Goh on Urban Design and Environmental Justice
Kian Goh, assistant professor of urban planning, spoke with the Social Design Insights podcast about the impact of climate change on marginalized communities — and the influential role urban designers can play. The wide-ranging conversation touched on the vibrant grassroots movement to protect the poor from eviction in the sinking city of Jakarta, Indonesia; the worldwide influence of Dutch urban planners who draw on 800 years of expertise in dealing with flood control; and the Green New Deal, which could transform urban design with a large-scale U.S. commitment to environmental justice. Planning schools can prepare their students for the coming challenges by stressing that designers must understand the communities they serve. “We do talk in design schools about how to do good, for instance, and to think about marginalized and poor communities and how to help them. But not about the structural, social and political issues that they actually confront,” she said.
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