UCB/APA Briefing: The UN’s New SDGs & Implications for Local Practice - Northern California Section of the American Planning Association

SUMMARY. December 8 & 10 (TUES & THURS), 2:00-5pm (the Briefing starts at 3pm; the optional pre-briefing review of city cases starts at 2pm), University of California, College of Environmental Design, Wurster Hall, Room 106, Berkeley. Please attend one or both days. The briefing will be the same each day but half the cases will be covered Tues. and half Thurs. With world leaders adopting the new UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) this past September, this UCB/APA Briefing will summarize the new goals and present the semester-long class findings on the implications for local practice. The briefing will be base
d on 11 case studies of Bay Area cities paired with international cities around a theme (see details below). The ensuing discussion with Professor Acey and students will explore the implications further so that practitioners take away ideas for new practices in their work. No fee event. See the details below for a list of cities and background documents. Please email RSVP to Scott (day(s), arrival
time, need for parking) and/or with questions at SustCommAPA@gmail.com. CM | 1.5 pending

DETAIL. Are you curious to learn more about the SDGs and understand the implications for your local planning practice and city? Then come join Professor Charisma Acey and her students in a Practicing Planner Briefing. This lively and interactive presentation will build on two previous UCB/APA sessions that evaluated Bay Area sustainability (NOT pre-perquisites).

Planners are invited to attend one or both days. The discussion and cities reviewed will be different each day (see below) but the core points of the briefing and focus on practical implications for local practice will be the same. The pre-briefing will start at 2pm with the final review of case study city poster boards. It will provide some background for the briefing. Although optional, attending it is highly encouraged and provides an opportunity to engage with students in the review dialogue.

The briefing will begin at 3pm with a summary debrief from the case-study review. Professor Acey will then provide a wider overview of the SDGs and summary beginning at 3:30pm. This overview will set up the planner/practitioner-student-professor discussion focused on forging new ideas that planners feel would be relevant for their work. The pre-Briefing and Briefing provide an opportunity for students and professionals to exchange ideas on this important topic and a forum for praxis (academia and practice informing each other). Light refreshments will be available.

Two previous UCB/APA sessions evaluated Bay Area sustainability through the lens of Plan Bay Area and the APA’s draft comprehensive plan criteria. This Briefing will focus on SD Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. In the semester-long upper division class project (CY Plan 119: Planning for Sustainability), 11 student teams evaluated how the Bay Area fits into global sustainability efforts through a case study pairing one Bay Area City and one international city around a key theme to see how they are locally tackling global sustainability. The city pairs and themes are as follows:

TUESDAY Dec. 8th (Pre-Briefing final case study review from 2-3pm. Briefing at 3pm)

Emeryville – Norwegian cities: Climate Change Adaptation
Oakland‐Belgium: Dealing with Port Pollution (or Toronto: Food Security)
San Jose – Brazil: Sustainability through Participation
Petaluma ‐ Yangtze River Delta: River Management
San Francisco – Greater Cairo: Brownfield Regeneration

THURSDAY Dec 10th (Pre-Briefing final case study review from 2-3pm. Briefing at 3pm)

Berkeley ‐ Niassa, Mozambique: Intermediate Cities
Dublin – Shenzhen: Sustainable Economic Development
Fremont – Santa‐Fe, Argentina: Intermediate Cities
Mountain View — Ahmedabad: Inclusion through Transport
Richmond – Melbourne: Greening the City
San Rafael – Lyon: Planning for Inclusion and Quality of Life

We look forward to meeting you and learning with you at this briefing.

Professor Charisma Acey & Scott T. Edmondson, AICP

[Charisma Acey, M.P.P., Ph.D., is Assistant Professor Department of City and Regional Planning University of California, Berkeley. Post prepared by Scott T. Edmondson, AICP, founder/past co-director and Research Program Lead of the Northern Section’s Sustainability Committee, one of the APA Sustainable Communities Division’s Sustainability Champions, and a strategic sustainability planner-economist at the SF Planning Department.]

Documents

A description of the semester project is available here: CP 119 Group Assignment Handout Fall 15. That description includes links to a set of key resources about the SDGs and the work of two previous classes on sustainability in the Bay Area.

Additional core documents include the following: