Analysis of an Urban Issue from a Planning Perspective - Coursework Example

Analysis of an Urban Issue from a Planning Perspective Urban Issue from a Planning Perspective Introduction This interview project was carried within the City of Florida. The interview was conducted upon a Regional Director of Environmental Planning, Mr. Franklin Launce. Mr. Franklin Launce is the Chief Expert Planner of the city’s programs and projects undertakings within the Florida City. He is in-charge of the environmental assessment, evaluation of the environmental risks and impacts that a project to be undertaken has upon the lives of human beings, animals, birds, plants and even the aquatic within the site of that particular project. Sustainable development has been a dream for every government, city and a global concern as well. This is seen through the measures put in place to help curb the environmental impacts of the human activities. This is the assessment of the environmental effects caused to the neighborhood of the project being executed. The scope of environmental work The coverage of Mr. Franklin’s work on environmental issues is highly broad and not limited to areas of environmental management policing and the various relevant aspects of environmental systems and engineering. As an environmental scientist, he performs research in conjunction with other colleagues and research institutions in marine science, conservation biology, chemistry, extractive metallurgy and energy studies. He covers other areas such as waste management, tackle landfill issues and environmental degradation. This is an area he puts a lot of emphasis on as he assesses and approves the city projects with respect to the standards set by the authorities in relation to environmental degradation and conservation mechanisms (Bergh, 2007). A further undertaking by Mr. Franklin and his team of experts on environment established under the city by-laws within the sub-department of environment is the creation of a more sustainable future by ensuring improved education practices among the residents and the other departmental stakeholders. He currently propels a program dubbed “The Florida Sustainable Schools Initiative.” The context of this program entails a comprehensive investigation of the role played by urban gardening in habitat conservation and provision, development of lifestyle and environmental education programs, and teenage life skills and best environmental conservation plans and practices. Moreover, he has publications on water recycling, conservation and sewage treatment. This are books and periodic journal in which he sensitizes the Florid residents on the scarcity of natural resources and thus a personal initiative on formulating the best conservation practices in an inevitable course of purpose for the residents. Franklin works on redefinition measures to manage complex environmental challenges within a the context of a society, with a vast understanding on the relationship existing between the community and the ecosystem in relation to the project to be undertaken in that locality. Qualities and skills of environmental scientist Mr. Franklin is a holder of Masters in Environmental Science. He has undertaken several placements in form of industrial attachments and internships in various institutions and organization as a student of environmental science and there later as associate corporate fellow before he was employed in the Ministry of Environmental, Water and Natural Resources where he currently works at Regional office of Florida as an environmental expert. He recalls that being an environmentalist entails a number of personality skills and attributes across discipline as much of the work involves interacting with communities and people of diverse background, culture and sorts of life. Among the skills he pointed out to be of essence as an environmental expert include: The physical stamina for fieldwork The environmental science work is majorly an outdoor activity. An individual is supposed to have strong muscles, good health status, and free from mental disruptions in order to concentrate in his work and be able to maneuver from one site to the other. Professional value and ethics One upholds high standards of ethics and professionalism in a number of ways as an environmental expert. The professionalism moral virtues are standards that an expert need to uphold all the times in order to gain trust of the public and the stakeholders involved in an undertaking. Quantitative skills and high communication ability. A person should be of high expressive language and greater communication capability when interacting with other personalities. This gives one the avenue to explain and make clarity of issues to the best understanding of every participants. Environmental science entails a lot of theories for the occurrence of some phenomena and putting it in practical life calls for ability of expression from an individual. Team work The field interactions and even office operations involve a pool of personalities to equally participate and have an input over the project undertaken (Newton, 2011). This makes ability of teamwork coordination. Form a planning perspective, an individual with ability to drive a team with less hurdles find it easy to relate to people, communicate a policy to them, and engage them constructively for the best performance levels of the group. The challenges of environmental planning The long consultative framework. On environmental issues, decision making process at times become sluggish because of the chain of consultation from the government authorities to the views of the general public. The government defines how local communities and the civil society organizations contribute to the protection of the environment in a long consultative manner to incorporate every stakeholder (Bergh, 2007). These stakeholders collectively participate in the reconstruction monitoring, local debris management, assessments, technical assistance and the actual implementation of the various projects. Lack of integration of adequate policies in environmental planning There has been lack of coordination within the city of Florida on the land use planning and environmental institutions over the need to agree on the measures structured in ensuring that the post-disaster environmental management and planning activities are integrated with the land use policies and site planning besides a well stipulated outline on how these local activities and projects should be coordinated and conducted with the lead disaster agency (Maciocco, 2008). The relaxation of government initiatives A