"It never occurred to me that I could hire someone to help with relationships." These were the words of surprise last week from a city planning colleague interviewing me as part of a research project about enabling communities and city hall to work better together. The people in city hall are struggling to create relationships with the communities they serve, so the plans that get written work in city hall and on the ground.

At the crux of this "A-ha!" moment for my colleague was my description of the work I do. I'm not a public sector city planner who works for city hall, school boards or other levels of government. And, while I run my own company, I'm not a private sector city planner who works for builders and developers. Instead, the work I do falls into a different category: relationship broker.

Two binaries

The private—public binary

Within the planning profession, as with many other city professions, there's a clear dividing line between those who work in the public and private sectors. It can be very similar work if you're a development planner, just on opposite sides of the development application.

While we adhere to the same professional code of conduct, the public sector planner and the private sector planner live in different worlds, with different priorities. Moreover, each of these worlds can feel quite different. For example:

Private sector planner—is oriented to the business needs of land development, for example, while meeting the wants and needs of a specific population.
Public sector planner—is oriented to the instructions set by elected officials and to meet a range of conflicting wants and needs of citizens.

Neither of these is wrong or right; it's the same work from a different perspective.

The development—policy binary

There is a second binary—in the work we do as planners—within the private and public sectors: you are a development planner or a policy planner.

Development planner—knows the rules and regulations about developing land and organizing and supporting a range of professions to bring a building or larger development to fruition.
Policy planner—writes the rules and regulations to guide the development of the community or city. This planner works on rules that can be tight and specific or provide broader policy guidance that instructs the specific rules.

Whether the planners are making applications for development or reviewing those applications, it's the same work from a different perspective. And if a planner is writing policy within government or as a consultant outside government, it's the same work.

Reach beyond the binary

These two binaries, one locational (private or public sector) and the other about the work itself (development or policy), constrict how and what planners and non-planners think of the work planners do—and the planners themselves. For example, do you think of a private sector planner as flawed or inferior? Or is the public sector planner inferior? What about the planner that always works in development planning, or the planner that always works on policy?

While these binaries help us identify our preferences for the kinds of work we like or are good at, they can also trap us into thinking that the work we do is either good or bad, or better or inferior to others' work. We are caught in the binary when our sense of identity is entangled with our work, especially when we create an "us and them" view of our work.

What if we relaxed into simply knowing, as a statement of fact rather than judgement, that: "I work in the public sector," or "I work in the private sector," or "I am a development planner," or "I am a policy planner." (Besides, many planners move from one to the other over the course of their career. And maybe back again.)

What if, when relaxing these binaries, we made room for other kinds of planning work that support the well-being of our communities and cities: economic development, transportation planning, climate action, social justice and equity.

When our cities need to figure out where we're going and how to get there, planners are on hand to provide support. Planners are not just about land development and land development policy.

“When our cities need to figure out where we’re going and how to get there, planners are on hand to provide support.”

New growth

A decade ago, while I was serving as president of the Alberta Professional Planners Institute, we developed the Competency Tree to support the continuous professional learning of the planning profession.

The APPI Competency Tree: Functional and Enabling Competencies

We identified two categories of competencies: functional and enabling.

Functional competencies

Human settlement
History and principles of community planning
Plan and policymaking
Government law and policy
Developments in planning and policy
Plan and policy considerations
Plan and policy implementation

Enabling competencies

Interpersonal skills
Critical thinking
Professional and ethical behaviour
Leadership
Communication

Next new growth

The new growth that took place a decade ago is now old growth. We can find the new growth we now need in the words of my colleague: "It never occurred to me that I could hire someone to help with relationships in the city."

Over the years, I have struggled with my place in the planning profession because I do not fit either binary. I've had moments where I resisted the urge to chuck the profession out of my life yet surrendered to a profound longing to craft processes and experiences that allow us all to make cities that work well for us. As a result, I have a bigger view of planners and planning.

Over the thirteen years it took to write Nest City: How Citizens Serve Cities and Cities Serve Citizens, I found my place, and I also found the new growth for the planning profession. Here are a few words from Nest City (Chapter 4: Planning is Work the Serves the City):

I see a new possibility where—as citizens and cities—we make choices that have a clear purpose, are clear about what we will learn together as we work toward that purpose, and are clear that we wish to be in relationship with one another in order to sustain what we build. This is the ultimate commitment we make to each other—to sustain life in a way that allows us to look after ourselves, each other, and the places we live. Without a place to live and fully be ourselves, with others, we do not live, let alone thrive.

How well we work together, all of us everywhere, matters because it shapes everything else. A good quality social habitat allows us to be brilliant together because we make room for bright ideas, practical know-how, creative solutions and new possibilities.

The cities we make for ourselves are not made by city planners; they are made by all of us through our choices and contributions, whether physical, social, cultural or economic. City planning is a specific type of work in the city that helps us notice where we want to go and put structures in place to help us move in that direction. And far more than was the case many decades ago, this work must involve a range of community stakeholders and interests.

“The cities we make for ourselves are not made by city planners; they are made by all of us through our choices and contributions.”

Social habitat competencies

Regardless of our point of departure, as the official planners or as a builder or business owner, working in a community non-profit organization, or volunteering in our community, we come together to make plans. In many cases, the planners write down the plan or make the first attempt at writing it down, so the rest of us know what we are talking about. But the plan does not belong to the planner; it belongs to the broader community.

The official planners, and the others who work with and around those planners, are growing new competencies to foster generative social habitats that enable people to hear each other and craft a shared future together:

Hold space for diversity, equity and inclusion
Host conversations that allow new possibilities to emerge
Create social habitats where conflict is explored and resolved
Enable minimum critical structure needed for the community to be in conversation with itself
Communicate with clarity and purpose

An individual doesn't need to embody all these competencies; these skills are a key ingredient in planning processes where city hall, the business community, community organizations, and citizens make and remake their cities together.

Here's the contrast: planners write the plan and check in with stakeholders for feedback. In another scenario, the planners host the wider community in conversations to write the plan. In the latter, some planners, like everyone else in the process, have specialized work and expertise to offer. The planners leading the project are scribes and translators, documenting the direction in which a city wishes to go and how to get there.

Working with emphasis on relationships and shared purpose is doable and practical. It is the work I do, and my colleagues and I get good results. Relationships and the skills to foster relationships beyond the binary traps embedded in how we think about planning are the new work for the official and unofficial planners in our cities.

Reflection

What are the new social habitat competencies we need to grow?
What are the new competencies the city planner in you needs to grow? (Whether or not you are an official city planner.)

Social Habitat Competencies