Structural Adaptivity Facilitation Examples - Part II

Here are some more Facilitation Examples.  By Facilitation I am meaning general activities by planners, and others that cause or guide development, to influence the development of the built environment toward structural adaptivity as we progress into an ever more uncertain and unpredictable future.  Some might call them implementation strategies or “calls to action.”

 

These examples have not been identified or studied by teams of experts; they are only my personal ideas intended to illustrate possibilities.  Hopefully, however, they will convey a sense of the real prospects for structural adaptivity to be achieved.  I believe that structural adaptivity is critical to resilience over the long term.

 

Promote the Futurist Perspective.  With more attention in our society to the “futurist perspective,” sooner rather than later, such attention will also come to focus on the need for all forms of adaptivity, including structural adaptivity in our urban areas and regions.  Structural adaptivity is the most, if not only, logical approach to facing a future that now is uncertain, unpredictable and rapidly changing.

 

Historically, the "futurist perspective" has been the norm for people and society, during many times.  Many societies in the past have been quite interested in visioning and understanding the probabilities for the future.  We just happen to be living in a time when the focus is on the "now perspective." 

 

The "now perspective" is here apparently because of the fear over the rapidly increasing changes that are taking place.  It is also here because of the intense worldwide competition among all peoples, both economically and otherwise - to the point that immediate success is supreme in many people's thoughts.  Thirdly, it is here because of people's "buy in" to a world of marketing strategies/ideas - focused on trying to continuously increase sales, production, and growth, day by day.

 

A more normal perspective for human beings is to listen to all the stories that come down from the past - and to ponder possible stories for the future.  Such activity brings out a very normal characteristic of human emotion, the emotion of "wonder."  The emotion of "wonder" is reflected in hundreds of activities going on around us.  The fine arts are built on the emotion and feelings of wonder and its relatives:  marvel, amazement, curiosity, astonishment, awe, questioning, inquiring, speculation, observation, speculation, and more.  The emotion and feelings of wonder are also behind advances in philosophy, science, mathematics, medicine, the humanities, and even politics, and history.

 

To promote the "futurist perspective" is simply to promote a very natural human predisposition. 

 

To do so, however, we must counter the current philosophy of the "live for now" thinking.  Many activities are already occurring in such direction.  The entertainment media are increasingly bringing forth very engaging documentaries regarding where the earth came from, how life was born in the seas, how the earth changed and life evolved over billions of years, and what might happen to the earth and life in the long-term future.  Science fiction has opened many eyes to the multitude of possibilities for the future.  Astronomical advances have astounded us with pictures far out into the universe, actually looking into the distant past.  Space rockets and satellites have given us pictures of the earth from thousands of miles away.  Scientists have begun to watch and listen for signals from life way beyond our own solar system.  At the other end of the spectrum, scientists have opened our eyes to the microscopic particles that make up everything on our earth and are looking for new ways to use such knowledge.

 

A return to more of a “futurist perspective” is inevitable.  It is important only that we move it along.

 

We must continue to encourage futurists, and scientists, and many others, to bring forth their ideas and perspectives to everyday citizens.  Moreover, it must include attention to the perspectives of futurists from many different nations and cultures around the world.  We do not have a monopoly on the best futurist thinking.  This encouragement must be provided much more than just in academic journals.  It must be provided through the popular media, in fiction, in fine art and pop art, in drama, in local and national forums, and even in politics and economics. 

 

Expand the “General Welfare Authority” of Our Federal Government.  Although not necessarily needed for the facilitation of these recommendations, structural adaptivity could provide a sound basis for expanding the general welfare authority of our federal government to protect us, nationwide, from the threats of a rapidly changing, unknown future.  Clearly, the threats we are facing exist for most all areas of our country.  Likewise, most can only be substantially reduced by all areas acting in concert through our federal government.  If transitioning to the approach of structural adaptivity takes longer than is safe, expanding the general welfare authority will be the best option. 

 

The “general welfare clauses” in the US Constitution as they are currently interpreted are fairly limited. 