number critical challenge that the planners of the environmental issues are faced with a number of times is the relaxation of the government agencies in implementing their orders and policies formulate to regulate the operations of economy’s stakeholders with regard to upholding high standards of environmental consciousness. The government has not been steadfast in ensuring that it decides immediately on which agency to be in charge of the post-disaster debris management. Such agency should be in a position to plan, coordinate and consolidate the debris management program in a manner that reduces risk, dispose debris in an environmentally sound and cost-effective manner, and facilitate recovery and reconstruction, while ensuring minimum disposal of salable or reusable materials. The absence of measures to promptly institute such agency in place has resulted into unlawful environmental practices among the various stakeholders of varied community and regional projects. The City’s Developmental Strategy: Assessment of the environmental impacts of products and services Within the scope of the product and process assessment, a number of methodologies, tools and techniques have been developed, majorly in support of Florida City strategies and policies for the environmental, social, and economic dimension of sustainable development. With regards to products and services within a perspective of sustainable development, a life cycle perspective initiates powerful insights. The approach aims at providing increased knowledge over the 3P’s-the three pillars methodology of sustainable development: Planet, People, and Profit/prosperity-alongside the entire supply chain, from the extraction of raw materials to the end of life. This is basically undertaken to inform more inclusive decision-making (Bergh, 2007). The team of environmental planners and experts of Florida City argue that towards the assessment of parts of this framework, they have applied and embraced in a wider perspective two assessment tools. The well-known one is the Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (E-LCA), which is used to provide information on the internalities and externalities for the planet (Trip, 2007). That is, it mainly looks at the impacts of economic activities on the natural environment and, to a minor perspective, impacts such activities have on the natural resources and human health. A more new tool for the environmental assessment is the Life Cycle Costing (LCC). This too is basically focused on the direct benefits and costs derived from the economic activities for “planet, people, and the profit or prosperity.” The strategic framework for the socially integrative City of Florida The framework on which the city is guided upon in the execution of its projects which have been established in the past ten years by the administrative structure of the city and the Regional Government leans on two systems of spatial social reporting (spatial social monitoring and the social structure atlas) which are still currently being advanced as to spatial resolution and indicators. Basing on the monitoring date, a number of zones have been regarded as the main areas for different kinds of both social and structural intervention. The main objective of the measures on structural intervention is the improvement of the physical state of the existing features of public infrastructure and to adapt such measures to the ever changing needs of the users (Connerly, 2007). The measure on the social intervention majorly target at education, performance improvement of the labor market among the unemployed citizens (among migrants, in specific school dropouts, and even the long-term rate of unemployment), and elaborative political participation. These systems of intervention are characterized with a broad range of forms of social networking, that include several groups of stakeholders and shareholders within the neighborhood (for example, social groups, residents’ representatives, voluntary organizations, local administration, sports clubs, housing companies, religious organizations and employers). In a number of aspects the interventions are supported by professional management teams and the voluntary neighborhood councils who are elected by the stakeholders and the residents (Calthorpe & Fulton, 2001). The neighborhood councils decide and initiate independently on the funding for the smaller projects, whilst the decisions over the large and mega projects are preserved to the public administration entities, District or City (Regional) Parliaments. There is regular evaluation of the strategic frameworks for the Socially Integrative City program. The public participation in the projects It is highly recognized that it is critically of essence to incorporate and ensure participation of the community and the general public in the projects that are being rolled out within and beyond their neighborhoods. This participation of the Florida people in each stage of environmental assessment and planning. The public hearings that have been held with the aim of informing the community of the planned actions and the environmental assessments have brought together all the stakeholders, including the citizens, environmental agencies, project proponents, NGO’s and the project-affected parties (Gossop, 2010). The implementation tools, assessment tools and the planning tools have been aimed at applying key principles of building the communities’ local capacity with a view of preventing and creating mitigation against disasters, formulation of partnerships among the various stakeholders, exchange and share information and ensuring development of decision-making and learning tools for addressing disaster impacts. Achieving Sustainable Development for the city The concept of sustainable development is a necessary and noble aspiration especially concerning consciousness of the environmental impacts human activities result into. The concept is regarded as a paradigm of visionary development, and for more than the past decades civil societies, businesses, and governments have put commitment to goals that are set to achieve sustainable development (Wallimann, 2013). The concept of sustainable development gives emphasis on some common principles. Firstly, there is show of commitment towards ensuring equity and fairness, that is, there should be given great priority to the improvement of the conditions of the world’s poorest within the context of Florida City, thereby making decisions which account for the rights of the future generations. Secondly, there should be long –view which gives emphasis on the precautionary