To understand planning’s therapeutic potential let us unpack what makes a profession caring and how that aligns with planning. There is a strong correlation between the caring professions and those associated with health and wellness. We expect doctors, nurses, social workers and counsellors to care for their patients/clients. Do planners have the same expectation? One would think they should, as planning too has a strong connection to health and wellness having arose from the public health movement during the industrial revolution. Communities needed the planner to bring order to the necessities for life (sewer, water, heat, shelter) and to separate communities from hazardous uses (heavy industrial etc.).
Current planning interests like active/public transportation, green/blue infrastructure, limiting conflicts between cars and pedestrians, inclusive urban design, and complete communities all seek to improve the health and wellness of the public. Is there a difference between the public health objectives of planning and those of medicine or social work? What would happen if planning made its connection to health more explicit? Solving these problems is becoming more relevant as the boundary of health and wellness expands to include more of our socio-emotional lives.
There is clearly more to the caring professions then an interest in health and wellness. Policy analysts and drug manufacturers are both invested in health but are not expected to be caring. These professions do not interact with the public enough to have a clear relationship to care for. This then leads to the crux of caring; it is centred on relationships. Doctors and nurses care for their patients, child and youth workers care for children, social workers care for their clients.
Planning is definitely a people-oriented profession. Planners facilitate conversations between stakeholders, they consult and educate the public, they advise politicians, they compile information from a swath of experts. Of these who is planning expected to care for? Developers? Experts and other public servants? City councilors? Residence associations? Town hall meeting participants? Maybe the sheer number of people the planner is expected to interact with overwhelms a theory of care. Unlike the caring professions there is not discrete person the planner is expected to care for. Instead the planner is faced with a heterogenous community. What does community level care look like in practice? Do planners care for the public as a whole or individually? An answer to these questions can be found by unpacking the planner-public relationship.
Current planning interests like active/public transportation, green/blue infrastructure, limiting conflicts between cars and pedestrians, inclusive urban design, and complete communities all seek to improve the health and wellness of the public. Is there a difference between the public health objectives of planning and those of medicine or social work? What would happen if planning made its connection to health more explicit? Solving these problems is becoming more relevant as the boundary of health and wellness expands to include more of our socio-emotional lives.
There is clearly more to the caring professions then an interest in health and wellness. Policy analysts and drug manufacturers are both invested in health but are not expected to be caring. These professions do not interact with the public enough to have a clear relationship to care for. This then leads to the crux of caring; it is centred on relationships. Doctors and nurses care for their patients, child and youth workers care for children, social workers care for their clients.
Planning is definitely a people-oriented profession. Planners facilitate conversations between stakeholders, they consult and educate the public, they advise politicians, they compile information from a swath of experts. Of these who is planning expected to care for? Developers? Experts and other public servants? City councilors? Residence associations? Town hall meeting participants? Maybe the sheer number of people the planner is expected to interact with overwhelms a theory of care. Unlike the caring professions there is not discrete person the planner is expected to care for. Instead the planner is faced with a heterogenous community. What does community level care look like in practice? Do planners care for the public as a whole or individually? An answer to these questions can be found by unpacking the planner-public relationship.