetable garden would be growing vegetables, a community garden grows all of these plants, but it also grows a community.” These words stuck out to me, because it demonstrates the complexity that is a community; something that existing laws and policies cannot deal with as well as something that is sensitive enough to become molded  through these same laws and policies. In his piece “The Right to the City”, Harvey also discusses the urban renewal of Paris, and how the vibrant neighborhood he once knew was now crumbling, disintegrating, and becoming something unfamiliar.

DQ: How can city planning as a social science be integrated more into education and the large policy-making commissions of the city? How can pertaining to the social aspects of planning be beneficial for larger and more powerful groups such as real estate?