principle, that is, in cases where there is threats of irreversible damage, the lack of total scientific certainty should never be used as the reason for suspending measures that are cost-effective in preventing environmental degradation. Lastly, sustainable development encompasses understanding, acting, and integration of the complex interconnections which are existing between society, environment and the economy with a major perspective of showing recognition in the interdependent nature of the pillars (Gossop, 2010). Moreover, a sustainable business is one which operates in an environmentally responsible manner. That is; the business puts measures to ensure that its products/services among other aspects in its business processes have no negative environmental impacts result from their existence (Connerly, 2007). This aspect is monitored by the city agents bestowed with the authority to assess and evaluate such outlined standards and measures. The element of sustainable business is detailed in its material science, chemistry, environmental science and ecology. The conceptualization and realization of the concept of sustainable business operations lean highly with every stakeholder of today and tomorrow of the economy. Likewise, sustainability entails enduring and surviving in an environment into the future. In particular, sustainable business management is the incorporation of the environmental, economic and social factors into the business decisions (Bergh, 2007). This puts weight on the future and the long-term goals of the business instead of giving focus on their short term profits. Conclusion The coverage of the environmental impacts of the various undertakings in the city planning process is a broad aspect and should be given a holistic view by every stakeholder within the economy. The issues of the environment are not limited to the disciplinary framework of the environmental management. Within a post-disaster context, the environmental issues are supposed to be considered when formulating decisions regarding, among other things, time, technical and engineering aspects of projects reconstruction, financial management, cost accessibility and material availability. Within the setting of city planning and projects’ environmental assessments and evaluation standards, a number of stakeholders have regarded the environmental issues to be of a lower priority with respect to the desire to speed up the reconstruction. Reconsidering and respecting an existing framework of environmental policy of the city and the nation at large with a view of documenting and mapping the environmental hazards and assets create rebalance of these concerns. In the long run, informed and wise decisions on environmental issues will eventually pay off. References Ball, D. (2006). Environmental health policy. Maidenhead: McGraw Hill/Open University Press. Bergh, J. (2007). Environmental planning. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Besel, K. (2013). Back to the future: New urbanism and the rise of neotraditionalism in urban planning. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America. Calthorpe, P., & Fulton, W. (2001). The Regional City: Planning for the end of sprawl. Washington, DC: Island Press. Cavin, A. (2003). Urban planning. New York: H.W. Wilson. Connerly, C. (2007). Growth management in Florida planning for paradise. Aldershot, England: Ashgate. Cooper, I. (2009). Sustainable urban development. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Environmental planning. (2002). Great Britain?: Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. Ganser, R. (2012). Parallel patterns of shrinking cities and urban growth spatial planning for sustainable development of city regions and rural areas. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate. Gossop, C. (2010). Sustainable city, developing world. The Hague, Netherlands: ISOCARP. Heberle, L. (2008). Local sustainable urban development in a globalized world. Aldershot, England: Ashgate. Maciocco, G. (2008). Fundamental trends in city development. New York: Springer. Newton, R. (2011). Environmental planning. New York: Nova Science. Rydin, Y. (2003). Urban and environmental planning in the UK (2nd ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Trip, J. (2007). What makes a city? planning for "quality of place" : The case of high-speed train station area redevelopment. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Delft University Press. Wallimann, I. (2013). Environmental policy is social policy -- social policy is environmental policy toward sustainability policy. New York, NY: Springer. Appendix A: Interview questionnaires 1. In the spirit of rapid intercity development programs, is the scope of your wok elaborative enough to meet the outlined city targets and standards of economic prosperity? 2. As an environmental expert, what impediments as well as opportunities arising within your framework of operations, duties and responsibilities? 3. Which development plans are adhering to? Is it City Development Strategy (CDS) and some other urban development Plan? What could be the reason for following such particular strategies and plans (if there are)? 4. What is level of engagement and the participatory role of the public on the programs and projects that you have structured for this city? How has the interaction been? 5. Has this city of recent undergone economic, political sociological and spatial changes which raises ones awareness with respect to the planning processes? 6. What are the most essential skills and attributes that an expert like you in such a great position with huge responsibilities ought to have professionally, socially or by experience to result to a greater personality performance? What are the major objectives of the City Development Strategy? Describe the ones that have been achieved or not achieved, achievements which were unexpected or were too ambitious. 7. Did the city set-up specific indicators and proper targets in order to facilitate measuring of the necessary performance and development? 8. Would you kindly describe the city’s guiding principles on questions of an integrated planning and action? For instance, is there a strategic framework and what are the general aims such principles and framework? 9. Which among the projects you are steer headed in the past are of great importance to you and how? Which among the current projects being undertaken or the ones to be undertaken in the future are of significance to the city and why? 10. In which way do the different city stakeholders participate in the development projects of the city? Read More