Commentaries on and Response to Richardson's Profile From Mediation To The Creation Of A "Trading Zone" Sandro Balducci Ric Richardson's account is very interesting, and I found a number of similarities with situations I have experienced myself when I was involved in a number of participatory planning activities, A first important point to be underlined is the request made by Richardson to do a preliminary feasibility study of the mediation process. This is quite common in conflict, resolution, in the form of a “conflict assessment,” and it is a way to ascertain the real possibilities of conducting a participatory process and avoiding disillusion and disappointment. In my experiences this preliminary phase has been particularly addressed to work with the public administration to ensure that those who have the formal authority to transform the result of the participatory process into real decisions and actions will really follow up. Many times, in fact, we have seen situations in which an exciting participatory planning has been wasted after its results entered into the black box of established and prevailing administrative procedures. ‘What I want to stress here is that at the end of this preliminary phase, Richardson says, the uncertainty about the real possibility of resolving the conflict was not so much reduced but that, 4 very important and somehow unexpected role of this activity had been to gain trust among. different actors. This could be considered a by-product of the assessment phase, but from my point of view this is its most important result, A second observation concerns the nature of the process. If I have understood the case wellenough, this does not look very much like a process that followed the standard rules of the negotiation manuals that claim to start from a discussion about principles and general objectives and then build specific solutions upon a common redefinition of agreed principles. Instead, it was very clear from the beginning that objectives and values between neighbors and merchants were seriously opposed. We see therefore something different. After having formed the negotiation group they started a process of discussion about “near agreements”, and then they invited experts to deal with different aspects of possible solutions, developing a conversation about new opportunities. Somehow they started from solutions and not from problem re-definition and agreement about objectives. 1 tend to interpret what is referred to in the interview as a process of creating a “trading zone” as it has been described by Peter Galison in his work in the field of scientific innovations (Galison, 1997, Image and Logic. A Material Culture of Microphysics). Galison has defined “trading zones” as those infrastructures and those concepts that function as “exchangers” for dialogues between different sub-cultures. He shows through empirical observation how innovations in science occurred historically —ranging from physics to nanotechnologies—how these gave rise to concrete spaces or conceptual spaces where scientists belonging to different disciplinary fields were obliged to find simplified and intermediate languages to be able to work together. From that essential communication that required partial working agreements, innovations were born. A trading zone is a platform where highly elaborate and complex questions can be transformed into “thin descriptions” (as opposed to “thick descriptions”), with the objective of exchanging information in a specific local context. This explains the ability to build coordinated forms of mutual interaction, despite a limited capacity on the part of each group to understandthe conceptions, the methodologies and the objectives of the others. In the mediation process in Albuquerque it seems to me that rather than following a set of Predefined steps from agreement about objectives to the definition of possible solutions, we see instead the slow development of an exchange language which allowed participants to agree ‘upon specific solutions that could still belong to very different value systems. It was not the following of a specific methodology that led to the positive result but rather the progressive discovery of areas of partial agreements discovered through a new exchange language based ‘upon trust. In this sense, and this is my third observation, I see also the event of the definition of the boundaries of the area, a real turning point in the story, as dealing with a real “boundary object”, something that was accepted by participants as an agreement precisely because it belonged to and satisfied their different strategies. We know that such boundary objects are instruments in the process of creating a trading zone. Star and Griesemer have explain this in this way: [Boundary object] is an analytic concept of those scientific objects which both inhabit several intersecting social worlds and satisfy the informational requirements of each of them. Boundary objects are objects which are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites. They are weakly structured in common use, and become strongly structured in individual-site use. These objects may be abstract or concrete. They have different meanings in different social worlds but their structure is common enough to more than one world to make them recognizable, a means of translation. The creation and management of boundary objects is a key process in developing and maintaining coherence across intersecting social worlds.”[Susan Leigh Star & James R Griesemer (1989) Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39. Social Studies of Science 19] A final observation concerns the sense of disorientation that always afflicts those responsible of participatory processes halfway. Having experienced many times the same feeling, there could be the impression that this is what happens in any design process when you move from individual to collective rationality. For some time I interpreted it as a sign of the necessary trust in the intelligence of democracy—as if positive results should be the natural consequence of a fair process of interaction among interested parties. But having had negative experiences as well, I have changed my mind about the inexorability of positive results after a period of confusion. After reading Richardson's story I am more and more convinced that you exit from the sense of confusion that is linked to the incompatibility of the languages spoken by the different parties when you start to construct an exchange language which allows the actual creation of a trading zone. This is very much linked not to a specific method for conflict resolution but to the capacity of building trust, as Richardson's interview makes very evident.Reflecting on a mediation narrative from Albuquerque, New Mexico Klaus R. Kunzmann In times when the public sector has gradually been discredited by neo-liberal models of society, and civil society is praised as an indispensable counter power to the fading authority of political leaders, planning has become a difficult terrain. Citizens, increasingly, see planners as henchmen of market led interests, doing the dirty technical work for politicians, who in turn support private investments to secure the local tax base serving their tight local budgets. When Jocal governments are forced to reduce public expenditures, they cut staff numbers and limit careers. They do it preferably in planning, where they can expect to receive much public applause. No wonder that the professional competence of the public sector slowly degrades under such circumstances. Nevertheless, organizing space in cities and maintaining livability for all citizens remain important public tasks. Under such conditions it is not surprising that the mediation of land-use conflicts and controversial projects in cities has become inevitable. It has opened up a new professional field beyond urban design, planning, communication and social studies. Though first programmes are being offered at selected universities to learn the art of mediation in planning, the “art”, however, is still in its infancy. Approaches to mediation are still very much the outcome of individual skills and experience, very much based on local conditions. Here the narrative of Ric Richardson is a stimulating case. Albeit all mediation is tailor-made and locally adapted, the case is inspiring in many respects.To begin with: