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putting power to good use, delicately and Tenaciously

Design is a political act. The politics of design determine who gets what, from parks

and housing to landfi lls and freeway pollution. The politics of design determines if

a bench prevents a homeless person from sleeping or if a park includes facilities

for all in the neighborhood to enjoy. The politics of design determines whether land

resources essential for a heathy ecosystem are enhanced or destroyed. Participatory

design is one of the most effective means in a democracy to create cities and land-

scapes that distribute resources and shape places to be sustainable, representative

of diverse publics, well informed by local wisdom, and just. Transactive design pro-

cesses empower participants and designers with information, skills, and self-con-

fi dence as well as the recognition that there is much to be gained by change. This

chapter provides the tools to dissect, develop, and put power to good use.

The Power of Design Itself A transactive process is one means to develop political strength, but design itself has

transformative powers. It may resolve what seemed intractable through spatial dis-

tancing or time sharing, reuse resources in ways never before considered, connect

people to the moral authority of their values, or inspire a possible future grounded in

the everyday. And after it is implemented, the design takes on a life all its own. It has

Jones, A. D., Hester, R. T., Hou, J., Lawson, L. J., McNally, M. J., & de, L. P. D. (Eds.). (2017). Design as democracy : Techniques for collective creativity. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from asulib-ebooks on 2020-08-19 21:23:41.

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262 Design as Democracy

the capacity to accommodate local needs, represent community identity, welcome

those previously excluded, create an atmosphere of dignity, inspire further improve-

ments, and concretize advances in environmental justice. None of these occurs auto-

matically; each requires the highest denominator of design acumen.

Who Has Power and How It Redistributes Getting almost anything positive done, especially in marginalized communities,

requires changing the political status quo. The change, big or small, may be graciously

accepted, violently resisted, or anything between the two. Each action changes the

distribution of power between those with more power and those with less. Those with

more power typically monopolize virtual and local capital and maintain direct access

to and control of the decision-making structure and important resources. Addition-

ally, this privileged access is generally protected by favorable laws, the police, and

the military. They seldom give up these privileges voluntarily, relying on progressive

stasis and public fear of uncontrolled change. Their strategies exhibit in trickle-down

economics and playing less powerful groups against one another, placating those

groups with stakeholder activities and token improvements.

Those with less authority, however, are not without potential power. They are

often experienced in making do with the capacity to improvise using local resources

and skilled labor. If connected with sympathetic experts, they combine their native

wisdom with science to create knowledge. They often occupy the high moral ground

and can expose injustices that force remedial action. If unified they have large

enough numbers to vote, resist, boycott, and ultimately disrupt, causing uncontrolled

change. If they marshal these strengths and master transactive design techniques,

those with less power possess all the same negotiating skills of the powerful—from

cooperation and win-win innovations to conflict mediation and shuttle diplomacy.

Plus one strategy the elite lack—nonviolent civil disobedience.

Appropriate Action to Empower the Voiceless Giving voice to the voiceless is a rallying force that has long been a guiding princi-

ple of participatory design. Almost always when a subculture is oppressed there is

an associated endangered ecosystem exploited by the same forces that oppress the

human community. Like powerless people, the land cannot speak for itself against

dominant authority. The community of land has little or no legal standing, necessi-

tating advocacy and proactive design strategies. In those cases principles underlying

conservation biology and spatial sociology need to be introduced into the design and

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Chapter 9: Putting Power to Good Use, Delicately and Tenaciously 263

empowered in the political fray. Similarly, sustainable green strategies often lack

political support, and the designer must be their advocate.

How the techniques in this chapter are applied depends upon the context. In

poorer communities strategies to “reduce, reuse, and recycle” may be part of every-

day life that only need to be championed, whereas more affluent communities may

need encouragement to use their power for conspicuous nonconsumption and sen-

sible status-seeking. Coalitions between polar ends of the economic spectrum can

achieve affordable housing, healthier shopping, or improved civic places, requiring

less confrontational strategies than redistributing unwanted land uses and health

hazards from poorer neighborhoods.

Strategic Thinking Putting power to good use requires strategic thinking throughout the planning pro-

cess, even the smallest decision. The manner in which a meeting is run is strategic.

The choice of one technique over another is strategic. How the design itself evolves

is strategic.

To be effective at transformative design requires the ability to recognize and

assemble all the forces the community possesses in order to see their plans through

to completion. It means being able to decide which strategy to employ by assessing

whether the group is trying to prevent a bad thing from happening, attempting to

remove or redistribute some bad thing that has already happened, reclaim some-

thing lost, conserve something valued, or create something good. This is the essence

of strategic thinking. Some designers eschew strategic thinking because they are

only the designer, politically clueless, or satisfied with the current state of things.

Others are simply naturals at strategic thinking and action. But strategic thinking in

design is both an art and a science that can be mastered with practice.

Techniques for Developing Power This chapter contains seven strategic techniques essential for putting power to good

use. We include techniques that are most effective at changing power imbalances.

We think these go beyond the trendy uses of the word empower(ment) and actu- ally change political outcomes and gain measures of control. Randolph T. Hester

Jr. describes “Mapping Environmental Injustice,” the foundation for addressing

inequities and redistributing resources. Diane Jones Allen’s “Kitchen Table Work

Session” designs in the most familiar haunts of residents. By also connecting to

experts remotely, she shows how home field advantage increases the odds for

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264 Design as Democracy

effective action. Hester contributes the time-tested tool “Power Mapping” to uncover

potentially hidden spheres of influence, draw them, and reshape status quo out-

comes. In every process the designer exercises power knowingly or unknowingly—

positively and negatively. Shalini Agrawal and Shreya Shah offer a means to make

your unknown power known. “Positioning Yourself on the Spectrum of Power and

Privilege” enables self-awareness in order to maximize the positive impacts of the

designer’s presence. Laura J. Lawson shares a technique she uses in the most

powerless communities. Her “Build Small, Think Structural Change” shows how to

turn ambitious projects into modest but achievable, “bite-sized” undertakings that

build the confidence and power to take on more improvement efforts while keeping

eyes on the bigger prize of structural reform. In the last techniques Hester explains

methods employed in pursuit of the bigger prize. “Conflict in Its Time and Place”

shows how to expand the community’s political roles beyond facilitation by practicing

a full house of tactics that confront, deflect, and accommodate conflict appropriately.

“Organizing a Place-Based Campaign” is a primer in community organizing around

social issues that are grounded in locality, requiring a particular use of design skills.

Together these methods are a substantial basis for empowering community to see

transformative design through to completion.

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Chapter 9: Putting Power to Good Use, Delicately and Tenaciously 265

Technique 9.1

Mapping EnvironMEnTal injusTicE

Randolph T. Hester Jr.

Injustice mapping creates a spatial record of inequities in accessibility, distribution of pub- lic resources and hazards, and exclusionary design. The maps are particularly powerful in raising public awareness in ways that written reports alone do not; they make the invisible visible, embarrassing authorities and spurring action.

Inaccessibility to the necessities of everyday life, information, and decision making prevents many people from an opportunity to thrive. For example, land-use segregation and remote employment centers handicap those without cars. A map of these locations overlaid by carless households can be compared with a similar map for households with cars showing the burden of inaccessibility. Similarly, distribution of desired resources and unwanted land uses is typically skewed. Maps showing relative distribution of parks, decent housing, healthy food or water as well as polluted air, dangerous industries, or toxic sites usually reveal patterns of environmental classism and racism.

