URBAN & REGIONAL PLANNING STUDENTS A CONVERSATION

CS: How do you intend to take what you’ve learned at UB into professional practice?

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A San.: I think a large part of what we’ve learned here is how to walk into a new community and understand how to be an active member within it. The way we’ve learned to analyze things, we’ve been taught to remember that for every number you have, there’s a person attached. Numbers only tell one side of the story, whereas people tell a whole other aspect of it.

CS: Has there been one topic that has emerged as a top priority in the planning department?

MP: Taking the planning field away from a kind of technocrat, one person in an office making decisions, and making it more about community input, democracy and action. I think we’re also increasingly seeing this engagement process at every step of the way.

Students:

Moderator:

Irene Mallano (BAED), Michael Pesarchick (MUP), Alessandra Santarosa (MUP), Alexa Sass (MSRED)

Charlie Stevens

Local Change Makers

Students in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning provide unique perspectives to the School of Architecture and Planning. A set of curriculum objectives often guides their learning towards local contexts. Engagement with city leaders, community organizations, and varying environments informs and helps students develop a skill set to take into professional practice. Working with these groups provides students with opportunities to address issues currently facing our society.

Planning coursework often requires students not only to collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data, but also to digest and synthesize community voices and present this in a concluding body of work. This process builds a foundation for planning students on how to engage and support a neighborhood struggling with diverse issues and how to work with local advocates on potential solutions. Speaking with students from across the department reveals what practices are currently working and where there is still room for improvement, both within school walls and in the community.

Community Connections

Charlie Stevens: Where have you seen themes of care progress during your time at UB?

Alexa Sass: Looking at the semester as a whole, they kind of keep moving forward. You start off not knowing each other, not knowing the project, not knowing your site. By the end you have something you’re proud of and can show off.

Michael Pesarchick: I think by nature our entire curriculum is based on care. We have whole classes dedicated to revitalization of underdeveloped neighborhoods, minority communities, people new to the country who may not have access to the same resources as other people. Our entire curriculum feels targeted to address these inequalities.

Alessandra Santarosa: You also see care progress in our program through the changes we’ve been advocating for. Having our voices heard by the chair and everyone in our department, we see them having an openness and availability to address any concerns. Mike and I graduate this semester. We’re going to be leaving UB, but that hasn’t stopped me from advocating for the next cohort.

"You develop this idea of care for your group members, the project, and ultimately the people who would use it if we were building it for real."

- Alexa Sass

Irene Mallano: I think a really good example is the Citizen Planning School. The School of Architecture and Planning puts a student, professional advisor, and someone from the community who is attempting to solve a problem in their environment together to workshop everything. We prepare the foundation they need to get their community project started.

"The people that live in these neighborhoods should have some control or influence on how their neighborhoods look, right?"

- Michael Pesarchick

A San.: I also think about neighborhood change and how we’re working through larger societal changes. Specifically with cities like Buffalo, where we’ve seen a population decrease starting to come back up, you still have areas like the East Side remaining stagnant and excluded from the benefits of the city’s redevelopment.

IM: We focus a lot on global and local sustainability efforts - how to incorporate them in a variety of ways, and how to think about them when designing solutions.

CS: What were your takeaways from working across disciplines of urban planning and architecture?

MP: I think it’s a much closer look at what real life experience is going to be like.

A Sas.: For some people, it was scary because they didn’t know anything about architecture. Whereas I have a background in architecture, so I can sit in the middle to see and understand both sides. In my last interview for the job that I got, that is what sold them. I don’t think anyone understood the role each side would take, and how they needed to fit together.

CS: How do you value the day-to-day process of community engagement or researching neighborhoods compared to the production of a final product?

A San.: I enjoy the process of putting everything together. I think being able to sit down and talk to people, and then relate back all the data we’ve pulled to someone, is where I find myself enjoying the process. I like getting into the nitty gritty and actually being with people.

IM: You need to have that messiness and not know exactly what you’re doing along the way sometimes, so you can feel like you accomplished something special in the end.

"I think the twenty pages of scribbles in my note book versus the twenty page report with columns says it all."