the process description of the North 4" Street Corridor Project in Albuquerque says little about the design. The number of lines of the road corridor is mentioned, as are several aspects of the zoning arrangements. The concept of the consultants designing the earlier controversial plan is not explained, nor the assessment of the planning commission, nor the reaction of the consultants to the conflict they caused with their design. From an outside perspective it seems their job was not satisfactorily done, or they were just asked to do, what they had been told by their client. This is often the case in such projects. Hence the reader is left to use his own imagination of the quality of the design before and after the mediated design outcome. This is understandable, as itis the process of mediation, which takes center stage in this narrative, not the design. Moreover, I wonder whether the case described in Albuquerque is just an urban design conflict. For me it is more than that. Urban design is seen as a creative competence, to shape the physical and aesthetic appearance of a site, even though a competent urban designer will take the social, economic and ecological concerns of those who will live or work in the site to be designed into careful and responsible consideration. Given the usual practice of architectural education, which often focuses on individual buildings, though, this is, regrettably, not the rule. Planners in turn are often characterized as being uncreative, just compiling information, applying legal regulations and developing more or less forward looking solutions for a given assignment. But for me this case in Albuquerque is more than an urban design conflict—it is a planning conflict, where, at least in theory, many city builders and others as planners, local economists, and sensitive transportation engineers are involved, or should have been involved, well before conflicts evolved.The process of mediation in Albuquerque, so perfectly described by Ric Richardson, illustrates very clearly that the visible dimension, the design part of the conflict, seems to dominate all other dimensions of the conflict, which are rather social, economic or financial, conflicts that a responsible urban designer can try to avoid but not solve. The reader should learn from the mediation process. The design, in the end, is not all that's at stake here. What else is essential here? My learning about planning from the case and my reflections when reading this real world narrative from New Mexico are as follows: Planning cultures differ: [ am not familiar, whether the way planning processes are organized in New Mexico are equal to those in Oregon or Massachusetts. In any case, I assume, they differ from those in Europe, whether itis in Sicily, Bavaria or in Burgundy. This implies that a mediator can only be successful if he, or she, really knows the local or regional environment, the values and the emotions of residents, the traditions, the networks, the milieus, but can keep a distance and remain independent. I cannot imagine that a California planner, not familiar with the concerns of an Italian community in Milan, could successfully mediate a local Conflict there, even if his or her language skills allowed fluency in the local tongue, Language matters: At one point Ric Richardson points to the importance of language in ‘mediation processes. I could not agree more. My concern in planning has always been that the working languages of (i) practicing planners, (ii) academic planners and (iii) the people outside the planning community for whom both these planners plan are more and more divergent. There's a growing language gap between the first two and between the first and third as well Calling for more public participation in planning and using academic jargon in communicating with communities and representatives of a local civil society just does not make sense. In Europe it is even weirder if planners are forced by their higher education systems tolearn and communicate in English, and then fail to communicate when applying their knowledge ina local language, whether in Polish, Greek or Italian, Some years ago I stressed this point in a provocative paper (Kunzmann 2004) Time is crucial: The very detailed description of the mediation steps shows clearly that time seems to be crucial in mediation. Over time a conflict can build up and become more aggravated for whatever external reasons and influences, or a conflict can subside because persons change or investors involved have lost interest or given up. To build up opinions and positions, and to absorb new information takes time. Time, as shown in the Albuquerque case, is also essential in these respects. A mediation process cannot be rushed through over a weekend. It requires time; it needs phases for reflection and discussion with others who are not involved in the process. And time is important for the mediator to prepare the process, like tuning a guitar or violin for playing piece of music, to build up trust. I was surprised to read how much time the persons involved in the conflict devoted to the mediation process. This may not be possible in other locations. Situated creativity: The place where controversies and conflicts are discussed can be significant. A business meeting room in a hotel or in a public authority office may not be a good choice. It has to be a place with a certain meaning, a place which has the potential for cooling tempers down, a place for situated creativity. A well chosen neutral place, best probably a place with a cultural meaning, may inspire the participants to relate their thoughts with the spirit of the place. Such a space may spark or encourage small talk about the visual impressions or the functions of the place itself and, consequently, reduce tensions. In Mediterranean Europe, the place would have additional value if the food served at this place could also contribute to a more relaxed atmosphere. It could further ease the tension and create a spirit of consensus or listening to each other and working together on issues at hand.Creativity in planning: With the increasing promotion of fashionable evidence-based Planning, supported by the excessive use of GIS maps, creativity has lost much of its appeal and function for planners. While many urban designers seem to have shifted from design to the poetry and rhetoric of urbanism, planners tend to retreat to the safe grounds of incremental information-based planning processes. The Albuquerque case shows, though, that even mediation can be a creative process. At least Ric Richardson demonstrates impressive creativity, dealing with the case and structuring the mediation process. From him planners can learn to be flexible and creative when dealing with complex situations full of conflicts. ‘Leadership. Much depends on his or her personality, when intermediaries, perhaps planners like Richardson, are called in to mediate a conflict. Richardson's narrative makes this very obvious. As in politics and corporate ventures, itis leadership that counts, when participants and interest groups have to be convinced to explore grounds for consensus. Arguments matter, though if the arguments are presented in a way that does not leave flexible space for compromise or adjustment, they will just be neglected. One should not forget: Leadership cannot be learned— although some business school textbooks claim it can be done and codify principles for leadership. Leadership in planning, however, is the ability to listen to people and their concerns, the ability to form strategic alliances to implement visionary projects, and not least of all the ability to show barriers to investors and power-seeking politicians. Costs for planning or for mediation? Local governments and planners could learn from the case, too, that had planning been done right early on, investment in time and expertise may have been cheaper in the end than with costly mediation processes, given the time of the planners and all the individuals involved in the mediation process. Postponing communication with citizens and investors until after a plan has been drafted will often mean relying on assumed andanticipated challenges not on real challenges. When architects design a villa, they usually communicate early with the client. When they do urban design they often remain in their studio, {just surrounded by a handful of digital