It’s important to understand the primary motivator behind urban planning or as defined by the previous webinar, “land transactions,” is profit. Given that we operate under a capitalistic society, it is inevitable that capitalism would be the driving economic system that informs current planning practices. This webinar criticizes the ways in which capitalism continues to play a vital role in the planning process and offers examples of ways in which to battle capitalism within a current capitalist system.
Reimagining Planning is a monthly series of public webinars that focuses on the edge of innovation in urban planning and policy. Traditionally Urban Planning has had a long legacy of harming communities of color, developing and implementing racist policies, and destruction of the built environment. This series openly critiques this current iteration of urban planning in the hopes of proposing new theories, strategies, and concepts that help us arrive at an iteration of the field where we all belong. We are interested in helping foster meaningful conversations among urban planners hungry for more and to engage with new audiences that have always been curious about urban planning but may not know what exactly do urban planners do.