From restrictive zoning to the shape of benches, design encourages some to use and excludes others from using public facilities. Mapping the geography of exclusion based on class, race, migrant status, or other marginalizing factors shows patterns of discrimination with blatantly missing activity settings or subtle messages telling “others” they are unwel- come. All of these can be effectively mapped.

instructions 1. Clearly identify the environmental injustice you want to assess and available

resources for drawing the data. Are the data easily accessible in secondary sources, such as census data and GIS layers in government files? What must be mapped first- hand? Are these skills available in your group, a university, or a nongovernmental organization? How many citizen scientists can be counted on? Involve as many as possible; nothing empowers like mapping injustices that affect you directly. Do you have adequate equipment to measure the injustice? Although the process is similar for access, distribution, and exclusion, precise distinctions determine the course of action. To map transit deserts, particulate pollution, or exclusionary facilities requires different strategies. For example, access and distribution can often be mapped from secondary sources, but inclusionary design usually relies on field research by local citizen scientists.

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2. Map data from secondary sources first—they are often free, easily compiled, and visual. Make the maps at a scale that conveys the inequity in the target neighbor- hood relative to the community to which it is to be compared. Determine metrics for the extent of discrimination, risk, or other critical factors.

3. Determine which additional data are needed to accurately measure the injustice. Find an expert in associated risks and metrics of the injustice. Ask the expert to explain the best field methods for volunteers to map the problem. Cultivate a long- term relationship that benefits the expert and the community.

4. Get the expert to train local citizen scientists in scientific protocols to gather and record data rigorously enough to withstand public and scientific scrutiny. Secure the needed equipment; learn how to use it and how to code and input field obser- vations. Different inequities require different technologies. Some monitoring equipment downloads and compiles data by location automatically. In contrast, psychological exclusion requires citizen scientists to record “extent of unwelcome- ness” on a paper map, then “download” their findings by hand onto a group map. In such a case it is important to record not just location but also race, gender, and other social factors to be analyzed by cultural category.

5. Exclusion at the site design level requires answering multiple questions. Review the documents of the process and plan for the facility. For whom was the project designed? What activity settings were left out, excluding certain people? Sleuthing the facility itself offers other clues. Is it Americans with Disabilities Act accessible? Do benches invite or preclude sleeping? Are there places to sit in sun pockets to warm old bodies? Is the facility dominated by a single use, preventing new uses? Is there enough emptiness to accommodate unanticipated activities? Is there sym- bolism that disinvites some? Map as many of these factors as possible. Decide on a way to simply analyze and map these complex data. Monitor citizen scientists to guarantee the quality of the data.

6. Draft the map. Discuss what it conveys. Be sure the map is accurate before it goes public. Nothing prolongs an injustice more than an inaccuracy. Finalize the map through a rigorous review.

7. Ensure that the map is in an appropriate form for the essential audiences. This is tricky. A hand-drawn pictograph, presented by youth suffering ill heath resulting from the injustice, may communicate to the impacted community or city council. But agency experts and lawyers typically take seriously only professional, comput- er-generated maps.

8. After presenting the map, keep the pressure on targets who can address the injustice.

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case story The most diverse and poorest area in Oakland, Fruitvale had less than two-thirds of an acre of parkland per thousand people in contrast to residents in the affluent hills, which have over eight acres of parkland per thousand. And it was getting worse. Fruitvale open space was being converted to portable classrooms for overcrowded schools, community gardens were being paved. Competition for soccer fields among Latino clubs led to con- frontations. Without water access, Vietnamese residents trespassed to fish. The Spanish Speaking Unity Council, one of the most effective local community organizations in Fruit- vale, decided something had to be done immediately. The Unity Council assigned Michael Rios, a staff architect, to coordinate a strategy with neighborhood groups, public agen- cies, and faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. The Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at Berkeley researched the issue of public park distribution in Oakland and produced a report warning that the lack of access to open space in the Fruitvale/San Antonio District was a crisis with grave consequences to health and child development. Rios, Jeff Hou, and a team of designers sifted through available data to determine the most appropriate measures of park distribution and access to open space. Distribution was easily mapped, but access varied, depending upon car ownership and transit lines. By all measures Fruitvale was underserved. For years, leaders had been aware of this but took no action until mapping made the inequity impossible to ignore. Data to make the map were easily accessed from city documents and converted to GIS overlays. The most effective map showed each district of the city color coded from dark to light, depending on acres of parkland per thousand people. The area around Fruitvale was the lightest, indicating the fewest parks. Armed with undeniable visible evidence the com- munity mounted a campaign—Let’s Dream It! Let’s Build It!—to attain a waterfront open space that could accommodate priority activities of all cultural groups. They successfully acquired nine acres of land from the Port of Oakland to create Union Point Park. Today it is a cherished open space, but more park land is needed before this story has a truly happy ending.

reflection Mapping injustices is undoubtedly a source for the community via the process and map itself. Injustice is no longer “out of sight, out of mind.” It instigates action. But, even with the visible document, attaining a measure of equity requires extraordinary effort beyond the stamina of most designers. Mapping Injustices is only the beginning. Powerful inter- ests reluctantly relinquish the resources to address inequities. In Fruitvale, Rios spent months organizing community groups to demand action from the City of Oakland. At the same time he met with administrators from the City and Port of Oakland who were most

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Figure 9-1: Mapping injustice makes the invisible visible. Some Oakland neighborhoods have over eight acres/1,000 residents, and Fruitvale and San Antonio have less than two acres.

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resistant to surrendering land for a public park. He finally hammered out acceptable details of land transfer. Who would pay for park development was the next barrier. He worked out an arrangement with the University of California Crew Team to build part of the park in exchange for crew access to the estuary, but they demanded the prime park land for their boat house and restricted public access to the water. That deal fell apart. Rios persisted. He met weekly with the Berkeley designers to revise the master plan and the funding sources. His creative financing was persuasive. He got the land and the money.

There are all kinds of maps that could be made to tell an injustice story. The following are just a few examples:

n Images to Enrage; Maps to Enact. These two maps give maximum effect in ad- dressing environmental injustices. They should clearly show relative inequities in a factual way; this communicates to the objective brain. On the other hand a pas- sionate poetic depiction may better stir emotional commitment to fairness. There is a place for both.

n Experiencing Injustice Personally. Most of us are concerned about injustices, but nothing makes us more intensely committed to justice than to be treated unfairly ourselves. Recall an instance when you were unjustly treated. Remember how you felt. Draw the feeling.

n Just Environments in My Own Community. Discover subtle injustices by observ- ing just and unjust environments in your community. Make two lists—one “Just” and the other “Unjust”—and categorize local places. Then look at them in terms of inaccessibility, distribution of resources, and exclusion. Make notes about their physical characteristics. Develop your own vocabulary of environmental justice.

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Technique 9.2

KiTchEn TablE WorK sEssion

Diane Jones Allen

The Kitchen Table Work Session investigates a situation, strengthens existing communica- tion networks or builds new ones, and affords people a degree of control at the most local level by providing venues that go beyond public meetings and stakeholder interviews. It can tackle issues that need to be addressed on a grassroots level requiring input of the commu- nity that will be most impacted, for example, where to locate a new facility or whether it should be developed at all. This might include undesirable uses (e.g., a dangerous industry) or desired improvements (e.g., affordable housing, a grocery, or a farmer’s market). The technique brings a community designer to a small focus group for a dialogue. Together they develop plans around the kitchen table, or other personal space, of someone in the commu- nity. The designer seeks concerns, desires, and visions of those living in or directly impacted by any proposed development in their area. Simultaneously, the group uses remote technol- ogy to inform their discussion, bringing outside data into the safety of their homes, where they combine local wisdom with external expertise to develop effective political strategies for community improvements.

instructions 1. Once it is determined whose homes or establishments will house the work sessions,

those hosts invite friends, neighbors, and other community members with whom they are familiar. This creates an ease and openness for expression of ideas. Hold the Kitchen Table Work Sessions at a set time one or two days a week throughout the project.