shots of the site. No wonder that costly conflicts lie ahead, once the plans are presented to the public. City governments’ planning commissions should be aware that cheap consultancy fees for urban development projects can in the end have much more costly consequences. Planning education requires real world labs: Students in planning schools are used to explain and defend their projects and plans to teachers and competing classmates—assuming they are still taught and guided to do projects and not just asked to write publishable papers in referced journals. As a rule the language, motives and values in an academic milieu do not differ ‘much internally. Hence many thoughts and considerations underlying proposed projects do not need to be articulated and explained. Students spend most of their time in lecture rooms. So the academic laboratory of a planning school can easily become a kind of a sterilized germ-free zone. This differs altogether from the real world. There, when presenting a project or a plan, prospective planners have to explain basics or respond to basic questions, without always being prepared to deal with the contradictions of such environments. In times when planners have to invest more time in the repair of cities than planning for greenfield town expansion, it would ‘make sense to teach conflict resolution to planning students by shifting more classroom teaching to real world labs, where students can observe and experience controversies as they talk to residents, shop-owners, business-women or investors or public servants in an urban neighbourhood or planning site. Reading case studies may help, though experiencing conflicts in a real world studio will remain in students' memories far longer. 10There is an additional comment I wish to make when reflecting about the transferability of the Albuquerque lessons to Europe. From my German perspective the Albuquerque case presented by Ric Richardson sounds a little bizarre. I could not imagine that a local government Would need or hire and pay an external mediator to find consensus in a controversial design process. Of course such controversial cases can be found in cities all over the country. However only a few reach a point where external mediation might be required (and commissioned). 1 should mention, however, that, as a rule, local governments in Germany —even in small and medium-sized cities—are well equipped with competent and well-trained planning staff, who like lawyers, after five years of university education, have undergone a two year public sector training programme which ends with a state examination. Resolving planning conflicts is a subject widely taught in planning schools and in the two-year state training programme that follows thereafter. Citizen participation is legally requested in zoning plans all over the country. External ‘mediation to organize the participation process is quite normal, particularly if a local government does not have experienced staff do it, or considers that it is better to let this process be organized by external experts to demonstrate openness and flexibility. Such processes, however, are as a rule initiated for new development projects. They are mainly visionary workshops, future workshops or design charettes, brainstorming for and with citizens for the development of urban life spaces, or for jointly exploring solutions or pathways to consensual urban developments, when infrastructure projects threaten to have negative impacts on businesses or on the livability of citizens in nearby neighbourhoods. Experienced consultants are hired by a local government to carry out such participatory processes, particularly when the project is politically sensitive. iLHowever, there are a few well-known, nationwide controversies about large projects such as the costly modernization of the main railway station in Stuttgart (Stuttgart 27), a 46 billion Euro investment project that indeed required mediation to find solutions after a gridlocked debate. The controversy was between the responsible railway authority, the local government, the chamber of commerce, political parties, citizen groups and other stakeholders, at local and state level. In addition, the local and regional, and sometimes even the national, media were monitoring the conflict as strong watchdogs. They added opinions, positions, and attitudes, raised or played ‘down emotions and presented educational background information. In the end the whole discourse ended in a gridlocked situation, and mediation was the only chance to find consensus. The mediator—in the Stuttgart case a locally renowned Federal Minister Ex- Minister and television talk show celebrity served as intermediary —succeeded to bring the parties together. The additional project costs encouraged by such external mediation can be enormous. Experts have calculated the additional costs for accommodating the mediated outcome in Stuttgart (the "agreed upon" required changes) to add up to around 300 million Euros (2012). But ‘even half a year after this mediation attempt, the whole process remains blocked, as neither the railway authority nor the public sector wish to take on the additional costs. Berlin provides another example. For some time the city of Berlin was confronted with two projects similar to the one described by Ric Richardson. One case involves the plan to extend on inner city motorway, a project that from a city region perspective seems to be a necessity, as it ‘would end a long period of traffic congestion in the East of Berlin. The project, however, is totally opposed by local citizens, who will be affected by the noise of the motorway and by the demolition of numerous allotment gardens located on its right of way. A tunnel solution appears not to be feasible and to be too expensive, and allotment gardens in Berlin are holy cows, better 12untouched by any urban development project. Despite the political controversy of the project, the city has never involved a mediator to help the parties resolve this conflict. The other Berlin project is even more controversial. To attract international cultural industries the city government has zoned an attractive inner urban land stretch along the river Spree as an area (called Media Spree) for such industries. Developers, who wanted to develop the space, were confronted with opposition from local citizens and members of the creative class, who opposed the speculative development and privatization of the site. Again, the city did not make any effort to ask mediators to work with the local stakeholders to try to find possible solutions. For the time being local action groups have been successful in stopping the development, although the highly publicized project was and still is very much favoured by the city’s mayor and his majority social-democratic party. It seems that the city government is playing for time and hoping that the activists of the opposition will lose interest in the project (Colomb 2012; Tagesspiegel 2012). Richardson's Albuquerque case shows that creative mediation can help to find practical consensus to address planning conflicts in a community. Such achievement, however, depends very much on the personality, the wisdom, and the capability of the moderator to listen patiently to the arguments brought forward by the parties involved. Listening to individuals who are concemed that their life spaces are threatened by material constraints, thoughtless decisions or vested interests is indispensable in planning processes. If carefully done it can even make external mediation processes unnecessary. One last remark: The case of Albuquerque is a pertinent example for another observation. Practitioners in planning know more about planning than many academics writing extensively about planning theories, processes or methodologies. In contrast to their academic colleagues, 13they typically have no time to write up and communicate their experience. In a way Richardson's Albuquerque narrative, his "practice story,” confirms that observation. References Colomb Claire (2012) Staging the New Berlin. Place Marketing, and the Politics of Reinvention Post 1989. London, Routledge FAZ (=Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), 07.12.2012 Kunzmann Klaus R. (2004) Unconditional Surrender: The Gradual Demise of European Diversity in Planning Originally presented as a key note paper to the 18* AESOP. Congress