What is the relationship between Urban Planning and Urban Design?

Urban Design has been recently introduced to the training of urban planners and is becoming a career all on its own. However it is not all about streetscapes, it is about problem solving.

Urban planning quit being simple when the interstate highway system was invented. Currently, global warming, biofuels, transportation, potable water, and pollution will effect every planning decision in the State of Florida . Simple solutions no longer exist.

The complexity of urban planning, presents problems that have incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements. The solutions to these problems are often difficult to recognize, because of complex interdependencies. While attempting to solve a problem, the solution of one of its features may reveal or create another, even more complex problem. It is often said that yesterdays solutions are today's problems. The purpose of design is to achieve a greater understanding, a proposed solution based on that understanding, and a means to learn and adapt.

Urban design and urban planning are different yet interrelated activities essential for solving complex problems. While planning activities emphasize both planning principles and practices, discussion of design remains largely abstract and is rarely practiced. Presented a problem, planning staffs often rush directly into planning without a clear understanding the complex environment of the situation, how it involves urban planning, and the approach required to address the core issues. Planners with design training need to lead the design process and communicate the resulting framework for solving the problem to civil servants and stakeholders for planning, preparation, and execution.

It is important to understand the difference between design and planning. While both activities seek to invent ways to bring about preferable futures, they are different. Planning applies established procedures to solve a largely understood problem within an accepted framework. Design inquires into the nature of a problem to create a framework for solving that problem. In general planning is problem solving, while design is problem setting. Where planning focuses on generating a plan—a series of executable actions—design focuses on learning about the nature of an unfamiliar problem.

When situations do not conform to established frames of reference—when the hardest part of the problem is figuring out what the problem is—planning alone is inadequate and design becomes essential. In these situations, absent a design process to engage the problem's essential nature, planners without design training often default to whatever existing solutions they have used in the past; they develop plans based on the familiar rather than an understanding of the real situation or worst, simply rewrite an old plan. Specific solutions to specific problems are often killed by statements like: “If this hasn't been done before in Florida before, were not doing it” The resulting solution is then often generalized, expensive and does not solve the problem. These bandages do not cure the underlying infection.

Design provides a means to conceptualize and hypothesize about the underlying causes and dynamics that explain an unfamiliar problem and insights towards achieving a workable solution. As part of assessment, the urban design team continuously test and refine their design to ensure the relevance of urban planning actions to the situation. In this sense, design guides and informs planning, preparation, execution, and assessment. However, a plan is necessary to translate a design into execution.

Planning focuses on physical actions. Planners typically are assigned a task and a set of resources; they devise a plan to use those resources to accomplish that assignment. Planners start with a design (whether explicit or implicit) and focus on generating a plan—a series of executable actions and control measures. Planning breaks the design into manageable pieces assignable as tasks, which are essential to transforming the design into an executable plan. Planning implies a stepwise process in which each step produces an output that is the necessary input for the next step.

The involvement of all stakeholders is essential. The object of this conversation is to achieve a level of situational understanding at which the approach to the problem's solution becomes clear. The underlying premise is this: when stakeholders achieve a level of understanding such that the situation no longer appears complex, they can exercise logic and intuition effectively. As a result, design focuses on framing the problem rather than developing courses of action.

Design is not a function to be accomplished, but rather an active process. It should reflect ongoing learning and adaptation and the growing appreciation of stakeholder input. Though design precedes planning, it continues throughout planning, preparation, and execution. MJA Consulting's Urban Designers create original solutions to specific problems and its Urban Planners create do-able plans at a reasonable cost.