2. Create a comfortable and nonjudgmental atmosphere to ease participants’ fear of asking questions or expressing opinions regarding the project. Homemade food helps. Get everyone to talk about the issue. Do not judge divergent points of view. After people have comfortably expressed themselves, introduce the computer technology, such as Skype, Go to Meeting, or other programs that allow commu- nity members to “conference in.” These can also connect the neighbors to out- side professionals who have expertise unavailable within the neighborhood group. Depending on the issue, those gathered around the kitchen table might call on the outside help of a land-use lawyer, the city parks director, or an environmental engineer practiced in mitigating storm surge threats. The Internet can also bring Google Earth or a geographic information system (GIS) right into the kitchen to provide real-time locations, pictures of the existing conditions, or layers of mapped

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data. If the kitchen table discussion has all the expertise it needs, great! Use the technology to simply record the discussion and conclusions.

3. Arrange beforehand to have experts “on call” in remote locations, available to answer questions. This brings essential outside knowledge to the group without having to leave home, makes that knowledge local, and allows professionals to continue work in their offices until their consultation is needed.

4. Alternatively, we have experimented with a centralized information exchange center in the community, where we convene a group of outside professionals as a “think tank” to offer research tied to inquiries likely to emerge from the kitchen table discussions. From this location they still connect by computer technology. This is especially useful when the experts need to hear each other’s information in order to advise the community, and when multiple kitchen table sessions are going on simultaneously throughout the community. Include professionals with expertise related to the issues, representatives of the client and other successful grassroots efforts, and government agency staff with knowledge about local ini- tiatives. The panel need not agree with each other or residents. Their role is to answer questions, interject new ideas, and help the project group to learn from different perspectives. They also serve as a catalyst for greater dialogue. The think tank allows for multiple kitchen table workshops to be held at the same time and for each to have access to the outside expertise and ideas from other kitchen table discussions.

5. When using the on-call or exchange center advertise the time so all will follow a schedule to access the outside and local expertise at the same time.

6. Use laptops, iPads, iPhones, large flat-screen monitors, or even residents’ televi- sions to display up-to-the-moment information, external databases, digital images, and drawings. It is essential for individuals to see their ideas expressed expediently. Just as important, the processes of inquiry are demystified in familiar surround- ings. This is also an easy way to capture information and record the discussion.

7. Make the technology user friendly. Use what people have in their homes if possi- ble. Often people, especially older adults, are intimated by digital technology, but being in a familiar setting with a small group of neighbors can create a desire to explore unfamiliar methods. This especially empowers people.

8. The designer’s role is to quietly ensure that everyone participates, legitimize local knowledge, interject questions, steer the group to essential sources, move the dis- cussion to conclusions, and keep a record of the decisions made.

9. When the group reaches agreement on a tactic, help implement it. (This will be a longer-term commitment beyond the scope of the kitchen talk.)

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case story DesignJones, LLC, has worked with residents in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans for many years, helping community groups plan and implement various improvements. One of the most effective techniques has been the Kitchen Table Work Session. Recently the Port of New Orleans proposed to change the zoning of a key parcel in the Warehouse District. The parcel had long been zoned mixed-use, which accommodated community as well as port functions, but the Port wanted to preclude all uses except industrial ones. There was concern among residents, but few knew much about the potential restrictions of the zoning. We held several Work Sessions in the homes of Holy Cross residents who lived closest to the site.

The workshops attracted people who seldom attended formal zoning hearings. Kitchen talks seemed like everyday neighboring, producing a candid sharing of ideas about the site. Several essential outside experts, including representatives from the City of New Orleans Environmental Office and a landscape architect from Louisiana State University, volun- teered to attend the sessions in person. The landscape architect brought Google Earth and GIS to the table. He could access via Internet basic facts that strengthened the confidence of residents. Everyone learned from each other and the design professionals about the basics of the zoning process, how they could intervene, and the potential of the site to serve more community needs if it retained the mixed-use zoning.

The results of these sessions manifested in two ways. The main focus was to determine if the Holy Cross/Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood could use the Warehouse Waterfront District as a viable site for sustainable food security, economic development, and cultural livability. Almost everyone agreed it could. Through the Kitchen Table Work Sessions we got a clear understanding of the type of development community residents wanted. Sec- ondly, and most importantly, we were able to galvanize opposition for the upcoming zon- ing change that would have prevented any development that was not industrial or port related. After several Work Sessions, residents gained a thorough understanding of zoning issues, they organized, and many attended their first planning commission meeting. They spoke with kitchen-table honesty, informed by their own local knowledge and what they had learned from each other and the planning experts. They won a major victory, defeating the industrial rezoning and maintaining the existing zoning that allowed community use.

reflection This is the most effective technique that we have used to get at deep community desires and needs. Through the Kitchen Table Work Sessions we now use an incremental approach to develop greater community interaction and receive greater clarity about people’s

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intimate aspirations. Different than other techniques in larger forums, the Work Session occurs in home territory where local expertise is foremost. Residents speak their thoughts and express their ideas, learn, question, and exchange without the judgment or influence of a large and formal audience. This gives community members confidence, so that when they do participate in a larger group, they are armed with knowledge and the strength of their ideas.

One difficulty with this technique is maintaining consistent messaging aligned with the objectives of the project. The informality makes it hard to maintain focus. Determining how the community desires to see a particular project manifested sometimes takes a backseat to neighborhood gossip. Another difficulty is that the demand for the Kitchen Table Work Sessions grows as word spreads of the opportunity to participate in meaningful, personal- ized dialogue that focuses so centrally on a particular local opportunity. A clear monthly schedule of dates and times of the Work Sessions partly solves this, but we anticipate and budget for increasing demand.

Figure 9-2: The Holy Cross/Ninth Ward in New Orleans has long been neglected by city officials, in part because residents do not attend intimidating formal proceedings. The Kitchen Table Work Session was invented to take neighborhood rezoning to the homey comfort of everyday places.

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Technique 9.3

poWEr Mapping

Randolph T. Hester Jr.

Power Mapping diagrams the people who have the ability to make a project happen, prevent it, or cause it to have a certain outcome. The map records the type and extent of power and relationships between people and agencies. It notes formal and informal authority. It is not static; it evolves as more is learned. Do not undertake a project without making this map because every design is an expression of power. We need to know if power is transparent or hidden. Drawing the transparent is easy because it is legitimized as “stakeholders,” but even among stakeholders personal agendas and long-standing disagreements can disrupt collaboration. Power brokers who work in secrecy and are much more difficult to identify need to be revealed and mapped to uncover greedy plots. Excluded or marginalized publics who lack recognized stakes but have vital interests that will impact project outcome need to be on the map as well.

instructions 1. Start by mapping the obvious—elected officials, neighbors, and activists. Diagram

them using big circles for the most powerful. Draw lines to connect alliances. Use arrows to show direction of power and whom it impacts. Date this and each sub- sequent map.

2. Conduct private, one-on-one interviews because listening is the best way to learn about and understand power. Privacy is the key. Begin by talking with key players in the community, local activists, then agency representatives and elected officials. If you know about conflicting goals in advance, talk to people from both sides. After you have discussed all your other questions, ask a question like, “Imagine your dreams have been fulfilled for this project. Who was central in making it happen?” Add these people to your list to be contacted. Listen between the lines, and add the unspoken information to your map.

3. Hunt for hidden information. Ask project supporters to help you understand the political landscape, especially things that do not make sense to you.

