Expanding Our Community of Practice

George Proakis, AICPCNU New England Summit

March 31, 2017

Welcome to CNU New England• A bit about you . . . .

Time to reflect

Some Thoughts about Us• CNU is a unique group of people

• Cross-disciplinary• Team of professionals• Often doing new and innovative things in our fields

Some Thoughts about Us• CNU is a unique group of people

• Cross-disciplinary• Team of professionals• Often doing new and innovative things in our fields

• Regardless of our fields:• Planning• Architecture• Engineering• Urban Design• Law• Sociology• Communications

Some Thoughts about Us• CNU is a unique group of people

• Cross-disciplinary• Team of professionals• Often doing new and innovative things in our fields

• Regardless of our fields:• Planning• Architecture• Engineering• Urban Design• Law• Sociology• Communications

• And . . . we get things done!

But . . . . Every now and then we need to step back

Where are we going????

But, actually . . . here’s the thing

But, actually . . . here’s the thing

We’ve been here before . . . . . . We’ve been doing this for years

We’ve been here before . . . . . . We’ve been doing this for years

• Charrettes

• Small developer strategies

• Tactical urbanism

• Form-based codes

• Missing middle housing

• Skinny streets

• Urban stormwater solutions

What have we done?

What have we done?• Summits: Strengthening our Community of Practice

What have we done?• Summits: Strengthening our Community of Practice

• Awards

What have we done?• Summits: Strengthening our Community of Practice

• Awards

• Building Lean

What have we done?• Summits: Strengthening our Community of Practice

• Awards

• Building Lean

• Imagine and Build

What have we done?• Summits: Strengthening our Community of Practice

• Awards

• Building Lean

• Imagine and Build

What have we done?• Summits: Strengthening our Community of Practice

• Awards

• Building Lean

• Imagine and Build

• Pass on what we know . . . . .

We solve problemsPlacemaking construction is too expensive?• We do tactical urbanism

Development cannot get done?• We train developers to go small

Can’t get the development community to do great urbanism?• We teach or developers to be great urbanists• And we train our urbanists to be great developers

The engineers won’t let us build skinny streets?• We developer new street standards

The zoning codes make it impossible to build sustainable communities?• We write new codes

So, on to our next challenges . . .

1. Getting things done (without depending upon federal support)

2. Addressing the equity / development housing conundrum

3. Tackling the disparity in communities across our region

4. I’m sure there’s more . . . . .

What can we do?Create a multi-disciplinary force of subject matter

experts who put placemaking first

Use that focus on placemaking to create communities that will successfully address environmental

sustainability, economic resiliency, equity, and beauty

Building a New England that can survive and thrive in an uncertain world

But, how??????by learning

and

sharing what we know

within and beyond our community of practice

Six things we all can do to advance our Community of Practice

1. Participate in YOUR OWN community• Be a part of that reasonable discourse

2. Train EVERYBODY that you work with• Turn them into advocates for building great places

3. Share YOUR ideas in your professional organizations• Put a New Urbanism session in every professional conference in New England

4. Write an article, book, letter, or whatever you can• Share your perspective with a wider audience

5. Take on a tactical project (at work or in your community)• Be a part of showing how incremental change works

6. Help us grow the community of practice • Help us develop and operate our events, and spread the word about them