in Grenoble, France on 03-07-2004 Tagesspiegel (2012) Mediaspree 12.07.2012 14Conflict and creativity in Albuquerque Ali Madanipour School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Newcastle University ‘My response to the account given by Ric Richardson in “Creativity in the Face of Urban Design Conflict” is based on a close reading of the text and sharing the questions that it has posed for me. My reflections are on the story as well as the way the story has been told, on the issues that are reported and the process that the participants have gone through. There are many dimensions to any complex urban development process, and the limitation of space would inevitably limit the amount of information that can be conveyed through this account. The narration of the story by someone who conducted it and was satisfied by its outcome would also locate it in a single, supportive perspective. Without doubting the accuracy and sincerity of the account, I was faced with some questions and looked for possible answers from within this text. I have never visited Albuquerque and have received no information about this plan from other sources, so that I have responded to this report on its own basis. It goes without saying that some of these ideas are no more than first impressions and, to offer a more considered response, I would need a lot more information and analysis from a variety of sources. ‘The text can be read at several levels. At the first and most expl it level, this is the story of the triumph of public participation and conflict resolution as narrated by a mediator and recorded by an interviewer. The City of Albuquerque had prepared a corridor plan to transform the present and regulate the future of an area. Its publication, however, triggered furious opposition to the 1splan and conflict between two major groups of stakeholders: merchants and neighbors. The frozen planning process was rescued through a difficult course of mediation, which helped the warring sides work together to rewrite the plan with the help of experts. Mediation turned hostility into collaboration, failure into success. ‘The text offers detailed description and analytical reflection on the methods of mediation and the lessons that can be learnt from this experience, which seems to be the main aim of the paper. The process started with a two-month long conflict assessment exercise, which was first announced in two separate meetings with merchants and neighbors. It then proceeded with structured but informal meetings with various stakeholders at individual and small group levels, which helped identify the key problems, build trust, and test the feasibility of going further. Then the negotiations started, which involved twelve representatives, six lead negotiators and six alternates, from each side, meeting twice a week for five months. One of the weekly meetings was devoted to “education”, in which different experts were invited to talk about relevant issues. The other weekly meeting was working together to find common ground, which proved to be slow and contentious, but ultimately ended in a clear outcome. With the help of the principles they had learnt in education sessions, support of technical experts, and steered by the mediators, the participants were engaged in joint planning workshops, arrived at an agreed set of proposals, and designed a regulatory process, on the basis of which the plan was rewritten. The revised plan was well received by the Planning Commission and succeeded in its public review. The mediator’s skills of breaking the whole into pieces, moving step by step, listening and talking patiently, maintaining confidentiality, looking for common ground, providing technical support, building trust, identifying and building on turning points, and coping with uncertainty had paid off. 16Beyond this reading, which is directly provided by the text, we can start analyzing the Process on the basis of direct and indirect references which we can gather from the text. We can identify some of the contextual features that contributed to the success of this experience. A significant element was the area’s social capital; how merchants and neighbors were both able to organize themselves in protest, and how this organizational capacity also helped the process of reconciliation. Furthermore, the city council’s organizational capacity enabled it to have the initiative, experience, and access to expertise for conflict resolution. A university-based mediator who had worked in the area offered both neutrality and familiarity. Without this three-way capacity on the part of businesses, residents and the public authority, and without patient and skillful mediation, the outcome could have been completely different. We can also identify the value of urban design in bringing the two sides together, in both spatial and temporal terms: designing a place as well as a process. A key role of a plan is to ‘manage anxieties about an uncertain future, but the first corridor plan had exacerbated these anxieties and created new ones. The joint design process, in contrast, enabled the participants to Visualize the future of the street, and develop some conerete steps towards realizing it. This showed that, in this instance, clarity of form had reduced anxiety, providing a basis for negotiation and collaboration. The clarity of form was combined with the clarity of process, which was expressed in ‘trigger mechanisms’, ie., the circumstances in which change of form would be initiated. Some sort of division of labor facilitated the co-production of the plan: neighbors worked on the form and merchants on the process. The form-based code offered a solution, but it needed to be contextualized, which was made possible by the trigger mechanisms. Together, these two measures offered a spatial and temporal code. So it appears that the division of labor between the participants and codification of the process were helpful in providing a level 17of certainty beyond what the first plan would offer. The experience of co-producing a detailed image of what might happen and a process of how it might happen placed the design process at the heart of the reconciliation process. To have a critical understanding of the process, however, many questions still remain to be answered. This is an account about the methods of conflict resolution, detailing the steps that a ‘mediator has taken to resolve the conflict over a planning proposal. In the interests of ‘maintaining confidentiality, and following the narrator's interest in the process, the account tends to anonymize the personal dimensions and concentrate on the procedures. If told with an anthropological frame of mind, for example, the story could have offered a thicker description, including more detailed information about people and places. A series of questions remain to be answered. Why did the first plan fail? The city’s Director of Redevelopment interpreted the controversy as resistance to change and disagreement over the character of the outcome. Was this a case of experts proposing an idea without public participation, or was there a citywide rationale for the corridor, which was nonetheless blocked at the neighborhood level by partisan considerations? Was it a case of good ideas being badly explained or bad ideas all along? The plan seems to have had a problem of legitimacy with the locals who presumably had not been consulted or had felt that their earlier objections had not been taken into account. They had lost their trust in the local authority, a trust that now needed to be regained through painstaking work. ‘Who was to benefit from the altered corridor? What was the underlying rationale of the plan’? The city had obviously some interest in public participation, as evidenced by its good land-use facilitation program, its local participatory projects, the involvement of a 12-member advisory 18group in the first plan, its decision to halt the planning process after strong popular opposition, and its invitation to a mediator to become involved. Was the failure of the first plan due to its inadequate methods of participation, or also due to the radical nature of its proposals, which combined redevelopment and regulation, changing the function and character of the street? Was it therefore the plan’s substance, as much as its process, that caused resistance? What did the first plan aim to achieve? We