4. When opaque political pressure threatens your effort, look for predictable expla- nations, such as real estate interests, exploitable resources, and environmental rac- ism. Consider how the project may upset the status quo—opaque power has likely been activated. Be cautious but do not be intimidated. Follow leads to expose resis- tance to public disclosure. Draw your suspicions on the map.

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5. When big shifts occur, draw a new map and date it. Track down the cause of dra- matic changes and unexplained exercises of strength. Circle back with more ques- tions. Confirm explosive information. Draw your own emerging role in the power structure.

6. Balance the public right to know about your map with individual rights of privacy. A power map is an internal document. Some information is privileged. Do not expose sources. Make the information data, not tabloid intrigue. Accept help from reporters and sympathetic expediters cautiously.

7. Use the map to tell you which strategies to employ to further your goals. Depend- ing on what you need, you may have to meet with agencies you did not know existed, find experts in fields outside your expertise, conduct shuttle diplomacy between warring parties, set up a meeting with unexpected allies, or organize a boycott.

case story When we first met Taiwanese Chigu fishermen, alarmed by a proposal for an industrial plant in the waters where they fished, it seemed to be a classic case of a big company exercis- ing its muscle over a powerless group to enrich itself. My preliminary ecological analysis of the plan to build the Binnan plant raised red flags, and I believed a careful scientific assess- ment would kill the project. I envisioned two players, David and Goliath, with environmen- tal laws swooping down, preventing the destruction of the lagoon. My colleague, John Liu, quickly corrected me. The Binnan plant was supported by all levels of government.

He convened an emergency meeting of National Taiwan University’s Building and Planning Institute (NTUBP). An architect on the team started drawing on the chalkboard. Instead of one Goliath there were dozens, including the KMT ruling party, the Ministry of Economics, Tuntex Corporation, the YeiLun Consortium, and scientists paid to find a no-effect assessment of the industrial project.

We declared the situation hopeless and went to dinner. Hsia Chu-Joe, the most stra- tegic and politically connected of the group, offered a long-shot tactic: coordinate local protest with an international boycott. He argued with his colleagues. I challenged them to try. After dinner we added Hsia’s ideas to our diagram. Still no one could visualize a positive outcome. Then John proposed experimenting with a few local ecotourism interventions to bolster the fishermen’s cause. Things got more creative. Someone drew a big box on the map to represent the middle class, adding, “As it becomes more concerned about pollution, the middle class will question dangerous industry.” Then someone shouted, “The shorter work week! Demand for nature tourism will expand.” Taiwan was reducing the work week from

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six days to five. More middle-class citizens would be expected to travel domestically from Taipei on two-day weekends. Chigu would soon be readily accessible. John Liu’s idea for ecotourism seemed more realistic. “A thousand moons on a thousand rivers,” another col- league called out in Mandarin. Everyone nodded in agreement. I was later told that this was a best-selling novel in Taiwan, an old-fashioned romance set near Chigu. The characters paid homage to the sky, the earth, and the gods in traditional rural lives, living in rhythm with the seasons. The book, reprinted over 60 times, sparked nostalgia for exactly what the fishermen could offer urban visitors. The novel lent support to Liu’s plan. The evolving middle-class values, shorter work week, and a popular book suddenly challenged outsized powers. Drawing power relationships had stimulated inventive strategic thinking. A deal was offered. John would oversee the local strategy if I would organize the international campaign. Making power visible broke the impasse.

Within weeks John’s team was in Chigu strategizing with the fishermen. They started a restaurant with an environmental education center in the prime location for bird watching. An elder fisherman, Uncle Gao, organized expeditions to take visitors in his boat to fish in the to-be-filled lagoon. Outings ended with dinner followed by briefings on Binnan. So popular were the events that the fishermen built a center to serve visitors now arriving by

Figure 9-3: Because mapping out power uncovered so few vulnerable spots in the Binnan proposal, saving the lagoon and the fishermen’s jobs required finding unconventional ways to influence the outcome.

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the busload. But most Chigu residents supported the Binnan industrial project until a local lawyer, Huan-Chih Su, shaved his head and bravely marched throughout the county to pro- test the proposed project. He took the fishermen’s cause to the electorate and was narrowly elected to Congress. Updating the power map required weekly additions.

Internationally recognized scientists told us that filling the lagoon would send the rar- est of all spoonbills into an extinction vortex. We created Spoonbill Action Voluntary Echo (SAVE) International to prevent this. SAVE was and remains a nonprofit research, plan- ning, and action group housed within the Earth Island Institute. The Institute guided the fledgling SAVE organization to essential expertise. We had no idea how to organize a global protest, but several San Francisco Bay Area nongovernmental organizations did. The bird now occupied a prominent position on the map. The threat to an endangered species shook all the authority invested in the existing power structure.

Then SAVE turned to its internal capacity for regional development, entering an alter- native plan into the political fray, one that created more jobs over 15 years than Binnan would. The fishermen negotiated the plan with skeptical neighbors. SAVE members flew to Taipei to present compelling data at congressional hearings. We organized nonviolent pro- tests and staged spoonbill “migrations” in Berkeley to raise public awareness. The Taiwan- ese press covered each event; the controversy sold news. Su was threatened, his supporters beat up. His bodyguards assured they could keep us safe. Over 400 international organiza- tions signed on to support the movement. More people visited Chigu to see for themselves.

Additions to the map led to bolder actions. Some were disasters. I tried to persuade the pro-Binnan county magistrate to consider SAVE’s alternative. He attacked us in the press. Then SAVE found scientists studying global warming who challenged Binnan for excessive CO2 emissions. New dams that were needed for water supply threatened a rare ecosystem in Meinung, several watersheds away. We formed an alliance. Central government officials were now confronted with regional and national protests. The power map began to swell with equalizing forces.

Pursuing another tactic we met covertly with Taiwan’s EPA director when he was in San Francisco. Charged with overseeing Binnan’s environmental impact assessment, he explained that government-funded scientists had concluded that filling the lagoon would not impact the spoonbills because they did not inhabit those waters. We knew their science was flawed. Uncle Gao had already mapped where he had seen spoonbills, and the world’s leading spoonbill scientist reached the same conclusion. Our science was indisputable in the face of alternative facts. But the director was being squeezed between the international science and the Goliaths back home. In due time he guided the assessment to a reasoned conclusion. The environmental impact assessment was approved, but with 30-plus condi- tions, some of which could never be met. The project died.

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Figure 9-4: Over the course of the fight the map changed dramatically. The first map, when it seemed like a “simple” David versus Goliath battle in which the Environmental Protection Agency would rule in favor of the fishermen.

Figure 9-5: After the strategy session with National Taiwan University’s Building and Planning Institute it was clear that all parties with significant power were strong supporters of the Binnan project, including every government agency from the central government to local officials. Opponents declared the effort hopeless.

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Figure 9-6: When planners met to brainstorm creative ways to defeat the plan to fill the lagoon, they added the spoonbill’s international appeal and Taiwan’s rising middle class to the power map. These forces unsettled the political status quo.

Figure 9-7: As Binnan died a slow death, the economic development ideas proposed in the alternative plan were implemented by local innovators, and power became shared by many.

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Su was elected Tainan County mayor and over the next decade implemented the alternative plan. The spoonbill became a symbol of national pride. Today a national park and scenic area provide protection for the birds. Domestic tourism has risen, largely ini- tiated by local entrepreneurs. Specialty fish products, restaurants, bed and breakfast facil- ities, ecological tours, and cultural events have created thousands of jobs, drawing young people back to previously dying villages. Bird-watching towers recalling cultural history have invited volunteer efforts and tourists as well. SAVE began new campaigns in Japan, Korea, and China, with the power map expanding throughout the East Asian–Australasian Flyway.

