On Wednesday I provided one example of where my profession, city planning, fails to keep a scientific state of mind.

As a reminder, here are the steps Jane Jacobs outlines:

1. The fruitful question
2. Frame a hypothetical answer
3. Test that answer (or observe real world tests of that question, as in social sciences)
4. Ask more fruitful questions based on findings

I have another example of planning professionals failing to ask a fruitful question: sometimes they ask no question at all.

At any given APA conference, there are many great tools and trends to learn about. A planner can learn how to apply the answers of others without ever having to ask a fruitful question. If “New Urbanism” is the answer, what’s the question? I’m not a New Urbanism detractor, I just hate to see answers that don’t fit the context. The answer could just as easily be “42.”

Sometimes, the answer is a part of a policy mandate - whether by state code, politician, or government official. The “answer” might be a comprehensive plan or a form-based zoning overlay. These are often great answers. The questions related to these answers might be inferred, but much confusion abounds when citizens, officials, politicians, and consultants have different conceptions of the question.

I have read dozens of RFPs for planning consulting services that indicate no fruitful question. You might assume that’s what the consultant should be hired to determine if the government officials and planners haven’t. However, many of these RFPs are heavy-handed, proposing specific lines of inquiry (see steps 2 and 3). God forbid there be any room in the contract to ask additional questions (step 4).

You might write off my concerns as the rantings of a spurned consultant. If you’ve never been a consultant or hired one, the whole process might seem opaque - my brief descriptions providing little clarity. Well, I’m working on it…

After working for architects, I came to admire the profession’s iterative stages of design:

• Programming,
• Conceptual Design,
• Schematic Design,
• Design Development, and
• Construction Documents

The programming stage asks fruitful questions, such as, “How many square feet does HR need?” The architect and client collaborate, collecting information on the number of employees in said department, the space they have available now, projections for how many employees the department will have in the future, etc. The overall question: “What is the building program? What kinds of space and how much of it must the building provide?” Answers, or rather, designs are proposed, developed, fit within the constraints of code and budget, and approved by the client. Because it is iterative, more questions can be asked as they come up (step 4).

The closest most private-sector planners come to doing the equivalent of “programming” happens in the proposal itself. Planners are giving the step away for free, if they’re doing it at all. The proposal might be boilerplate - cut and paste from the last proposal. Or, as mentioned above, the client might provide this work; they might also provide the assumptions to skip over the lack of this work.

I’ve been looking to the graphic design profession to see how they structure this step. They have a design brief or discovery document.

I would love to have an opportunity to structure a planning contract similarly, but, since many planners are willing to give this step away for free, I’m not sure the idea is salable. Plus, I’m not sure government is structured to be so open-ended. Much of the work program may not be in place until after the discovery document is complete.

I’m not proposing an open-ended process as scary as Frog Hammer, the ad agency from Slings & Arrows Season 2. While, Richard, the client, walked in the door with a fruitful question, the answer was left completely up to the agency. They skipped anything that might resemble steps 2-4 and the result is comic gold. If you’re not averse to a few obscenities, check it out.

In the process I’m proposing, if, after the discovery document, the client and consultant cannot come to a reasonable agreement on the further scope of work (and fee), the client walks away with what is hopefully a productive document. The consultant gets paid for that work. The client can hire another consultant and furnish them with all the findings of the first.

Isn’t it better to spend 4-figures on such a step rather than waste 5 or 6-figures on the wrong answer?

As a credentialed city planner, the most I’ve enjoyed so far are some extra initials to put after my name and the opportunity log some certification maintenance credits.

Jane Jacobs does not hide her distain for credentialed professionals. It’s not a matter of the people, it’s that the credential itself provides a shield under which professionals/researchers can hide from fruitful feedback through the course of scientific inquiry. She cites an example of where the work of 80 CDC researchers was trumped by one sociology grad student; the work of the former was given instant credence through academic journals, but was, in Jacobs’ view, worthless.

So, here’s where my profession fails - at least in keeping a scientific state of mind. This is going to take at least two days worth of posts.

As a reminder, here are the steps Jacobs outlines:

1. The fruitful question
2. Frame a hypothetical answer
3. Test that answer (or observe real world tests of that question, as in social sciences)
4. Ask more fruitful questions based on findings

The first failure is obvious: failing to ask a fruitful question.

Planners frequently become “zoners.” That is, those who deal with zoning, or, in the oxymoron of the profession, “current planners.” The question this subset most frequently asks: Does this proposal meet the zoning requirements?

Not fruitful.

Maybe it’s time I explained what Jacobs means by “fruitful.”

“Fruitful” means that the question must take into account, as far as possible, everything already known about the object, event, or process under scrutiny and, amid this richness of information, must single out a salient mystery or obscurity. “Science abandoned,” Dark Age Ahead (p66)

Most zoning regulations control land use, primarily, though it regulates other factors, such as performance, form, area, and density. Land use is the organizing principle. Some decry Euclidean zoning, named for a town in Ohio and not the geometry, for its separation of uses. For the sake of the non-credentialed reader I’ll avoid going into composite, pyramid, exclusionary or other such abstractions of this system.

This type of zoning arose in the early 20th century in response to a fruitful question: How can we separate uses to prevent conflicts or nuisances? Think of the public health, safety, and general welfare!

The hypothetical answer: What if we separate these uses in different districts?

For factory workers sans transit, living in walking distance of the factory gate was a must. You might debate the classist imposition of such a solution, but that’s beyond the point here (see posts on planning moralisms).

For those lamenting the high, possibly unforeseen consequences that arose from this solution, such as sprawl, that’s also beyond the point here.

The point here is that the system of inquiry stopped. There is little chance for proper feedback. The hypothetical answer becomes the untested solution. Zoners ignore real world feedback - the only on the ground testing.

Some are looking at the real world data in this case. There are some interesting solutions, such as form-based coding. But, the barriers to overhaul a zoning code are political and fiscal. The feedback does not have an easy path to travel.

More missteps tomorrow…