gradually get to know what the neighbors and merchants want, but what did the city want, and why was it so controversial? Judging by the merchants’ response, which was angrier and quicker to mobilize, we can guess that they had felt more threatened. The main bone of contention that they still talked about at the end of the Process was the transformation of the street into 4.5 miles of coffee shops and bookstores, turning it into “a boutique area”. The merchants blamed the neighbors for this vision of ion of a corridor gentrification and beautification, but where did the city stand? Was the pro plan along the same lines? Was the plan aiming at gentrifying the street, in which many merchants would not fit any more, and hence their anger and protest? In addition to merchants, neighbors are another major player in the story. As for the residents of five old neighborhoods with a diverse range of socio-economic circumstances involved, questions emerge about their level of interest and involvement. Were the low-income and high-income neighbors similarly opposed to the plan, similarly able to mobilize and organize, similarly interested in turning the street into coffee shops and bookstores, similarly involved in rewriting the plan? As it is highly likely that different groups had different interests, objectives and roles, the question becomes: who participated and who didn't? Whose voice was not heard? 19The other stakeholders such as transit advocates, property owners, city planners and designers, and developers are present in the story, but somehow stay in the background, in comparison to the two organized groups of merchants and neighbors. Turning points are characterized by one group accepting to see the picture from another group's perspective, offering a compromise that could appeal to others. All parties seem to offer something, but itis not clear what the developers offered or what the economic implications of the proposals could be. How did the revision process respond to these problems and anxieties? The merchants cared about “when the redevelopment is going to happen”. The solution, therefore, seems to have included two methods. First it appears to have done so by delaying, staggering, and qualifying the street's transformation, through “trigger mechanisms”, so that changes were not immediate and threatening. Second, it concentrated on form rather than function, so that merchants could keep their businesses but only change their built forms when they were making major changes to their properties. The neighbors, on the other hand, cared about the street’s image. One of the interesting ‘turning points in the process was the admission that “the neighbors really care about what the development looks like”. Was this a shift of emphasis to the aesthetics of the place, or a concern about being able to visualize the outcome? Was this replacing content with form, activity with appearance, or combining the two? More importantly, where did this image of an urban street lined by buildings come from? How was the imagery of wide roads, suburban houses and shopping malls and strips replaced by an older typology of narrower, traditional urban streets 20lined by buildings? This would be an interesting study in cultural transformation, how paradigms change, and how a particular image and circumstance replaces another as more desirable. In this story, the role of the educational sessions may be important, whereby the invited experts offered the participants a set of visual and procedural tools to think about their place. The problem was partially solved by learning, which informed their negotiating, as it opened up new options they had not thought about before. This opens up new questions about the role of the experts and their relationship with citizens and elected bodies. If the experts provide the concepts, the image, the language and the process of shaping places, how much room is available for citizens’ maneuver? The corridor is a major urban axis, with a diversity of types of businesses and socio- economic circumstances of neighbors, an axis that would presumably be affected differently by the original plan, as well as by the revised one. It is not clear, however, how these differences were reflected in the planning process. Both the first and the second plan seem to have a single vision for the entire street. However, a long street in any city would take different characters in different areas, reflecting its history and geography. Did the planners and designers really expect it to have a coherent character throughout? Three competing visions of the future were put forward, from a major artery to a local street. Why could they not be all part of an overall vision of this long street, rather than one scenario ruling the other two out? A key emphasis in the story is the contrast between conflict and consensus. The title, “Creativity in the face of urban design conflict”, suggests a tension between creativity and conflict, formulating it in a way that creativity seems to offer the possibility of transcending conflict or overcoming the undesirable conditions that it has caused, as if curing a disease. 21Another way of thinking about it is that conflict may have created the necessary conditions for creativity, where new solutions are needed for the problems at hand. In other words, creativity may thrive under the conditions of necessity and tension. The conflict that emerged around this planning process triggered imagination and urged the participants to seek altemative solutions. It was a sign of vitality, testing the social fabric of the city, and helping people remember that they can change the shape of their city, rather than dutifully accepting the particular vision that had been proposed. 22From Mediation to Charrette Tridib Banerjee This case study reminds me of a study we' undertook in the early nineties to explore whether design can mediate contentious development disputes. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the study comprised six case studies in California (see Cuff, Banerjee, Beck and Stein 1994, Cuff and Banerjee 1995), chosen because they all stalled in the first go around because of community opposition and other related development disputes, but they subsequently obtained entitlement after one or more cycles of design with a much greater engagement of the stakeholders and the parties in contention. Our case studies documented the specific processes ex post facto based on interviews with key stakeholders, architects, planners, politicians, city officials, and representatives of the community groups. I should note, however, that unlike Ric Richardson's role as a focal participant, we were total outsiders, only retrospectively documenting the process from circumstantial evidence and interviews. Nevertheless because the insights we obtained from our study seem to resonate here, let me begin with those observations. I will conclude by including several other observations based on the specifics of the 4" Street redevelopment project in Albuquerque. 1 The team consisted of two of my former colleagues at USC - Dana Cuff (now at UCLA) and Achva Stein (now at the City College of New York) - and Ken Beck (then a MRED student, now a developer in Los Angeles). 23We began with the premise that design can be a tool of mediation. By the time we completed our study we came to the realization that design is not just a tool, but the very stuff of mediation. This, I believe, is what happened in the Albuquerque case. His modesty notwithstanding, Ric Richardson’s skills and ability to continue the dialogue among the contesting groups clearly played a major role in moving the process forward. One of Richardson's major contributions, although he did not come initially with any specific agenda or a script, was to transform the process, if unwittingly, from a discourse of contention, accusation, and suspicion, to that of a focused design charrette? Although I am not sure that Ric would necessarily accept that interpretation, it is clear that when the conversation moved to the stage of defining “area boundaries” through Google Streetview fly-overs and discussions of form-based zoning and the street cross-sections, pedestrian improvements, and bikeways, the tenet of the process had already become very much that of a design exercise where the parties in contention participated in collaborative explorations. The charrette phase of the process helped the parties—the merchants and the neighborhood groups—to collaborate, and the turning point was when the parties realized that redevelopment of the corridor did not have to be a zero-sum game. As more technical embellishments and design details were made available, empathic responses emerged—from the neighborhood ‘groups to accept and retain existing buildings of significance, and from the merchants accepting possibilities of street improvements, pedestrian amenities and the like. Design of the corridor became the very stuff of mediation. 