 

One reference to the “general welfare” is in the Preamble.  Therefore, it is mostly interpreted as not granting any authority to the federal government.  Another one is in Article I, Sect 8, which states: “Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the Unites States ….”  And in Article I, Section 3, (although not using the phrase “general welfare”) the Constitution gives our Congress authority: “To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.”

 

Amendment 10 of the Constitution also states: “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”  Many people believe this statement overrides much of the authority of the federal government as regards the “general welfare” of the US.  They tend to believe that the “general welfare” of the people is primarily the responsibility of the states and of only the states. 

 

At the same time, most citizens know that much protection, mitigation, regulation, or similar action is needed on a nationwide basis.  In order to protect ourselves, therefore, we have been enacting severely needed regulations under various moderately related powers of the federal government, such as the taxing and spending power mentioned above, or the commerce clause, or environmental justice, or the “necessary and proper” phrase, for example. 

 

Some scholars are suggesting that there are other ways to deal with the situation, such as recognition of an inherent federal “police power;” thinking of commercial goods as also including “public goods;” through “common law” doctrines; or with an additional Constitutional Amendment.

 

My contention is that any efforts to expand our national government’s authority to more directly deal with the threats of the future, and with many types of rapid change that are not seen as constituting catastrophes, must not be predicated on scientific certainty that the events or changes will happen.  That would require that the events or changes already happen before the national government could acquire the authority to prevent or adapt to them.  The magnitude of some such catastrophes is too large to wait until after they have happened.

 

Current predictions about global climate change are an example of how we do not have sufficient scientific certainty of the threat to convince the public of the need for federal authority to counter the threat.  Apparently many of the public believe we have to wait until global climate change has happened and has continued for many years before we can begin to try to deal with it (e.g. slow it down and prepare for the consequences).

 

I propose that linking our “general welfare” to “adaptivity” is a valid basis for expanding our federal authority to protect us from the immensely harmful trends and/or events that are likely some time during this new century.  Adaptivity is the wisest course of action for meeting an unknown future and it is a concept that our scientific community is already coming to endorse.  With more research evidence, it could become a rock-solid strategic principle for our population and our legal institutions fully to accept.  Moreover, the wisdom of the legal professionals (especially including the judiciary) could provide enormous knowledge regarding how to apply adaptivity to many different facets of our growth and development.

 

Put Plan-Making into a Broad Context. 

 

We need to focus on establishing plans and related planning documents and activities as a process through long-time and wide-space.  We need to tie plans together to reveal substantial and unexpected change over time, to reveal planning as a continually improving professional practice, and to reveal opportunity for people of many knowledge areas and for the public to contribute big ideas of value to the planning and decision-making process.  

 

Plan-making needs to be placed in a long-term time frame, covering both the past and future.  All planning agencies should have at least one plan, perhaps only a concept plan, for the future 50-100 years.  In addition, all plans should postulate as many of the long term future consequences of the plan as can reasonably be imagined, both positive and negative.

 

Plan-making also needs to be placed within a wide spatial dimension.  All planning areas should extend beyond the area of interest by dimensions appropriate to the subject matter.  For example, in planning for major transportation routes the planning area should be typically extend at least to the next population/economic center of similar size.  In planning for water supply, treatment and distribution, the planning area should include as much of the regional watershed as practicable.  Additionally, when this approach still does not do justice to the intent, other appropriate tools should be provided to describe clearly the relationship of the planning elements to all relevant circumstances of surrounding territories.

 

Planners have committed themselves to seeking and using public/stakeholder input. 

 

Such input must be invited to include input on the purpose and structure of each planning activity (before it is started) and how all the activities are to fit together.  Planners must provide guidance to the public regarding where the planners believe the public input could be of greatest benefit to (or have the most critical impact on) the planning process.  Such guidance must include information on where the planners believe the public can gain the most knowledge to help them make valuable input  This must include sources outside the planning agency and sources that will most support and that will most contradict the planning proposals.

