Join us for the Raymond Lifchez Symposium for Social Justice & Planning, which presents Department of City & Regional Planning faculty and researchers discussing housing and climate issues — including equity and urban governance, climate resilience, and participatory planning. The day features two panels and a keynote speech by Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah, 2024 Lifchez Professor of Practice in Social Justice.
SCHEDULE
9 AM: Welcome
9:15 AM: Panel Property Institutions, Collective Action, and Climate Adaptation Stephen Collier, Zoé Hamstead, Zach Lamb This panel explores how property institutions and practices frame adaptive agency in the face of climate change-related threats. In particular, we examine how property — understood as a complex “bundle of rights” (Ostrom) —structures differential agency while attracting resources for change in the built environment and in patterns of land use. Drawing on case studies of wildfire risk, indoor thermal insecurity, and sea-level rise, we unpack the motivations, incentives, and power relations that are structuring pathways of adaptive change.
10:45 AM: Panel Planning for Housing Crisis Max Buchholz, Dan Chatman, Carolina Reid, moderated by Sai Balakrishnan This panel addresses the question “What is an important aspect of the housing crisis — or planning for new housing — that you believe receives too little attention?”
12:15 PM: Closing Remarks
4:15 PM: Welcome William W. Wurster Dean Renee Y. Chow
4:30 PM: Keynote Planning in (Un)Just Institutions: Reflections from Global North & South Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah, 2024 Lifchez Professor of Practice in Social Justice Introduction by Lifchez Professor of Practice in Social Justice Nader Afzalan Followed by a conversation with Charisma Acey How do we pursue transformative and just planning outcomes in societies? Why do such visions sometimes seem elusive to planners? How do we enlist and build coalitions among W.E.B. Du Bois’s army of the wronged to energize and sustain such visions in an increasingly diverse and fragmented society? In this talk, Boamah wrestles with some of these questions from an institutionalist lens in his talk.
In particular, he puts the concept of justice into dialogue with institutionalism (accepted rules and norms of conduct) to map why justice in planning and design practices requires meaningful engagements at nested institutional levels — from the (meta)constitutional-choice level to everyday planning (operational-choice) decisions.
The conversation is grounded in empirical cases involving land ownership and use decisions, zoning, housing, and ecological restoration planning efforts in Global North and South contexts.
5:30 PM: Reception