Figure 9-8: In Shin-Tsen Village residents hold a festival for their god to ask for input on a plan to create local jobs through cultural and ecological tourism.

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reflection Power mapping is essential for any design endeavor. It consistently makes invisible authori- ties visible, spurs thinking about power beyond official structures, and unleashes unforeseen strategies. It has dramatically changed the outcomes of many of our most important proj- ects. But it requires political acumen and willingness to seek a broad public good beyond the political status quo. Many designers ignore the ill forces of power. It is more profitable to merely serve the powerful, no questions asked, claiming, “I’m just the designer.” Power mapping makes me constantly ask, “Whose politic do I serve?”

Figure 9-9: One project that emerged was the re-creation of a gun tower in the new park, designed and constructed by villagers. Source: Fu-chang Tsai.

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Figure 9-10: The function of the gun tower is now reinvented to serve local ecotourism and educational needs as well as a bird-watching tower. Source: Fu-chang Tsai.

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Technique 9.4

posiTioning YoursElf on ThE spEcTruM of poWEr and privilEgE

Shalini Agrawal and Shreya Shah

This technique helps designers understand how they may be perceived as outsiders who have experienced power, privilege, and oppression differently than the community with whom they will work. It uses a self-reflective framework developed by Saltwater Social Justice Training (www.saltwatertraining.org) to expose power imbalances that are especially salient when working with underserved and historically exploited communities. Design practitioners place themselves in a spectrum that identifies various societal privileges and distributions of power. This technique should be used before starting a community-based project and in a group of no more than 30 participants.

instructions 1. Establish an inclusive and judgment-free environment. This requires a facilitator

who begins by personally describing his or her own privilege and power. The facil- itator’s vulnerability encourages the participating designers to genuinely reflect, which benefits the group’s learning. Next, write the following community guide- lines in a visible place:

Practice active listening.

Be brave—speak truthfully and authentically.

Stay present and responsive to your impact, even when different than your intent.

Verify that access needs/requests (emotional, physical) for the space have been met.

Review these with the group to determine agreement. 2. Display the diagram to walk participants through the spectrum of power, privilege,

and oppression. Discuss it. The facilitator should point out that these are simplified generalizations to help understand complex interrelationships. Ask participants to mentally place themselves within the spectrum of each category as explained. The goal of this step is to increase awareness of the many facets of identities defined by society in the United States.

3. Split participants into pairs to discuss (1) an experience where they held privilege and (2) an instance where they were more targeted or oppressed. Ask participants to discuss the multiple categories they identify with, and which they share with their partner. Allow a total of 20 minutes: 10 minutes for each prompt, 5 minutes per person. The facilitator should keep track of time and provide reminders to switch partner sharing.

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4. Reconvene as the whole group and ask the pairs to voluntarily share individual reflections and, with permission from their partner, insights from their discussion: What was learned? What was unexpected? How might this help or hinder working with a community? How might this influence the way a designer engages with communities? Allow 20 to 30 minutes for this discussion.

5. Give each participant a copy of the Spectrum. Have them enter other instances of power imbalances as they recall or experience them. Discuss it with the team periodically.

6. Take action, better prepared to engage with the community in meaningful ways.

case story An interdisciplinary designer team from California College of the Arts was prepar- ing to work for the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center, a nonprofit organization providing resources to homeless populations in San Francisco. The facilitator presented the Spectrum to the team before they met with the community partner. Team members reflected on it, then shared insights that surfaced regarding their personal positions. The

Figure 9-11: In the Spectrum of Spectrums diagram, each spectrum intersects with others. This is a simplified adaptation of the tool created by Saltwater’s national trainer, Shreya Shah, as an entry point into complex, systemic patterns of power distribution, specifically in the United States. (www .saltwatertraining.org). Source: Annie Ledbury.

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most frequently mentioned was race. Young, white designers acknowledged their privi- leges. Designers of color appreciated this being acknowledged within the team. Several were surprised to learn someone else on the team was Jewish, and they discussed the advantages and discriminatory experiences they held in common. This led to a discus- sion about privileges relative to the homeless community. The young designers openly expressed assumptions, biases, discomfort, and uncertainties about working with the homeless community, allowing them to be more honest within their team. One repeated, “Identity, power, and privilege of race are always present but seldom openly recognized or addressed.”

The identity awareness vocabulary of power and privilege supported a beneficial shift in language and design approach. Our team became mindful of stereotyping language that stigmatized simple things, such as instead of referring to “the homeless” they began to say “the people experiencing homelessness.” This humanized the community we were working with. One interior designer’s journey started with her asking, “Why don’t the homeless just get a job?” Her initial proposal was to redesign the interior of the Resource Center. After rethinking the issues she had discovered in the Spectrum, she realized that her aspir- ing design identity was blinding her to more appropriate actions. Her proposal shifted to building on an existing jobs program for the organization. She designed an employment support system in collaboration with the site case manager that included a “pre-resume,” best practices for job searching, and motivational tips. This project was implemented by the organization.

Throughout the project the power and privilege lenses helped alter expectations and adjust to unforeseen challenges. For example, the team felt it had full access to the Resource Center—it never occurred to us that our presence was disruptive. At some point the design team realized staff at the Resource Center was constantly shorthanded. They did not enjoy the privilege of time we took for granted. We adjusted our behavior so we would place fewer burdens on our community partners yet still provide them solutions for critical problems they faced.

reflection The Spectrum has uses in any community where the participants are “foreign” to the designer. Privileges of race, class, religion, and gender must be understood to be effective. Add distinctions of life-cycle stage, seniority, national origin, or date of immigration for murkier expressions of power. Beyond the obvious, this technique creates a personal power map, likely to reawaken designers to distinctive means of control, even in communities we consider “just like us.”

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Technique 9.5

build sMall, ThinK sTrucTural changE

Laura J. Lawson

Put simply, this technique is about making some tangible, small physical improvement as a means to affirm a longer-term plan. It is particularly appropriate in disadvantaged com- munities working toward change that requires extensive power and resource redistribu- tion. In such contexts, the big changes needed—new housing, more parks, better schools, infrastructure improvements—take time and can often overburden a community that faces immediate needs as well—repair to housing or a well-used park, cleaning trash from school grounds, signs for pedestrian crossings. This technique provides a quick change that improves existing conditions, encourages ongoing resident participation, and activates the political will of the neighbors. With limited funds, time, and experience, the building proj- ect is usually simple, yet it encapsulates the intention of the larger project, grounding it in what is possible now. Building something small is never intended to placate or substitute for the bigger issue; instead, it is a commitment to make change and an opportunity to get into action.

At a different level of empowerment, making something levels a previously unbalanced political playing field. This technique creates a direct opportunity for the design team to work side by side with the community. Building moves the conversation away from the drawing, where the designer is expert, toward problem solving that engages a broader range of skills and acknowledges those skills, be they welding, carpentry, cooking, or team build- ing. This redistributes interpersonal authority.

instructions 1. Identify a small piece of a larger planning project that can be quickly implemented.

The project may arise from observations of how the community uses space and an opportunity to improve an existing pattern. The project should be one that can be designed and built quickly with minimal funding or red tape that might stall enthusiasm. For example, the community may discuss the need for signage to dis- courage illegal dumping, or the design team may observe many people waiting at the spot where the bus stops and see an opportunity to build some benches and provide shade there.

2. Propose, discuss, and set a workday to build the project. Involve a mix of design professionals and community members.

3. Be sure someone on the design team assists in coordinating workdays so the materials, tools, and labor are all available to build the project.

