ELEVATE // Fall 2011 Lecture Series

Susan S. Fainstein
Professor, Department of Urban Planning and Design
Harvard GSD
Monday, October 31
6PM, Meyerson B3

In a recent opinion piece entitled, “Jane Jacobs and the Death and Life of American Planning,” University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill planning professor Tom Campanella lamented that city planning in America had become a “trivial profession,” no longer capable of “bringing about more just, sustainable, healthful, efficient and beautiful cities and regions.” Laying the blame for this sad state squarely at the feet of Jane Jacobs and her followers, Campanella identifies three adverse legacies of what he terms the “Jacobsian turn” to planning. The first is the diminishment of the role of physical design as the disciplinary center of city planning. The second is the ‘privileging [of] the grassroots over plannerly authority and expertise [as a source of] professional agency.” The third and most damning of Campanella’s critiques is simply that planners have lost their nerve, and no longer aspire to transformative visions or actions.

Is Campanella right? Has planning lost its mojo? And if it has, is the democratization of the planning process truly to blame? Please join us as three noted planning educators take on Campanella’s timely challenge.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit http://susanfainsteinatpenndesign-eorg.eventbrite.com/