 

Planners must become forthcoming as to errors or miss-directions in their past planning activities; and they must provide clear and full descriptions of the assumptions about the future in each of their plans and descriptions of their confidence levels in the value/importance of each of the major findings and the major recommendations.  They also must be forthcoming as to the need for specific additional research to increase such confidence levels or to explore more alternatives, and similar matters.  The planning process needs to introduce any individual new ideas, strategies, and plan elements to the public in series of public discussions (preferably ongoing) well prior to incorporating them in proposed/final planning documents.

 

Public input will also help planners to see the bigger picture of what they are producing and why.  Are they producing plans that are narrowly restricted to only one area at a time?  Are they producing plans that only look at current needs for an area?  Are they producing plans that may have positive impacts for one area and negative impacts for surrounding areas?  Are they producing plans that may have positive impacts for the short-term future but very possibly negative impacts for the longer-term future?  (Are they likely to help meet the need for curbing carbon emissions now but help produce more-heat-intolerant conditions for the future?)  Are they producing plans that, if implemented, will tie the local economy or financing commitments (no regrets?), or neighborhood quality of life standards, far into an unknown future?

 

It is my contention that structural adaptivity is an approach to planning that will surface and become accepted more and more simply based on the planners’ and the publics’ experience and logic.  Yes, I would like to see the planners, themselves, promoting structural adaptivity but I believe even more important is a planning process that is open and accepting of the best ideas of the times.  I believe that structural adaptivity will be accepted as the best idea when the public is fully embedded in the planning process.

 

Facilitate More Short-Term Temporary Uses/Development.  Very short-term development and uses are needed in many locations/situations so that we can be more open to better development solutions in the future.  We need to be optimistic about the better solutions that will come.  We need to avoid rushing into the development of all or most all of the best sites in a city or region.  We need to conserve many of them, through short-term and temporary uses (or open spaces), for many emerging needs that we cannot yet fully predict.   

 

(These writings are based on my convictions that we do not now have the capacity to foresee sufficiently the future trends and possibilities that we may be facing.  However, I am not intending to mean that we will not gain that capacity sometime in the next 50-100 years and then be able to make more long-term concrete plans for all sites/areas.)

 

Short-term and temporary uses/development, along with open spaces, land banks, and in-fill strategies, constitute a big part of the adaptivity of an urban area. 

 

They determine how much land, and where, there will be rather quick opportunities for adapting to changes in what people want and need.  They must be operated as an adaptivity “system” or “force,” in unison with each other, supplying the urban area with a ready reserve of developable land in critical and strategically planned locations.

 

Short-term and temporary uses and/or development of some of these lands will be necessary for their continued preservation.  Otherwise, they will become much too vulnerable to premature development pressure.  There are many possibilities for such uses.  Some might be oriented to the use and preservation of older, vacant buildings and properties; some to moderate-term use or development; some to very low cost, do-it-yourself development; some to high-impact events; some to socially-oriented activities; some to supplemental business activities; some to play and recreation; and some for political/civic activity.  The sites also should be available for setting up emergency response facilities to bring emergency response services into the midst of all neighborhoods.

 

Development and use regulations and permitting systems should be revised to facilitate many more short-term and temporary structures and uses wherever possible.

 

Some particular uses might include:

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farm/produce sales,

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art and craft sales/events,

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sports fields and sporting events,

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concerts, drama productions, and similar,

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informal play,

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seasonal sales (Christmas trees, gardening supplies, pumpkins, etc.),

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semi-permanent parking lots,

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restaurants/food stands/street vendors,

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temporary mobile living units,

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pet care/dog parks,

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emergency aid/health care stations,

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schools-in-tents,

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community gardens,

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used clothes/furniture markets,

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start-up business incubators,

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advertising graphics,

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urban campgrounds,

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and many more. 

 

In the US, we are only beginning to explore and use the advantages available.  In some other countries, short-term and temporary uses are considered vitally important to the total “fabric” of the communities and larger regions.

 

 

 

William Schnaufer