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4. Make handouts that highlight the location, materials, tools, and other things needed as well as procedures for construction.

5. Think of ways to make the process fun, efficient, and social. For instance, arrange music and food during the workday, provide colorful t-shirts to volunteers, or give awards to work groups based on some of the funny interactions that occur over the course of the workday. Include ways to recruit more people to take political action. This might require passing around a sign-up sheet for future events, asking participants to list additional neighbors whom they will contact, or discussing the next steps and what local businesses might contribute materials for construction. You might ask everyone to commit to bringing two additional volunteers to the next workday.

6. Invite local media to raise public awareness of the effort. 7. Take before, during, and after images so that everyone can appreciate the

improvement. 8. Since these projects are often built quickly and inexpensively, return to repair and

update the improvement as necessary so that it stays looking good and working for the community as the longer-term project continues. Take advantage of the improvement to persuade doubters and naysayers to join the bigger cause.

case story In 2004, a landscape architecture design studio, part of the University of Illinois East St. Louis Action Research Project, began working with the 41st Street Neighborhood Coalition to design a new park that the group had proposed to build on a vacant lot in their neigh- borhood. Because the city’s park department had very few resources to provide, this group was preparing to build the park without municipal support. The neighbors were eager to create the park as a way to eliminate its abandoned state that made it vulnerable to illegal dumping and other undesirable activities and also to provide places for children to play and seniors to exercise.

The faculty and students initiated a participatory design process. The team met with residents to discuss goals for the project, conducted fieldwork, presented their analysis, and developed several design alternatives based on the key goals residents had identified. At the final meeting when students presented finely rendered alternatives and perspectives of what the park could look like, rather than generating excitement, the images generated concern because the scope seemed too big for the small group. While residents acknowledged many important reasons to promote a park, they were daunted by the reality that the construc- tion and maintenance would fall on them. This stalled the process. Residents and designers had to step back and consider the goals from a different angle, asking not just what did the

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residents want, but also what could the group do now to start this larger project? Design ideas were revised into a modest interim strategy with key priorities to deter illegal dumping from vehicles, develop a walking path for residents, and put up a sign to convey ownership.

The Build Small project was not initiated by the design team but rather by two residents who took matters into their own hands and constructed bollards topped with planters that blocked trash dumping. This immediate change inspired the team. With students ready and able to work, several other doable projects were started. People acquired free plants from a local nursery to reinforce and beautify the bollards. Students and residents worked together to acquire in-kind contributions and a small grant to build a gravel walking path around the site for seniors. The group named the site Pullman Porter Park, in honor of the Pullman porters who had served for decades on the adjoining railroad line. Students designed and built a sign for the park entrance. A couple years later, a new parks department director saw the work under way and negotiated to acquire the land with the idea that the expanded park would someday become a reality. Only then could residents actually see the results of their activism. They had actually claimed their control of this small piece of land and the City recognized it.

Figure 9-12: The 41st Street Coalition has so many neighborhood inequities to address that it is difficult to know where to start. The Build Small project transformed this vacant lot into a park with little more than removing trash, installing bollards and plants to prevent illegal dumping, and making a walking path.

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reflection The most important takeaway for this technique is that it should not be seen as a placebo to the real goals at hand. Nor should this technique be used without conscious reflection on the issues of power and access to resources that make such techniques required. It would be far better if the community had the ability to achieve the larger goal at hand—the park, the new housing, and so forth—but if this isn’t the case, this technique helps to move toward change. This technique should be used in conjunction with others described in this section.

Another key issue is the impact of a small intervention. To the design community, a simple gravel path or sign may be considered mundane design, eliciting a “so what?” response. If developed with the community, however, the small intervention has meaning to its users. To garner larger interest and political support that may lead toward the long- term goal, it is important to document the process that affirms its connection to the larger project.

Figure 9-13: A handcrafted sign invokes pride in the community because it celebrates the history when Pullman porters settled the area. Completing such small projects empowers neighbors to undertake additional improvements and possibly structural changes.

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Technique 9.6

conflicT in iTs TiME and placE

Randolph T. Hester Jr.

This technique develops the proper use of conflict to make transformative design possible. It trains one to deal forthrightly with confrontation and empowers community by employ- ing the full range of strategies, from individual to collective creativity, from servant to advo- cate, from partnership to disobedience, from mediation to disruption.

Why are extremes necessary? First, most designers develop a single role or mode of operation that is comfortable, relying on that even when inappropriate, becoming one-di- mensional like an American football team that is only run oriented. This diminishes effec- tiveness. For example, powerful interests assess whether you are facilitative or disruptive and take advantage of the tendency. Second, conflict avoidance rules design society, domi- nates planning approaches, stifles thoughtful debate, and undermines the imaginative alter- natives that civic conflict spawns. Third, democratic design requires maximizing compet- ing interests without compromising the deepest values; therefore, the designer must play multiple roles in order to bring out conflict so it can be addressed with originality. If, like Muhammad Ali, you can both float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, you will be more effective. Fourth, no truly transformative design occurs without confronting status quo powers. For these reasons it is useful to become accomplished in each role. This technique will expand your tactics.

instructions 1. Make a list of the interactive roles—whether facilitator or instigator or some

other—you think useful in various contentious situations from conflicts within the community, between you and other personalities, or with external forces you wish to change. Make lists independently; then share this with others.

2. For each role you list, find an opposition at the other end of the spectrum; pair these in your list, forming two columns. Understanding the pairs is important because we frequently have to switch tactics quickly.

3. Circle the one that is your “go to” mode and others that you are pretty good at. Underline ones you avoid. Decide which underlined one you want to focus on.

4. Write down the behavior characteristics you think necessary to practice the role you want to master. You might note that you want to be a stronger advocate with- out being condescending, or more accomplished in disobedience without being violent, or better at stimulating communal creativity. Let’s say you want to master the latter, but you realize that you become defensive when a resident challenges

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your professional expertise. You might then decide to practice these behaviors: (1) before a meeting repeat a mantra like “Collective creativity inspires my design,” (2) think of residents’ ideas not as challenging your authority but as elaborations of your intervention, and (3) rehearse saying “Interesting idea! I had not thought of that. Let’s draw it and see how it works.”

5. Choose a design project you are doing for practice. With a teammate, role-play a situation in the project requiring the skill you want to master. Consciously try the behaviors you wrote down. Then complicate the situation; switch back and forth between this role and others. Practice this enough so you are ready to test yourself in a heated disagreement about a specific design priority. When comfortable using one new mode, practice another.

6. In the community situation, get a team member to take notes on your effective- ness. If conflict avoidance prevents you from designing creatively amid con- tentious clashes, try a set of calisthenics inspired by James C. Scott. He prepares himself to confront intolerable authority or disobey unjust regulation by practicing like he exercises regularly to keep fit. With humor Scott practiced jaywalking. In

Figure 9-14: Designers have a full arsenal of tactics with which to engage in conflict. Source: Marcia McNally.

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that spirit these eight stretching exercises might help prepare for confrontation: (1) take the first step, (2) break out of your own prison, (3) assume responsibility, (4) resist, (5) vote, (6) take a bigger risk, (7) reach beyond your limits, and (8) climb the mountaintop. (See diagrams to get a sense of how to begin each radical stretch.) Vary as needed to overcome your specific conflict avoidances. As you practice, concentrate on particular strategies for (1) encouraging conflict when it has been “swept under the rug,” (2) maximizing core values of competing parties, and (3) supplementing courage with tactics to take on adversaries over stakes that matter.

7. Put your skills to proper use to outflank those who profit at public expense. Their strategies play out over time. Prepare for prolonged battles. Expect personal attacks. Test public sentiment for proper and timely action.