2-The term charrette an old tradition at L’Ecole de Beaux-Arts where at the end of the term students projects were collected and piled onto a cart (hence the term charrette) while the students ran alongside trying finish the final details not yet completed as time ran out. 24There is a growing experience and literature on design charrettes. Drawing from our experience of teaching international collaborative planning and design charrettes, previously we have argued (see Banerjee and Kunzmann 2003) that typical charrettes may involve three types of group dynamics. These can be defined as “brain-storming,” “barn-raising,” and “bricolage.” In the case of the 4" Street corridor, clearly there was brain-storming involved, especially within the contestants, that required the participants to think “outside the box.” Barn raising, in turn, is a form of purposeful social action that, according to Lisa Peattie, may lead to bonding Did the 4" Street corridor charrette lead to such experiences and social ties in a convivial spi social bonding? It is not entirely clear from Ric’s account that that actually happened across the contestant groups; it may remain a romantic scenario that one would wish had emerged. We might however deduce some “bricolage” effect in this case study, where it involved, to quote Judith Innes and David Booher (199,12), “a type of reasoning and collective creativity fundamentally different from the more familiar types, argumentation and trade-offs.” One final observation regarding design as mediation: If design itself is a form of mediation, then does the normative question of good design become irrelevant? Surely “getting to yes” or the mere fact of agreement seems to imply a degree of a successful outcome, but not necessarily in terms either of a normatively good city form or of a city that is distributively just. This rejection of mere agreement has been implicit in Susan Fainstein’s (2010) recent critique of communicative action theory. That critique notwithstanding, it might be difficult, if not impossible, to define (or of course to come to agreement upon) the normative outlines of such ‘200d city form or "the" just city. Which expertise should we depend upon to settle these normative questions? 3 Originally discussed by anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. 25One of the nagging concerns in planning and urban design is that we have very little in way of formal evaluation of planning or urban design episodes. In part this is due to the fact that planning or design outcomes cannot be neatly framed in time or space. Policy outcomes or even built projects take time to come to fruition, and by the time they happen, original circumstances and even stakeholders may have changed, new ideas or inputs may have altered the original outcome, and so on. I have argued elsewhere that urban developments can be seen at best as an on-going dialectic (see Cuff et al, 1994) between the problem context and the design response. So, it is not surprising that not only do we not have the kind of “post-occupancy evaluations” that architects sometimes do on their projects, but also we lack formal performance criteria or measures to conduct such evaluations. Consequently it is the process that becomes all too important. Like in jurisprudence where justice is served by “due process,” a communicative process that allows a dialogue, negotiation, and ultimately a resolution becomes the sole measure of success. While “things” must be the focus of good planning (and design) no doubt, as Bob Beauregard (2012) recently argued in critiquing communicative action, process always hogs the agenda because of the inherent difficulties in framing or measuring the “things.” We could however ask, drawing on the conventional norms of welfare economics that define rational decision-making in Western liberal democracies, if the final outcome promised to be Pareto superior? In the 4” street case study reported by Ric Richardson, it seems intuitively obvious that the contending parties both felt a higher level of welfare at the end than they had perceived at the beginning of the process when they had considered the initial consultant's plan. ‘The Pareto superiority of the mediated outcome seems clear. While this conclusion may not satisfy larger questions independent of the locally involved participants (is this good city form? 26Is the outcome just?) that the detractors of communicative action have raised, it certainly addresses my original question about design as mediation, Finally, the process that was completely unscripted and guided only by Ric Richardson's intuitions has clearly shown that design charrettes, in certain circumstances, can be an effective tool in creatively harnessing participatory, communicative action on urban design issues in contested political settings. References: Robert Beauregard. 2012 “Planning with Things” Journal of Planning Education and Research, 32,2:182-190. Dana Cuff, Tridib Banerjee, Ken Beck, and Achva Stein, 1994 Form in Contention: Design in Development Dispute. A Report to the National Endowment for the Arts. Lusk Center for Real Estate Development, University of Southern California Dana Cuff and Tridib Banerjee. 1995 “Form in Contention: Design in Development Dispute” Progressive Architecture, July. Pp. 96-97. David E. Booher, and Judith E, Innes. 2002. “Network Power in Collaborative Planning” Journal of Planning Education and Research. 21 ,3:221-236, ‘Susan Fainstein. 2010. Just City. Comell: Cornell University Press. Tridib Banerjee and Klaus Kunzmann. 2003 “Charrette as a Design and Conceptualization Method: Notes from a Berlin-Los Angeles Collaborative Studio” paper presented at 2003 AESOP-ACSP Conference, Leuven, Belgium. 27"Physical Clarity and Necessary Interruption” Emily Talen This interesting and emblematic case study of American urban planning in disarray illuminates some classic red flags and failed methods that planning practice has been grappling with for decades. My comments are not meant as any kind of critique of Mr. Richardson, who is obviously a skilled practitioner, and who should be commended for rescuing a situation headed for disaster. But I did find the commentary a vindication of several important messages about planning practice that urban designers in my sisterhood (i.e., new urbanists, or anyone holding high the ideal of compact, diverse, walkable urbanism in the tradition of Jane Jacobs) have been talking about for years. These revolve around three imperatives: the need for physical explicitness at all stages, the importance of transparency in the accounting of costs, and the need for a more democratic approach. In many ways the conflict seemed little more than a classic case of nimbyism vs. money — or, in non-pejorative terms, neighbors wanting neighborhood-serving, place-based and pedestrian-oriented urbanism versus land owners wanting assurances that their investments and economic opportunities will be protected. The tragedy, of course, is that too often these objectives do not have to be in opposition. But the key to negotiating a resolution — as urban designers will assert— is design. By “design” I mean tangible, visual, explicit, physical representation of everything discussed. This does not have to mean static and end-state blueprints. As Richardson shows too, it can be generative, and couched in terms of alternatives. 