SESSION 1   

9:00am – 10:30am

Paper Session – Recovery Planning in New Orleans: Planning From Above or Below?

Ø    Scaling Up: Collaboration Of Non-Profits in the Road Home Post-Award Environment

Olivia Stinson and Dan Etheridge

Ø    Planners Pentagon: Planning for Equitable and Sustainable Prosperity in Post 9-11 and Post Katrina Era

Robert Muhammad and Talya D. Thomas

Ø    Whose Schools, Whose City? How Ordinary Citizens Have Promoted Equity in the Rebuilding of Public Schools in New Orleans

Dulari Tahbildar and Brenda Square

Paper Session – Community Planning

Ø    The Challenges And Successes Of First Nations Community-Based Planning

Ali Shaver

Ø    The Old North End: Community-Based Planning In Action

Heather Ternoway

Ø    Planning With Racialized Communities in Toronto, Canada: The Case of The Alternative Planning Group

Leela Viswanathan

Workshop – History As a Tool for Social Change: Taking It to the Streets

The Missing Plaque Project in Toronto puts up posters in place of historic plaques that never got made, exposing people to histories that have been kept out of the public’s sight. Instead of publishing these histories they are put up in the area that the history took place so that anyone in the community can read them. These posters included the stories of race riots, demolished neighborhoods, first nation’s villages, and strikes.

Tim Groves

SESSION 1   

9:00am – 10:30am

Panel – Engaging Students and Youth in Research, Service, and Action on Behalf of New Orleans

A notable feature of post-Katrina New Orleans has been the efforts of student groups from around the country (at the high school, college, and graduate level) to assist in rebuilding the city. The purpose of this panel is first, to describe a sample of these specific efforts, via reports from students and faculty who have been directly involved in such activities, and second, critically assess the significance and potential of student engagement in reconstruction work.

Thad Williamson (moderator)

Eric Van Der Hyde

Amanda Bromberg

Eric Jensen

Susan Weistrop

Ali Kopyt

Breann Marsh-Narigon

Panel – Diversity in Planning: Identities and Approaches

This panel explores the connections between increasing the diversity in representation and identity, with increasing the diversity in values, interests and intellectual approaches in the profession.

Tara Clapp (moderator)

Lisa Bates

Elizabeth  Sweet

Paper Session – Environmental Justice

Ø    

Aaron Golub

Ø     Neighborhoods For Justice: Environmental Injustice and Land Use(Phoenix, Arizona)

Ruth Yabes

Ø     When It Rains, (Sh)it Pours: Combined Sewer Overflow in New York City

Kate Zidar

SESSION 2   

10:45am – 12:15pm

Panel – Right to the City: Lessons from Katrina for the Rest of Us

This panel will present the right to the city framework as a strategy for combating displacement and gentrification and building and sustaining viable democratic communities. Participants will include member organizations of the new Right to the City Alliance who have been struggling to keep working class people of color from being pushed out of in cities like L.A., Miami, S.F., Oakland, Boston, N.Y. as well as local New Orleans activists. Panelists will discuss their own experiences with winning (and losing) the right to return, the right to plan their own communities, new strategies for urban land reform, with respect to the Katrina experience which is the largest displacement and gentrification program in the nation.

Gilda Haas (moderator)

Barbara Jackson of Safe Streets, New Orleans

Sushma Sheth and community leader from Miami Workers Center

Representative from People’s Hurricane Relief Fund

Paper Session – Reconstruction, Race and Class

Ø    The Tale of Two Hurricanes: Picayune, Mississippi  

Cari Varner

Ø    Fuzzy Set and Multi Criteria Model: An Expanded Model for Selecting a Rebuilding Strategy for Underdeveloped Areas Destroyed by Natural Disasters

Mohammad Qasim, Barbara Jordan-Mickey

Ø    A View from Houston of Race, Class and Recovery

Dorris Ellis Robinson

Ø    Governance, Social Conflicts and Vulnerability in Recovery Planning ff Post-Tsunami Thailand: Building Resilience Under Social Imbalances