Figure 9-15: Practice these radical calisthenics daily to prepare yourself for managing conflict to creative advantage: (1) take the first step, (2) break out of your own prison, (3) assume responsibility, (4) resist, (5) vote, (6) take a bigger risk, (7) reach beyond your limits, and (8) climb the mountaintop.

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case story All the real estate investors needed was to extend water and sewer several miles beyond the growth boundary of Roanoke Island, North Carolina, in order to make millions of dollars in second-home development at public expense. With local connections and deep pockets to discredit sound planning, the speculators targeted the Coastal Plan Update as the battle- ground by which they would enable their personal enrichment. Our design team had been hired by the local government in Dare County to undertake the Update, which was required by North Carolina Coastal Act legislation, and found ourselves in the developers’ cross- hairs. They named our design team as their adversary even before we began the Update. This story is about the tactics we practiced to overcome their attacks on issues that mattered deeply to the community.

Each of our staff had to prepare for ugly public confrontations. Conflict avoiders prac- ticed presenting facts firmly without being intimidated. Rehearsing through role-play for several weeks strengthened staff confidence. When the speculators, arguing for their devel- opment below sea level, bullied staff in meetings, staff forcefully delivered facts like “hurri- cane storm surge with rising sea level poses unacceptable risk to the speculators’ low-lying development site and costs the community can never afford.” (On the other hand, I prac- ticed avoiding screaming matches with the developers. We all have different Achilles’ heels.)

Because we knew the attacks were forthcoming, we also turned the Coastal Plan into a tactic for itself. We implemented four strategies:

1. Confirm local objectives through the most extensive community goal-setting pro- cess in the island’s history; extension of water and sewer services to flood-prone sprawl violated 8 of the community’s 10 most deeply held planning values.

2. Frame the public debate around factual data from reliable sources about the com- munity objectives. For example, staff diagrammed for residents how a most impor- tant goal, to protect wetlands on the island, held additional value to dissipate storm surge and reduce damage from sea level rise.

3. Employ state regulations requiring that land-use designations account for spec- ified sea level increases, based on the best scientific projections available. (These science-based regulations have since been discarded by the Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature.)

4. Develop a workshop focused solely on where water and sewer should be upgraded to serve anticipated growth. We gambled on a tactic to confront the developers directly about their intentions, which they tried to hide from the public. Workshop participants were asked to study three alternative residential growth scenarios,

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select their preferred scenario, then locate that growth in the area they preferred. We created a game in which the scenarios with potential locations, and acres of anticipated residential growth, could be quickly understood. Each participant was given the same fixed number of acres cut into squares and a map showing avail- able land (total squares based on the 8.5 percent growth rate, existing density of 0.16 residential acres/person) and then asked to affix the squares to their individ- ual map. The game took about half an hour, after which residents compared their maps. Only the land speculators located future growth in hazard areas vulnerable to sea level rise.

The immediate result of these tactics was the solidification of community support for concentrated infill growth on higher ground—a strategy more desirable for permanent res- idents than for seasonal residents. The Coastal Plan was adopted by the Town Board of Commissioners with stronger than ever commitments to mitigate sea level rise through wetland enhancement.

Figure 9-16: On Roanoke Island the conflict over developing lowlands imperiled by rising seas played out in public. Design staff practiced responding to intimidating threats with forceful facts. Using a growth scenario game, civic-minded residents confronted land speculators by choosing ecologically informed growth scenarios.

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reflection In our office we often ask if we should do only work that is important enough to warrant high-stakes conflict. “Mostly,” we respond. Sometimes you facilitate settlement, sometimes you maximize opposing goals, sometimes you win graciously or lose disastrously, some- times you create the unimaginable.

Table 9-1: Rules of Power Tactics

Rule 1 Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.

Rule 2 Never go outside the experience of your people.

Rule 3 Whenever possible go outside the experience of the enemy.

Rule 4 Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.

Rule 5 Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.

Rule 6 A good strategy is one that your people enjoy.

Rule 7 A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.

Rule 8 Keep the pressure on.

Rule 9 The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.

Rule 10 The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

Rule 11 If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counter side.

Rule 12 The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

Rule 13 Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

Source: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.

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Technique 9.7

organizing a placE-basEd caMpaign

Randolph T. Hester Jr.

Organizing a place-based campaign builds the political capacity to implement a community improvement or change a local policy, relying heavily on the skills of designers to observe the unseen, to draw attention to a pending catastrophe or a possibility not to be missed, to make a situation comprehensible to the community, and to prompt political change.

instructions 1. Identify the problem or opportunity in terms of how it will impact the community.

Draw simple diagrams to explain the situation and likely impacts. 2. Get the support of active community members to address the problem or oppor-

tunity. Check the accuracy of your assessment and invite their partnership to form a core group; collectively determine the degree of difficulty you face. Be prepared for discouragement because anything worth doing will threaten some power struc- ture.

3. Begin a power map to help guide you through troubled waters. (See Power Map- ping technique earlier in this chapter.)

4. Check with the technical experts. Many a local campaign dies as a result of basic factual errors exploited by those resisting change. If the core members include experts, great. If there is no one, go to the nearest university. Ask your questions, take notes, seek clarification when experts use terms you do not understand. Get them to help you draw the ecosystem and social intricacies of the issue.

5. Determine what role the experts will play. Will they express opinions publicly? Are there research articles you should read, especially ones the expert has written?

6. Pursue other experts like city staff with procedural questions. If you are challeng- ing city policy, do not expect support, but good public staff will provide maps, reports about the project, environmental review, funding, and schedules of meet- ings and construction.

7. Get the facts to the community. Summarize everything you have learned in maps, charts, and brief text. Make a two-page summary that you can post on websites and through list servers, publish in neighborhood newsletters, and hand out at community meetings or by going door to door. Most people will appreciate your effort because it likely impacts them as well. Invite them to join you; give them spe- cific things to do. If someone is hostile, be especially charming. This takes practice.

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8. Only when your position is well formed should you contact local media. Neigh- bors may tolerate half-baked ideas, but the mass media audience will not. Time the media coverage to your best advantage. Focus on essential facts and human impacts. Publicize your schedule of activities and invite public participation.

9. Hold a meeting to share tasks among increasing participants. Additional commu- nity members likely joined your group as you got them the facts personally or through the media. Flex that power through an open meeting. Prepare a precise but flexible agenda and a list of next steps. Choose a place with two rooms avail- able, one seating about 20 people, another for 50 to 100 people. Begin in the small room; move if necessary. Efforts die in a room so large that it exposes a lack of sup- port. They thrive when a crowd must relocate to a bigger space. Serve something to eat. Get people to sign in, provide contact information, and fill out a brief survey about their priorities. Allow people to vent frustrations, but accomplish something concrete. Get everyone to voice opinions. Select interim leaders. Name the group. Set a primary objective with widespread support and make a plan to achieve it. Appoint groups to take on key tasks to research the issue in more detail, develop better communication, and get the unrepresented involved. Vote on some motion. Set a time for the next meeting, noting that task groups will report.

10. Get the most organized person to coordinate the work of the task groups. If the sit- uation has reached crisis stage, get one group to quickly develop tactics to obstruct the unwanted action. Remember that you will need to put forward alternatives so form another task group to create alternatives with your experts. More people will pitch in when a threat is imminent, but some people are best at long-term planning so engage them in a special task group for future projects.

