Governance and Planning: Locating the will and power to plan in the Americas
| Date/Time: | Thursday, 22 Mar 2012 from 3:40 pm to 5:00 pm |
|---|---|
| Location: | Room 130 College of Design |
| Cost: | free |
| Contact: | Jane Rongerude |
| Phone: | 515-294-5289 |
| Channel: | College of Design |
| Categories: | Lectures |
| Actions: | Download iCal/vCal | Email Reminder |
Planners in the global North increasingly are paying attention to transnational circuits of planning ideas and practices. While they share a concern with the legitimacy and relevance of planning as a concept and practice for a planet of cities, they are split over why the globalization of the practice matters.
Some see great opportunities to legitimize planning practice and education by exporting domestic ideas and talents to places "in need of planning." Others challenge the ethics of what they see as the largely un-reflexive theorization and application of planning ideas across the globe. Neither camp, however, places a strong enough focus on key questions: Who wants to plan, why and how?
Based on over a decade of research on state regimes and planning practices in the Americas (Chile, Bolivia, Haiti, USA), this lecture takes a governance-based approach to assess the political and institutional opportunities planners face in two distinct, if not extreme, national political contexts: Chilean (neoliberal) centralism in boom times and Haitian hyper-fragmented institutionalism in times of disaster. Chilean and Haitian planning case studies will illustrate different manifestations of sovereignty, the power to decide, and the ways it shapes the very notion of planning as an idea and practice.
About the Speaker
Enrique Silva is an assistant professor of urban affairs and city planning at Boston University Metropolitan College. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University, a Master of Science in planning from the University of Toronto and a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. Silva's areas of expertise are comparative urbanization and formation of public-sector planning institutions and practices. He conducts research on the institutionalization of participatory planning processes in Chile and the United States and is working on post-earthquake planning efforts in Haiti.
Silva's research raises questions about the challenges inherent in the democratization of planning and policymaking in general, especially in the context of neoliberal economic-political regimes. This research contributes to broader theoretical debates on democracy and pluralism, but it also informs public-sector and grassroots strategies to improve participatory planning mechanisms.
Silva teaches courses on the theory and history of city planning, comparative urbanization, politics and public participation, as well as qualitative research methods. In addition to his years working abroad in the fields of international development, philanthropy and human rights, Silva has several years of professional experience as a city planner and environmental permitting consultant in Greater Boston.
This lecture is sponsored by the Department of Community and Regional Planning, the College of Design and the Graduate Community and Regional Planning Club.