Community Engagement is Harming Cities: Disrupting Racial Planning for a Planning End of Shared Well-being

Abstract

This thesis will contribute to planning theory and practice the idea that means-based planning theories and racial planning enable community engagement processes to have negative impacts on the city and the public’s well-being by reproducing white supremacy and stunting change in the city. Therefore, ends-based planning theories should be prioritized in planning and disrupt racial planning, in order for cities and well-being to be addressed more urgently. Using the literature, I categorize the differences between means-based and ends-based planning and theorize about a planning blind spot of white supremacy and whiteness. Using Seattle’s design review as a medium, I show why a means-based racial planning community engagement process like design review is unable to achieve the goals of building more housing and redistributing advantages to nonwhite people. I then end with an argument for planning to emphasize ends-based planning towards shared well-being as the future of planning.