Preparing for my Summer Course on Design for the Just City

By Kaetlyn Patnaude

While I haven’t yet started my summer course, I’ve set up interviews for next week with US urban planners and have read some papers about sustainable justice. At the beginning of the summer I didn’t realize how Dutch urban planning has incorporated sustainability principles throughout the history of their country, like green spaces and addressing social challenges through the built environment. Also, I didn’t realize there are three types of “spatial justice”, distributive, recognition, and procedural and how they can be helpful benchmarks for planners and consultants during projects. I recognize that growing up in the suburbs of Chicago gives me a certain view, “we see things as we are,” that may not consider some issues that a Dutch city has, so my main priorities are to approach the summer course with an open mind, eagerness to learn, and collaborative spirit. 

Throughout the summer so far, I’ve changed by looking at environmental issues from a more global and policy oriented lense instead of a mainly ecological/science based approach (coming from an environmental science major background.) For example, I’m not only asking the questions “how can we implement green infrastructure?”, but asking questions from a more sociological lens such as “who bears the burdens and benefits of these decisions?” Since climate impacts are not evenly distributed, pursuing solutions that prioritize fairness is extremely important, and once I begin my summer class in two weeks I’ll have more experience collaborating with communities to suggest sustainability projects. 

Thus far I have been at home researching. Whether that be through US planner interviews or sustainability papers, my physical environment has stayed the same for now, since I leave in around one week. I know more about what to expect from the material in my summer course and I’m looking forward to diving into that information once I arrive in Delft. I’m going to reach out to my course instructor and use the snowball strategy to inquire about any other Dutch planners who might be interested in participating in my interviews. I know these relationships will be fundamental to my capstone, along with my interviews with US planners and Delft community members.  

I’ve decided on specific interview questions to ask, such as “Do residents in your city have a voice in how neighborhoods develop? Why or why not?” or “How has sustainability (e.g., climate action, green spaces, energy use) been addressed in your area?” I also want to connect with community members around Delft who are directly influenced by the environmental justice issues that we’ll be learning about in class, which we will have the opportunity to do for the course project. Beforehand I’m also planning on which analytical skills I need to be ready to collect information throughout the day, like taking a field notebook to record observations, questions, and conversations. As I learn more about the case study from the course, the neighborhood in Delft, this will serve as very valuable information for the Capstone. I’ll then combine my initial questions and my lived experience to evolve my understanding of my CBI throughout the summer and incorporate all of these into my final capstone proposal.

Aanleg natuurbrug De Mortelen (2018), Ecoduct “crossing path” for animals in the Netherlands. There are some in the US too, example of an ecological spatial planning icon.