It's dripping with self-importance, entitlement, & the desire for social class segregation. It completely ignores the externalities of planning policies, and presents a nightmare view of development itself. If this is how a planning board really perceives itself, and the last defense against total anarchy & the victory of the rabble, I'm not sure I can come up with a better argument in favor of shrinking that institution's responsibilities to things like sidewalk & streetscape design.

by Squalish on Feb 12, 2011 4:19 pm • link • report

Attaboy Matt! Thanks for posting this!

by Lance on Feb 12, 2011 5:22 pm • link • report

With the example of Houston, this is a bit over the top, though still manages to make its point.

by dcseain on Feb 12, 2011 7:02 pm • link • report

I'd call it a halfway success, at least from this urbanist's viewpoint. Halfway because, although it does show what planning prevents, it also shows places like New York as hell-holes of pawn shops and strip clubs and that THAT is what their department prevents.

Then again, it is Beverly Hills and, if they're anything like my California hometown, they're rather smug about what they see as the paradise in which they live.

by OctaviusIII on Feb 13, 2011 11:40 am • link • report

There is only one word for this film: propaganda. It traffics in the worst stereotypes of dense urban environments and uses fear to manipulate its audience into hailing planning as a savior. It suggests that planning boards are the only thing stopping every city from transforming into the hell of 1980's era Times Square. It's ridiculous.

I'm very surprised that this video is being positively featured on a self-proclaimed urbanist website. Beverly Hills and Southern California in general are the epitome of sprawl, inefficient land use, and car centric development. Trust me I grew up there.

by Mike on Feb 13, 2011 2:51 pm • link • report

I like the vision: Planning will make your town just like Beverley Hills- a simple all-American town, with the local Bulgari down on the corner and Rolls Royces cruising the street lined with palm trees. I'm an Easterner, so I have to ask - is all of California like that? (HAH!)

Also, I been in planning for quite a while, and have never seen a planning department with that kind of money for propaganda - I mean, public outreach - usually it's a brochure called "Your Planning Department and You" and you're lucky if it's printed in color!

by ZZinDC on Feb 13, 2011 3:49 pm • link • report

I just saw an article somewhere (Planetizen?) about how Beverly Hills was blocking a bus-only ROW on Wilshire Blvd, thus messing up planning for better transit along that corridor, which apparently already has the heaviest bus ridership int he city.

by spookiness on Feb 13, 2011 6:22 pm • link • report

Planning hasn't always gotten everything right, but it has built and continues to build a foundation for great spaces and a great region.

i'm assuming by 'Planning' you mean the DC Office of Planning. i can't speak specifically to the competence/decency of the DC Office of Planning over the years, but I would guess that it has a history of being slightly less devious than the planning departments of at least some other cities its size in the US. just a guess, tho.

whether talking specifically about DC Planning or DC-area planning or even the general '(urban) planning', the "hasn't always gotten everything right" line seems...off, or wicked, or something much worse -- a kind of cavalier attitude about the harm inflicted on countless people over the years by planning decisions. even if that harm is drastically outweighed by the relative merits/benefits of planning -- and that's a big 'if' -- i would argue it's still a mistake to use this line/language.

I just saw an article somewhere (Planetizen?) about how Beverly Hills was blocking a bus-only ROW on Wilshire Blvd, thus messing up planning for better transit along that corridor, which apparently already has the heaviest bus ridership int he city.

good for them. talking about bus-only lanes before we have bike-only lanes on that vital corridor is clearly insane. we don't have the time and money to be carving out even more exclusive right of way for motorized transport -- we need to allow people to get around under their own power.

and that's just the first analysis of the situation -- before we get to impacts on businesses, before talking about the added pressures on auto traffic in and around the area, before we talk about the added pressure cyclists will face when finally attempting to gain access to Wilshire Blvd., etc. the project is a disaster.

and so what if they can't speed buses through two rich areas of town? is that actually going to change anything? is that actually going to make folks' lives better? no. we need real changes -- real improvements -- we need to allow people to walk, and bike, in that priority order. buses, trains, cars, and whatever else should only be worried about much later on.

if anyone out there was actually interested in 'reducing (auto) traffic', then i suspect they would try to do something about allowing people to get around without cars. so, at least we have our answer as to whether or not anyone out there actually cares about reducing automobile traffic and 'gridlock' and whatever else they claim to care about.

i don't know that i've seen a study like this, but a traffic gridlock/accessibility/mobility/whatever-you-want-to-call-it study would probably show a very strong positive correlation between walk-and-bike infrastructure and 'ease of moving around/commuting'. might even be a near-impossibility given the fast-changing transportation policies of various cities (congestion pricing/parking/etc.), and having to factor in land use laws and local and national economic factors, but it's probably doable, especially in places with rapidly-advancing walk and bike infrastructure (the most important transportation policies/factors) comparatively, like DC, SF, NYC, and Portland. So, looking at these cities, for instance, my guess is that we'll never again see auto traffic/congestion/gridlock worse than it is today -- it'll only ever get better/easier to move around, or at least it won't get worse. That's a pretty big statement, but one that I think is supportable, even if we don't have enough facts/data/evidence to say 'right' or 'wrong' at the moment.

That's the simple, and powerful, hypothesis:

Continue building out your walk and bike infrastructure, and it is likely that you will never experience increased auto traffic/gridlock¹.

¹ It is possible, of course, to imagine scenarios where auto traffic increases, and that can lead us to a second simple, and powerful, hypothesis, which is kind of a corollary to the first:

Continue building out your walk and bike infrastructure, and it is likely to be the best/most cost-effective/most durable use of resources aimed at reducing, or not allowing the increase of, auto traffic/gridlock.

Common sense, but not to people in LA, apparently.

by Peter Smith on Feb 14, 2011 7:23 am • link • report

p.s. why does it cost $31.5 million to paint a couple of couple of lanes of road for a few miles?

Bike sharing costs about $5 million for 100 stations in capital costs, and about $2.5 million each year in operating costs. Let's Let's just throw up some concrete barriers along those outside lanes on Wilshire Blvd to create cycletracks (about $5 million total cost), and boom, we're in business for a full year for about $12.5 million, and we can be up and running in less than six months. allowing folks to bike on Wilshire Blvd while at the same time providing limited bike-sharing options would be such a dramatic improvement, that we'd hardly be able to recognize the place anymore. shoot -- just the increase in tax receipts along the corridor would probably pay for the project.

by Peter Smith on Feb 14, 2011 8:10 am • link • report

Pretty amazing production values. I'm thinking they may have gotten a little video help from Hollywood.

by DesignNut on Feb 14, 2011 10:24 am • link • report