28This lesson came out loud and clear. As the case study developed, once material specificity entered the discussion, and tools like Google Earth and other means of design representation were instituted, the whole process seems to have turned around. This reveals the non-trivial nature of the physical in planning, an assertion still not in the mainstream. Beauregard recently described the problem from the perspective of planning theory, arguing that theorists tend to render the material world “epiphenomenal and thus causally irrelevant.” In the case study, organizers of the initial process seemed not to know, or to realize the implications of, the fact, that a “neighborhood store” is a 7-11 to some and a mom-and-pop gem to others. Adding a lane, even a bike lane, can be positive or negative, depending on design. Even a “better pedestrian \gs to different people. The devil is in the design details. environment” means different In American planning practice, this explicitness is often not treated seriously ~ “visioning workshops” are cerebral affairs full of platitudes and abstractions. In this sense I found the first part of the commentary strangely detached from the substance of the debate over corridor design and redevelopment. The term “land-use facilitation program” signaled how far removed from realism the endeavor had become. Damage can result whenever questions like, “What do you think about the future of this place?”, “What kind of character should it have?” or “What function should the roadway play?” are asked as conceptual matters, without context. Not the least of the injury is the profound inefficiency involved, leading to a sapping of what precious little energy many “regular folk” have for planning matters. This kind of design-focused planning approach requires a huge educational effort. Critically, it must precede the discussion. How much could have been avoided by initially putting some effort into making sure there was a common vocabulary, a problem Mr. Richardson overcame “Beauregard, Robert A. 2012. Planning with things. Journal of Planning Education and Research 32, 2: 182-190. 29(29) rather late in the process. That this was a problem was revealed by statements like “people didn’t understand what form-based codes were” — this apparently after months of discussion had already occurred in the Wednesday “education sessions.” Later revelations regarding the necessity to “bring someone who will help us see the corridor and the visuals to begin to set boundaries” seemed an obvious approach, interjected after significant damage and distrust had already occurred. ‘And what if the “values” discussion had been equally explicit in terms of physical design? Values like diversity, both in terms of people and land use, connectedness, pedestrian orientation, and economic growth and vitality are rarely objected to in the abstract, but if they are confined to that realm they can unravel — people form a visual impression of how they surmise these values will translate “on the ground.” Seemingly innocuous terms like “redevelopment” are easily left vague without concrete articulation. It became clear that this physical specification was necessary not only to ensure a common vocabulary, but for the building of collective identity — without it, the notion of collective ownership was impossible. Each faction “owned” and rallied around a different part, and there was no hope of integrating that ownership without legibility and physical clarity. Insistence on physical explication is also about being intelligent about social psychology. Physical form provides a “third element” to deflect discussion away from personal matters. We know the power of these third party “props” ~ a child, a pet,a garden. A space of interaction alone, like a front porch, often fails to stimulate positive social interaction. What is needed is a basis of shared interest, without which uncomfortable feelings between individuals can be unnecessarily exposed. Armed with a “flipchart” and later, “a set of questions and something to write on,” I was not surprised that the discussions turned sour. I am not convinced the answer is 30ever to “allow people to be themselves” without thinking through how the structure of such expression is best handled. Expecting people to get to a “deeper level” expressing their “relationships” and “feelings” may an invitation to divert toward personality traits rather than concrete ideas, Another deficiency the case study exposed involves the issue of transparency. People should be kept informed of the trade-offs involved in whatever is being proposed ~ how the proposals they advocate have consequences for other people, including business owners. If they propose, for example, to downzone portions of the neighborhood so that multi-family units are disallowed, or to limit the ability to add accessory units, they need to be made aware of the effect this might have not only on reducing diversity, but the ability to retain essential services they might deem important, the ability to sustain a walkable environment, the increase of traffic ls through the neighborhood, or the cost of housing. This transparency, especially in terms of cost accounting, seemed to be missing as the planning process was launched. It requires a lot of up front work on the part of planners, but it can mean the difference between months of haggling vs. a focused, productive discussion. ‘Making clear the winners and losers of various alternatives, the costs associated with different scenarios, including the cost of maintaining the status quo (a full accounting of the costs of NOT doing anything with the corridor) would be essential for an intelligent debate and should be available to insert in public dialogue. And, as everyone with knowledge of scenario planning knows, transparency of how costs are calculated, including the ability to apply different weights and variables, is critical. The goal should be to respond to issues factually and, to the best of planners” ability, apply scientific projection based on real data, not conjecture and anecdote. Without this cost basis, itis no surprise that people were “afraid of what was going to happen”. 31Finally, on the subject of representation and democratic process, there has long been the view in my urban design circles that the existence of an entirely open-ended planning process in which everyone is permitted a platform to shout and pontificate is anti-democratic and leads to flawed and inequitable planning decisions. Participatory methods should avoid “the tyranny of structurelessness,’’ which the beginning part of this case study seemed to epitomize. In Colonial America, and now in parts of Australia, matters of local town planning were entrusted to a representative council — a group of randomly selected people perhaps, who could ensure broad representation of community interests. This is an antidote to the method in which, in open-ended participatory planning processes, a few personalities are allowed to control and intimidate. Iwonder what would have happened, how much time would have been saved, had a charrette process been instituted, using the guidelines set out by the National Charrette Institute, an organization devoted to reforming planning processes that unfolded as this case study had inherited them.’ They are proponents of a more structured approach, in which loud mouths and bullies are not permitted to dominate the discussion, It might be interesting to get Mr. Richardson's reaction to this recent statement by Andrés Duany, which characterizes the sentiment; "Don’t let misinformation or falsehoods stand for even five seconds. The charrette leaders should always correct inaccuracies and misstatements immediately. Interrupt the ® Sirianni, Carmen and Lewis Friedland. 2003. Civic Innovation in America: Community Empowerment, Public Policy, andthe Movement for Civic Renewal. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. P.24 ® See the wealth of materials they have amassed after decades of practice: htp:/www.charretteintitute.org/ 32speaker and set it straight. The murk created by misstatements can destroy a charrette. Do not be afraid to be ruthless in your corrections." - Andrés Duany Many planners will balk at this idea because 1) they do not trust the objectivity of facts (who decides whether statements amount to “misinformation and falsehoods"?), and 2) they do not accept that someone's voice should be shut down, no matter how much planners might disagree with it. To me, the legitimacy of these points rests on one’s sense of urgency. Is there time — and money —for protracted debate, or do we need a bolder approach in which we accept the costs of “interruption” for the benefit of more immediate action? Or, are the costs simply too high, no matter what the urgency? 