PLAN233 Lecture 1: PLAN 233 Lecture Notes
16 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
PLAN 233 Lecture Notes
Lecture 1 – Intro to Social Planning
Social: dealing with society, people, populations, communities
Social Planning vs social planning
CIP:
“Planning means the scientific, aesthetic, and orderly disposition of land, resources, facilities and
services with a view to securing the physical, economic and social efficiency, health and well-
being of urban and rural communities.”
Social Planning – Definition
- City-building that prioritizes people and their well-being both in the short and long term
- Quality of life, longevity, existence
- Culture: collective norms, values, beliefs, practices, artifacts of a society
Canada’s Challenge: Refugees
- Needs: housing, access to food, healthcare, education, employment, transportation, social
connection, places of worship
Social Planning: Evolution
- Protecting resource → managing space (early 20th century) → promoting place (late 20th
century) → people first
Key Moments:
- 30s: Leagure for Social Reconstruction. Left wing
lawyers/ministers/politicians/architects/social workers wanted to improve quality of life
through socialism
- Disbanded in 1940s but influenced government
- 60s/70s: womens rights, civil rights, environmentalism, anti-capitalism/communism, Jane
Jacobs, Paul Davidoff (Planners were more advocates)
Manifesto of LSR:
- Present capitalist system is unjust, inhumane, economically wasteful
- Private profit main stimulus to economic effort
- Eliminate the domination of class
Stakeholders in Planning
- Planners, planning councils, police, health care workers, social workers, housing
advocates, developers, citizens, policy makers
Government Organization
-
Why Plan for the Social? – Philosophical, Demographic trends
A shift in the value of people:
- Property/Owner – benefit to owner
- Nation building – growth, colonization, sovereignty
- Change agents – social movements, consumers, voters
- Rights holder – equality, justice, freedom
Why plan for people? – Demographic trends
- Deserve to have fair opportunities
- Want great places to live
- Happy/healthy workforce
- Attract more happy/healthy people
- Maintain high living standards and increase life expectancy
Currently Philosophical Perspectives
- Social justice: eliminate disparity, exclusion
- Sustainability: balance social with economic and environmental
Demographic Trends in Canada
1. Aging population: declining birth rates, extended life expectancy
2. Increasing diversity: growing immigrant population, rising visible minority, charter
Lecture 2
1. Justice (Principle)
2. Inclusion (outcome)
3. Equity (method)
Justice
- Fairness, equality, balance
- Alleviate symptoms vs. eliminate root causes
- Maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of
conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments
John Rawls
- Theory of Justice (1971)
- People make self-interested decisions based from behind the veil of ignorance based on 2
principles
- 1. Principle of Equal Liberty – equal right to access all extensive liberties
- 2. Difference Principle – policies can improve well-off population ONLY when there are
advantage for poor populations
- Promotes egalitarianism
Justice Movements
- Social Justice: focus on equitable distribution of wealth, resources, positive externalities
across populations regardless of identity or culture
- Environmental justice: focus on the equal exposure to healthy natural environments and
unwanted land uses or toxic environments across populations regardless of identity or
culture
- Inextricably linked
Social-spatial dialectic
- Spatial to Social: Environments shape people
Constrain/promote behaviors and movements facilitates interactions, exposure to
resources
- Social to Spatial: people create their surroundings
Policies, built form, cleanliness, density (needing landfills)
- Ex. Walkability: support use of active transportation
Soja’s spatial justice
- “spatial” broader than “environment”
- Spatial turn in late 20th century brought issues of space, place, geography to the forefront
of social and health sciences and humanities
Document Summary
Planning means the scientific, aesthetic, and orderly disposition of land, resources, facilities and services with a view to securing the physical, economic and social efficiency, health and well- being of urban and rural communities. City-building that prioritizes people and their well-being both in the short and long term. Culture: collective norms, values, beliefs, practices, artifacts of a society. Needs: housing, access to food, healthcare, education, employment, transportation, social connection, places of worship. Protecting resource managing space (early 20th century) promoting place (late 20th century) people first. Left wing lawyers/ministers/politicians/architects/social workers wanted to improve quality of life through socialism. 60s/70s: womens rights, civil rights, environmentalism, anti-capitalism/communism, jane. Present capitalist system is unjust, inhumane, economically wasteful. Private profit main stimulus to economic effort. Planners, planning councils, police, health care workers, social workers, housing advocates, developers, citizens, policy makers. Change agents social movements, consumers, voters. Maintain high living standards and increase life expectancy. Sustainability: balance social with economic and environmental.