Khanin Hutanuwatr

Paper Session – Gentrification, Race, Class and Conflict

Ø     Preserving Minority Histories: The Struggle to Preserve Hispanic History in Phoenix, Arizona

Katherine Crewe

Ø     White Middle-class Privilege: De-constructing Gentrification in North American cities

Patricia Carter

Ø     From High-Rises to a Peoples Fund

Fernando Martí

Ø     Contested Conceptions of Progress in Downtown Re-Development: The Albuquerque Experience

Claudia Isaac

Ø     Resisting Urbanism: Cultural Landscape, Infrastructure, Land Use in the Rural/Urban Fringe Of Albuquerque, New Mexico

Christopher Ramírez

SESSION 2

10:45am – 12:15pm

Workshop – Aging in Place: Creating Sustainable Neighborhoods for the Elderly

This session will draw on the experience of two semester-long studio projects centered on the critical examination of issues related to 'aging in place.' Participants will begin to examine their own communities through lenses of livability and vulnerability. A number of planning tools and models will be introduced, designed to assist local communities in the development of guidelines to support the demographic transition of older communities.

Beverly McLean (moderator)

Stephanie Camay

Kate Ervin

Claudia Filomena

Panel – Visualizing Recovery: Using GIS To Visualize The Characteristics Of Recovery In New Orleans

A variety of GIS tools allow researchers to “drill down” into new and emerging spatial data sets to create visualizations based on specific themes. This type of analysis and overlays can paint a much different picture of the spatial characteristics of the recovery of New Orleans than has been presented to date. This panel discussion will present these data in new GIS visualizations in order to answer important planning and community development questions regarding the nature of the recovery of New Orleans.

Patrick Haughey (moderator)

William Rohe

Spencer Cowan

Aram Lief

Workshop – Gendered Experiences in Environmental [In]Justice

This interactive workshop will draw on participants' experiences and observations from post-Katrina New Orleans, from post-tsunami Sri Lanka, from post-modern Toronto, and from posts around the world. Why are women's voices, experiences, issues, and concerns still so invisible? What can we do about it?

Barbara Rahder

SESSION 3   

1:30pm – 3:00pm

Paper Session – Critical Issues in New Orleans Recovery Planning

Ø    Latino Migration and Its Implications for New Orleans

Sarah Blue, Anita Drever

Ø    Arts in the Revitalization of the Sixth Ward: A Cultural Arts Facility

Amanda Bromberg

Ø    Building Capacity to Rebuild Neighborhoods: How Can Funders Strategically Support and Strengthen Community Capacity in Post-Katrina New Orleans?

Jainey K. Bavishi

Workshop – Power and Organizing for Planners: Using Popular Education Techniques to Organize Communities

Progressive planners often need to use the tools of community organizer to advocate for issues with communities and build the capacity of communities to act on their own. Participants will learn tools to define power, analyze relations of power, identify problems and solutions and develop power maps that planners can use in issue campaigns. This interactive session will also allow participants to share experiences and skills with one another.

Christopher Ramírez

Workshop – Progressive Planning Magazine: The First Five Years

Marking the fifth anniversary of Progressive Planning Magazine, the editors reflect on the challenges of progressive journalism and unique contributions and shortcomings of PPM. All friends, critics and potential contributors are invited to comment on the past, present, and future of the magazine.

Tom Angotti with The Progressive Planning Editorial Board

SESSION 3   

1:30pm – 3:00pm

Panel – Good Government? Progressive Values in the Public Sector

PN Members express a commitment to planning in a way that promotes social change. How do public agents reconcile this value with the formats of democracy: committees, councils, commissions, and bureaucracies? A diverse panel of planners and policy advisors discuss the challenges of promoting equity and change through the public sector.