11. Plan strategies with a core group and implement them with as many people as pos- sible. Strategy is the exercise of power so realistically appraise the nature of your power. Is it a better idea? new knowledge? numbers? Evaluate the power against you. Who would be hurt by your success? Who thinks they would be? Draw this on your power map. Be sure you know how the system works in regard to your proj- ect. There are complicated procedures for community gardens, freeway construc- tion, or self-help housing. Learn the formal process and plan tactics to intervene at points most vulnerable to your power. Consider outrageous, fun, or exciting tactics. Alinsky can help you here. He might suggest dumping a barrel of dead fish on the doorstep of the company whose coal ash polluted the river. Choose one strategy that the group thinks will be quickly successful and involve a lot of people. Every group needs decisive early success to build morale and legitimacy. Find a strategy that will “cost” the least but get the job done. If a respected participant can

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call the city manager and quietly redirect an unjust policy, don’t choose instead to demonstrate at city hall demanding the city manager’s resignation. But do credit all the participants who were prepared to demonstrate. Make the final strategic decision inclusively and transparently.

12. Take action; escalate as necessary. An inappropriately harsh tactic will cost you public favor; slow escalation will build support and is usually most effective—like shuttle diplomacy in reverse. Show force, used sparingly. Demand action from the responsible agency. Boil demands down to their pointed and reasoned essence. Speak to the agency in their language, but do not violate the intentions of citizens in the community. Community concerns can easily be lost in translation. Attend to details such as where, when, and how elected officials will conduct a decision- making meeting. At this point you may want to consider a time-tested alternative put forward by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His approach uses six steps, the fifth of which is direct action.

13. Be persistent. If a bureaucrat tells you he will do something, check it out to be sure it is done. Do not get sidetracked. Keep a watchful eye, even after a success is achieved, to be certain it is not undone. Remember, “Eternal vigilance is one price of our liberty.”

14. Advertise positive outcomes to existing and potential supporters. 15. Celebrate success with an event that people will remember as a “big time.” 16. Undertake other projects across scales. Evaluate your previous strategic process,

positive and negative. Get the task group for longer-term projects to present to the larger group. Now is the time to act because you have the community’s attention. However, expect some of the hardest workers to have burned out; they may retreat for a time. Maybe you need a brief break yourself.

case story In 2015 a partnership of intercity passenger and freight train officials in Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, completed a study of grade separations. Grade separa- tions keep various modes of transportation apart by placing them at different topographic elevations, or grades. In this case bridges and tunnels were proposed in order to separate freight and passenger rail tracks from automobiles on streets. Realigning tracks and streets at different grades is typically done to increase speed and efficiency of both rail and car traf- fic and improve safety. The study was hailed by all as an essential step toward implementing a light rail system to link the Triangle cities. Counties passed tax increases to support light rail. Engineering consultants garnered praise for successfully separating trains from auto- mobiles, but a citizen was alarmed when he studied the plan. The citizen deciphered the

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engineers’ calculations for grade changes and drew cross sections at key points in Durham. It was true the engineers had successfully divided cars from trains, but their marvel created a 22-foot wall through the heart of the city, cutting apart neighborhoods the city had long worked to connect: rich and poor, black and white, young and old, invested and disinvested. Pedestrians would be forced to walk along narrow automobile tunnels, through pockets of

Table 9-2: Steps of Nonviolence

Information Gathering

To understand and articulate an issue, problem, or injustice facing a person, community, or institution you must do research. You must investigate and gather all vital information from all sides of the argument or issue so as to increase your understanding of the problem. You must become an expert on your opponent’s position.

Education It is essential to inform others, including your opposition, about your issue. This minimizes misunderstandings and gains you support and sympathy.

Personal Commitment

Daily check and affirm your faith in the philosophy and methods of nonviolence. Eliminate hidden motives and prepare yourself to accept suffering, if necessary, in your work for justice.

Discussion/ Negotiation

Using grace, humor, and intelligence, confront the other party with a list of injustices and a plan for addressing and resolving these injustices. Look for what is positive in every action and statement the opposition makes. Do not seek to humiliate the opponent but to call forth the good in the opponent.

Direct Action These are actions taken when the opponent is unwilling to enter into, or remain in, discussion/negotiation. These actions impose a “creative tension” into the conflict, supplying moral pressure on your opponent to work with you in resolving the injustice.

Reconciliation Nonviolence seeks friendship and understanding with the opponent. Nonviolence does not seek to defeat the opponent. Nonviolence is directed against evil systems, forces, oppressive policies, unjust acts, but not against persons. Through reasoned compromise, both sides resolve the injustice with a plan of action. Each act of reconciliation is one step closer to the “Beloved Community.”

Source: Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.

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underground pollution 300 feet long. In some places the slope of walkways exceeded 12 percent, inaccessible to wheelchairs and most elderly people. Existing grade separations of trains and cars were lost. The citizen shared his drawings with other professionals who checked his calculations; they did similar studies by cutting sections at other points along the route. The wall extended for miles, dissecting the city. Light rail was inaccessible from the street. What to do?

The small group of concerned citizens showed the drawings to a few other profes- sional designers who met monthly as a public service group called Durham Area Designers (DAD). DAD took up the cause. They divided tasks, organized a campaign to question the grade separation plan, and prepared an at-grade alternative for light rail accessible at street level. Two members consulted a member of the authority governing freight trains. A regional planner provided procedural and technical data. One group studied the entire cor- ridor to determine system-wide urban design impacts hidden in the engineers’ abstractions. Another group contacted neighborhoods and business interests that would be negatively impacted. A neighbor created “Up Against the Wall” via Facebook. DAD leaders began a quiet effort to inform decision makers. Everyone who saw the evidence was concerned, but no one wanted to “derail light rail.” City staff insisted it was not as bad as DAD suggested.

A landscape architect drew six-foot-long cross sections (at a scale of 1 inch equals 10 feet) showing the wall in red, cars in depressed “street sewers,” people dwarfed by concrete channels longer than a football field as they tried to walk from Main Street to the Perform- ing Arts Center, two districts that the city council had invested millions of public dollars to connect. The wall laid waste to all that investment. The drawing was accurate, dramatic, and impossible to dismiss.

DAD concluded that the city council had to be confronted. The tactic was to simply present a brief fact sheet of negative impacts along with the big drawing, titled the “Great Wall of Durham,” at a council meeting where other citizens and the media would see the “Great Wall” writ large for the first time. Council members gasped aloud; they had been vocal proponents of the grade separation study but were unaware of its impacts. The council reacted with the same alarm as citizens. The tactic had its desired impact.

However, staff continued to defend the plan as necessary to achieve light rail. Transit planners stated funding would be lost unless the grade separation plan was adopted imme- diately. One senior agent said the problem could be covered up with nice murals. All of these turned out to be false.

The “Great Wall” campaign had turned the tide of public opinion and city council sup- port. The city transportation director began attending DAD meetings to draw alternatives. The group organized design workshops to develop plans to maximize access to light rail, create an at-grade system using existing grade separations, and better serve underserved,

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poorer neighborhoods. The city council allowed the grade separation study to die a quiet death. A year later the regional agency charged with planning light rail produced a new, preferred alternative with no wall and at-grade access to each transit stop.

reflections Place-based organizing is grounded in particular land with specific resources and cultural idiosyncrasies. Topography and climate must be considered precisely. Two lessons from this case stand out. First, the ability of designers to draw complex abstractions is a powerful tool for organizing. Drawings that are simultaneously rational and provocative serve as change agents. Second, no staff person in the city, county, or transit planning agencies had compre- hended the spatial implications of the engineers’ work. Shocking! This serves as a warning that illiteracy of topographic and other place-dependent design expertise invariably leads to catastrophic decisions.

Figure 9-17: The “Great Wall of Durham” drawing prepared for the public record caused a stir.

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PLACE CHAPTER OPENING ART HERE

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