Urbanist as City Doctor: See yourself as a doctor for cities, addressing specific problems without imposing a grand vision.
Reject Top-Down Visions: Criticize mayors and planners who dictate a vision, because the collective vision of individual citizens should shape the city.
City Management as Janitorial Work: City managers should focus on supporting the needs and visions of individual citizens by providing essential infrastructure.
Culture Matters: Be aware that cultural differences influence people's choices and trade-offs, which requires adjusting your approach to urban planning in different cultural contexts.
Problem-Specific Solutions: Focus on finding the best solution for specific problems without imposing a pre-determined vision.
Alain Bertaud is an urbanist and a senior research scholar at the NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management. He is the author of a book about urban planning that is titled Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities. He has worked as an urban planner in a multitude of cities around the world.
Today, we talk about his view of a city and what he’s observed as an urban planner. He gives us examples and draws connections between how culture and regulation shape cities --- he means literally; cities shaped by regulation are shaped like donuts. We discuss the problems with central planning from old Soviet cities to today's urban sprawl caused by zoning regulation. He explains how being a "free market urban planner" is not a contradiction and shares personal stories about how he came to this career.