Marisa Cravens (moderator)

Jeremy Thompson

Karen Parsons

Broderick Green

Panel – Successful Hazard Risk Reduction

The mission of the Center for Hazards Assessment Response & Technology (CHART) is to assist local communities in becoming disaster resilient through community collaboration. During this Panel Session, an interdisciplinary team will highlight aspects of current projects in which CHART is working closely with local stakeholders to identify risks in their communities and to determine appropriate ways to reduce or eliminate these risks in the future.

Monica Teets Farris (moderator)

Sarah Markway

Kristina Peterson

Thomas Haysley

Kimberly Solet

Workshop – Reducing Health Inequalities Through Planning and the Built Environment

This workshop will feature a discussion of health inequities and the built environment, and how public health and planning tools can be utilized together to promote healthier, more livable communities. Participants will engage in a table-top exercise that challenges them to look at how development in low-income communities and communities of color may impact public health in a variety of ways, and how to effectively partner with public health practitioners in order to harness healthier development and land use practices.

Heather Wooten, Njoke Thomas

SESSION 4   

3:15pm – 4:45pm

Panel – Citizen Involvement in Recovery Planning in New Orleans: From BNOB to UNOP

In the one-and-one-half years after Katrina, the citizens of New Orleans participated in four distinct and often conflicting planning processes. Each was characterized by different geographic coverages, processes of civic engagement, and organizational linkages between decision makers at the city, state, and federal levels. Now that UNOP is essentially complete, this panel will examine lessons learned during one of the most complex planning efforts in the nation's history.

Brendan Nee (moderator)

Paul Ikemire

Rob Olshansky

Sherry Watters

WORKSHOP - The East St. Louis Action Research Project: Power Disparity, Community-University Partnerships and Action Research in Undergraduate Education

This workshop explores inequality between stakeholders in university-community partnerships. In particular the research presented focuses on the ways power relations play out in a university-community partnership in low-income, African American neighborhoods in East St. Louis, Illinois.

In addition, the presentation will give an example of addressing specific community requests for assistance through an action research project with participation of undergraduate students. Session participants will be invited to discuss and advise on challenges that remains.

Janni Sorensen

Vicki Eddings
 

Suraiya Rashid

Panel – Building Equitable Development Into Richmond's General Plan

The Richmond Equitable Development Initiative (REDI) advances research, advocacy, organizing, and policy efforts to promote equitable development in Richmond, California. Our panelists will provide a diverse outlook on employing an inside-outside campaign strategy that allows REDI the opportunity to cultivate new relationships with elected officials and city staff that did not exist in the past while simultaneously maintaining our important role as watchdog and community advocate. This session’s focus on engaging both decision makers and community leaders on how to explore long-term planning processes focused on equitable development directly connects to the conference’s theme on Race, Class and Community Recovery.

Sheryl Lane (moderator)

Ina Mason

Maria Alegria

Maria Viramontes

Torm Nompraseurt

Jennifer Lin

SESSION 4   

3:15pm – 4:45pm

Panel – Planning in Latin America

Alejandro Rofman will discuss the experience of basin-wide planning initiatives in Latin America and how they relate to the economic and social consequences of disasters similar to Katrina. Tom Angotti will discuss the recent initiative creating community councils in Venezuela and how it relates to urban planning. Emily Achtenberg will discuss her article in the Winter 2007 issue of Progressive Planning, “Bolivia: Reclaiming Natural Resources and Popular Sovereignty.”

Tom Angotti (moderator)

Alejandro Rofman (Argentina)

Emily Achtenberg

Workshop – Building a Progressive Architecture/Planning Network

At this workshop, participants will engage in a larger and ongoing discussion of how progressive individuals and organizations in the architecture, design and planning professions can create a more effective voice for social change.

Raphael Sperry, Casius Pealer, Zack Barowitz

Panel – Safety, Growth and Equity: Infrastructure Policies that Promote Opportunity and Inclusion

As plans proceed for the massive reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, how can fair and equitable policies be put in place so that the unprecedented federal infusion of more than $100 billion will be allocated equitably? Panelists will discuss how policymakers can take this unique opportunity to create conditions for more sustainable development through greater coastal restoration, lessen future storm damage, create economic opportunities and inclusive access for jobs ,include local residents in the planning process, and create incentives for alternatives to sprawl.