33Ric Richardson Responds ‘The commentaries are insightful and informative. The authors each bring a different point of view that illuminates different aspects of the North 4" street story. Their comments relate to three underlying themes. First is asserting the importance of trust in mediation and public participation in urban design. Second is questioning the efficacy of the original plan (Why did it fail?) and understanding the context for effective mediation. Third is suggesting ways charrettes, can engender participation and dialogue in the urban design process. Sandro Balducci highlights the value of a conflict assessment as a way to identify the potential for participation and build trust among participants. He calls attention to his experience working with interdisciplinary teams of scientists and asserts that participants in a mediated process must develop an “exchange language” in order to communicate across differences and create new options. As the negotiations unfolded in Albuquerque, the participants developed a common understanding of the dispute as well as the available regulatory mechanisms to control property development. Creating processes that develop a common language among the participants is essential to building trust and defining solutions that fit historic and present circumstances. In fact, the most important part of the North Fourth Street process centered on building trust and communication. The pre-mediation assessment and the early stage of the negotiations laid the groundwork for building trust by providing the participants the opportunity to talk about “facts” from their respective points of view, then for jointly finding the information important to creating an agreeable solution. During this phase, building trust within each negotiating team was as important as building trust and communication between the teams. For a good process, 34trust and communication need to be built among the negotiating parties including experts and regulators involved in the dispute. The process will fail if the participants are unable to create the shared language necessary to expand the boundaries of possibilities under consideration and create innovative solutions. Good process and direct communication result in building good working relationships among the negotiators. In North Fourth Street we found those relationships, in turn, made it possible for negotiators to craft solutions to the conflict by innovating with the regulatory system. In addition, the process created a constituency ~ merchants, neighbors and the government officials who would defend the plan during the public review process. Both Klaus Kunzmann and Ali Madanipour ask why the original plan failed. Did the consultants make substantive mistakes? To what degree did the dispute emanate from poor design or bad ideas? The North 4* Street Corridor plan did not fail because of poor design or faulty analysis. It failed because of poor process. The consultants missed an opportunity to test (and revise) factual information and assumptions with those who work, live and own property in the corridor. The design and planning process spawned opposition because it inadequately addressed the underlying values and concerns of both residents and merchants. A good process must embrace diversity in the community and recruit constituents who value the area for different reasons. The process should be structured to enable the participants to explore th ‘most contentious differences so they can create new opportunities and options that had not been imagined previously. Missing the rich reservoir of experience and expertise present in the neighborhoods and ‘merchant's association was a profound mistake. Relying on a process not able to tap into these resources led the consultant team to propose inappropriate urban design solutions. As Kunzmann 35so eloquently points out, understanding the local planning culture, developing a shared language (not jargon), finding a neutral place, setting the stage for creativity during the negotiating process and nurturing facilitative leadership are crucial to resolving disputes. Madanipour inquires about issues of representation and asks whose voice was not heard in the negotiations. The neighborhoods along the North 4" Street corridor are some of the oldest and most diverse communities in the city. They are highly organized and have considerable political power. Although the merchant’s association had little history of working together, the members organized quickly and effectively, building on shared economic interests, legal expertise and regulatory knowledge. The negotiating teams reflected diverse interests and skills. However, low-income people were only marginally represented. We met informally with representatives of a working class neighborhood near downtown that had a seat at the table but ‘chose to remain largely outside the process. Social and economic concerns are central to urban design. Designers who do not embrace diversity of perspective in the design process do so at the risk of missing the context and proposing solutions that are inappropriate and unacceptable. Good urban design lies in its ability to fit design within the local culture and conditions. Tridib Banerjee and Emily Talen address the value of charrettes from two different perspectives. Banerjee argues that a design charrette is a mediating force in achieving city form and observes charrettes as a process of inquiry into urban design and as “an effective tool in creatively harnessing participatory, communicative action on urban design issues in contested political settings.” Talen calls for transparency and accountability in urban design and asserts that the key to negotiating a resolution is in design itself. She argues that the best charrettes are carefully orchestrated events structured to control uncertainties and wonders how much time 36Would have been saved had a charrette process been undertaken using the guidelines of the National Charrette Institute, which prescribes a structured approach, in which loud mouths and bullies are not permitted to dominate the discussion. She concludes by offering a quote from Andres Duany that instructs charrette leaders to correct inaccuracies and misstatements by interrupting the speaker and setting the record straight. Pursuing such strategies perpetuates the myth of expertise and in most cases escalates disagreements to arguments over who has the most accurate and reliable information. Mediated Process allows the participants to frame the problem and provides the technical support for them to collaborate on ascertaining the facts. ‘The process replaces untethered argumentation with mediated dialogue directed at discovering the truth, and consequently neither the bullies nor experts dominate the discussion. The North 4* Street negotiations spanned sixteen education and negotiating sessions over four months in which the participants engaged in joint fact-finding and collaborated on options before agreeing on specific recommendations. The outcome was consensus on both the future urban form and the way the design would be implemented. In mediated negotiations, the participants work together to discover what they want to learn and guide experts in designing systems to meet their concerns, interests and needs. In mediated negotiations, the roles of planners and designers shift from leading with expertise to listening for opportunities to offer insight and guidance on local initiatives. In sound urban design processes, informed dialogue is key, and expertise is essential to creating good places and being able to implement good urban design. The question is who drives the need for and use of the expertise offered by planners and urban designers? In mediated negotiations, experts are responsible for creating and guiding the process, yet they 37“ead from the side” and strategically move from center stage to a supporting role. They provide ions. expertise when asked and contextualize information into forms useful to the negoti Negotiators should be supported to speak clearly about their concerns and interests — and then learn to translate their ideals into shared solutions that create viable physical places. Mediated negotiations and, I would assert, good urban design combine diverse representation, careful process, an appropriate understanding of the geographic, political and economic context, and mutual trust. 38