Upon reflecting on the cluster as a class, it seems that we all learned a lot, just not in the ways we were initially anticipating. The experiential learning aspect of actually experiencing in person true dense urban city centers allowed us to contextualize theory into application. It is one thing to understand to the theories and concepts of urbanism and public transit and another to see the subjects in living breathing action. As such, while the cluster was officially about High Speed Rail, we ended up having a significant focus on urban and regional planning and design. This outcome was shaped not only by our group’s interest in urban planning, but also in the fact that almost all of our meetings (the main source of our information) were centered around a particular planning project, be it at the station, city, or regional level. The experience left us with some important lessons and questions to consider in the subjects of rail transit, transit oriented development, and general urban planning.
Any urban and regional planning project requires the collaboration of a team of people with various skills. We discovered that planners and architects are more than simple planners and architects; they specialize as professionals into many different roles and areas of expertise. In a project team you can have members specialized in politics, economics, modeling, environmental concerns, advocacy, GIS, community outreach and mediation, funding, engineering, design, logistics, sociology, transportation, and many more. Additionally, planning takes place at many levels, station, municipal, and regional. All levels require different skill sets, with individual plans interacting to create a final product. One of the best take-aways from this cluster is that in seeing such professionals in action, many students were able to solidify what areas of planning interested them and what areas did not.
Being in a truly urban environment made many students realize the importance of having a connection to nature. Coming from California, mast students very rarely have experienced living in a true concrete jungle, where a view of nature is not easily accessible. In New York, Manhattan is so built up that often times the sunlight does not even reach the street. One of the students described the experience as being “unable to feel the earth, like my feet are four feet off the ground.” The experience emphasizes the importance of a park as large and accessible as Central Park, a very deliberately planned breathing space in the center of the city. For the sake of making cities truly livable in the future, creative connections with nature must be facilitated through the preservation of open space around city centers, park planning, urban gardening and agriculture, rooftop gardens, and streetscaping.
We also gained an understanding of the unique challenges associated with planning infrastructure projects in the United States. Each project has many stakeholders, all interested in the project outcome, and the democratic and transparent nature of U.S. government requires that stakeholders have a say in project process. This can be beneficial to project outcomes, but it can greatly extend project deadlines. Additionally, unlike many other countries, the United States does not have a national Infrastructure bank for the funding of projects. Amtrak for example, relies on yearly appropriations from Congress for project funding. The threat of uneven funding and the stress of constantly lobbying for funding makes it difficult for cities and agencies to complete projects quickly. State and local authority over infrastructure projects also requires negotiations across jurisdictions, another element that extends timelines.