Annie Clark

Dominique Duval-Diop

Craig Colten

Richard Campanella

Walter Brooks

SESSION 1   

9:00am – 10:30am

Panel – National Conference on Disaster Planning for the Carless Society: A Follow-Up Discussion

This Panel Discussion will build upon the National Conference on Disaster Planning for the Carless Society, held at the University of New Orleans in February 2007. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita revealed how vulnerable carless residents are in emergency situations. This panel discussion will seek to identify the state of carless evacuation planning, discussion upcoming projects, and highlight areas of need.

John Renne (moderator)

Tom Sanchez

Brian Wolshon

Olivia Stinson

Dan Etheridge

Panel – Progressive Planning: Can it be Both Radical and Practical?

What practical planning can accomplish often seems very limited, and not much different from conventional planning, ethically undertaken. Radical planning, on the other hand, often seems hopeless, and not even worth the both, except for ivory-tower academics. And the two seem mutually exclusive if not indeed contradictory.

Peter Marcuse (moderator)

Richard Milgram

Tom Angotti

William Goldsmith

Chester Hartman

Panel – Learning From Venezuela: Popular Power & Participatory Planning

Presenters will speak about recent processes of participatory planning in Venezuela, as well as related efforts by community-based organizations in New Orleans and San Francisco. Together with session participants, they will then discuss how community groups and planners can learn from and build on these experiences.

Josh Lerner (moderator)

Fernando Marti

Clara Irazabal

representative of New Orleans Survivor Council

SESSION 2   

10:45am – 12:15pm

Workshop – Youth Involvement in Planning - Where Do We Go From Here?

Each of the student groups in this presentation are currently studying urban planning and/or participating in planning projects in their home communities. This session will begin with a brief presentation from each group about the work that they are doing in their respective communities. Students and their mentors/teachers will then facilitate a conversation with attendees about current participation of youth in urban planning practice, methods to increase youth participation, methods to legitimize youth input on real planning projects, and action steps for ongoing youth participation in professional planning networks.

Alissa Kronovet (moderator)

Deborah McKoy

Meredith Phillips

Eric Jensen

Student & Mentor representatives from Emery Secondary School, Emeryville, CA; Academy of Urban Planning, Brooklyn, NY; O. Perry Walker HS, New Orleans, LA.

Panel – Rebuilding Strategies: People, Organizations, Professionals, the Government and the Market in Post-Disaster Recovery

Who rebuilds after disasters and how do they do it? This panel will draw on research from disaster recovery efforts after the Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles, California and after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in New Orleans, Louisiana to discuss strategies in disaster recovery and how they address or exacerbate social inequity. Exploring the opportunities and limitations of governmental programs, professional top-down planning, neighborhood planning, advocacy planning, market mechanisms, human rights demands, as well as three models of civic capacity building, this panel will explore how different strategies shape rebuilding outcomes, while asking who benefits and what falls through the cracks.

Nabil Kamel

Jacob Wagner

Michael Frisch

Anna Livia Brand

Leigh Graham

Renia Ehrenfeucht (moderator)

Panel – Who is Driving Post-Katrina Recovery? A Look at the Critical Role of Grassroots Organizations in New Orleans

Since Hurricane Katrina, grassroots efforts emerged throughout New Orleans to address critical recovery needs at the neighborhood level. New grassroots organizations with diverse missions have successfully tackled a number of problems with which official government agencies have struggled, disregarded, or failed to detect. Representatives from key grassroots organizations will share their first-hand experiences in finding solutions for these difficult issues. Panelists will be asked to respond to the following questions:  

Jennifer Ruley (moderator), Louisiana Public Health Institute

Karen Gadbois, Northwest Carrollton Civic Association and squanderedheritage.com

K.C. King, Citizens' Road Home Action Team

Karen Parsons, District 6 Community Council

Alan Gutierrez, thinknola.com

Daniel Samuels, Friends of Lafitte Corridor