Geography, Planning and Development, Urban Studies, Social Sciences
12
Scopus Publications
Scopus Publications
Paul Davidoff’s Life in Prospect: Building a Progressive Planning Research Agenda Through Engaged Scholarship Antonio Raciti, Kenneth Reardon Journal of Planning History, 2025 This article explores Paul Davidoff’s life and its relevance to the epochal turn for the planning discipline when theories in planning gave up ground to new theories of planning. By using biography as a method of inquiry, this article highlights the intertwined relations between Davidoff’s scholarship, his public and private life, and his efforts to face structural racism in planning. The article offers suggestions for progressive planning by reflecting on the relevance of scholars’ entrenchment with their context to foster practice and research through engagement.
Whose Traditions Count? Questioning New Urbanism’s Traditional Neighborhood in the American South Antonio Raciti Journal of Planning Education and Research, 2024 This article discusses the ontological underpinnings and normative assumptions of the New Urbanism paradigm by exploring how long-term residents explain differences in two historic neighborhoods in Memphis, Tennessee. By using an engaged research approach, it examines the production and transformation of space, questioning the meaning of traditions from the perspective of Black residents. Findings suggest that a paradigm of urbanism ought to be built on a systematic investigation of the people–space–time nexus, arguing that the intersection of urbanisms is a way to understand and act on phenomena of urbanization often overlooked by mainstream urban design approaches.
Is the Scholarship of Engagement a Meaningful Approach to Foster Change in Community Development Education? Field Notes from Three Community/University Partnerships Lorena M. Estrada-Martínez, Antonio Raciti, Kenneth M. Reardon, Angela G. Reyes, Barbara A. Israel International Journal of Community Well Being, 2021 Pedagogical approaches in community-engaged education have been the object of interest for those aiming at improving community health and well-being and reducing social and economic inequities. Using the epistemological framework provided by the scholarship of engagement, this article examines three nationally recognized and successful examples of community-university partnerships in the fields of community planning and public health: the East St. Louis Action Research Project, the South Memphis Revitalization Action Project, and the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center. We review and compare how these partnerships emerged, developed, and engaged students, community partners, and academic researchers with their local communities in ways that achieved positive social change. We conclude by highlighting common elements across the partnerships that provide valuable insights in promoting more progressive forms of community-engaged scholarship, as well as a list of examples of what radical forms of community-engaged education may look like.
The deep roots of austere planning in Memphis, TN: is the fox guarding the hen house? Laura Saija, Charles A. Santo, Antonio Raciti International Planning Studies, 2020 US cities operate amid a longstanding notion that excessive government impedes prosperity. Here post–recession austerity did not trigger new retrenchment, but instead exacerbated an existing vacuum of the public. In cities like Memphis, institutional or community–led planning cannot confront austerity by going back to something it was before the recession. Instead, genuine public planning must be invented ex novo, exploring why planning agencies have not truly been able to act for the benefit of all. The recent launch of Memphis' first city–led comprehensive planning effort in decades provides an opportunity for reflection. This article examines whether a new emphasis on planning in Memphis represents a positive disruption of the status quo or a merely a disguised continuation of growth–machine motives. The findings argue for the need to work on the small signs of authentic interest in public planning as a starting point for new anti–austere courses of action.
Advocacy Planning in the Age of Trump: An Opportunity to Influence National Urban Policy Kenneth Reardon, Antonio Raciti Planning Theory and Practice, 2019 In the years following World War II, the United States experienced a period of unmatched economic prosperity and political influence, which many scholars refer to as ‘Pax Americana.’While the majority of Americans saw their employment status, household incomes, housing conditions, and overall quality of life significantly improve during this period, the majority of African American, Latino, and Native American communities did not (Lane, 2012). Growing disparities between rising economic expectations in the general population and limited educational, employment, and housing opportunities afforded to racial minorities – reinforced by institutional racism based in white privilege – laid the foundations for the American Civil Rights movement which grew in size and influence throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In 1965, Paul Davidoff, reflecting upon growing racial inequality in American society, wrote, ‘Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning’ which challenged several of the most important assumptions underlying the rational model of planning which dominated mid-century professional practice in the United States and Europe (Davidoff, 1965). This article, which remains one of the most often cited in planning, argues against the existence of a unitary public interest in favor of multiple public interests based upon race, class, religion, ethnicity, and gender. The article also questions the objectivity of local planning agencies which Davidoff believed advanced policies and plans benefitting powerful economic elites at the expense of those living in poor and working-class neighborhoods. Having identified these limitations of mid-century planning, Davidoff proposed what William F. Whyte called a “social invention” to address the disturbing role planners were playing in promoting uneven patterns of metropolitan development at a time when African American youth were engaged in courageous acts of non-violent civil disobedience to dismantle racial discrimination in education, employment, housing and transportation (Whyte, 1983). Davidoff urged social-justice oriented planners to work with poor, racial minorities, immigrant communities, senior citizens and persons with disabilities to produce high quality plans featuring redistributive policies and participatory policymaking processes to serve as effective alternatives to those being proposed by centralized planning agencies privileging the needs of, what Logan and Molotch termed, urban growth machines (Logan & Molotch, 1987). By working with groups frequently ignored by mainstream planning to generate oppositional plans, Davidoff believed advocacy planners could transform municipal planning commissions into deliberative bodies capable of critically assessing the underlying assumptions, theoretical frameworks, empirical evidence and planning recommendations of competing plans – thereby producing more thoughtful and equitable planning decisions. Inspired by Davidoff’s ideas and angered by
Urban Design as a Collective Enterprise: The Challenge of Housing Development in Memphis (TN, USA) Antonio Raciti Planning Practice and Research, 2018 This paper uses three theoretical frameworks to critically reflect on the outcomes and implications of an urban design process stemming from an action research planning experience. The process, focused on the re-development of a public housing complex in the Vance Avenue Neighborhood (Memphis, TN, US), was carried out by a community university partnership—the Vance Avenue Collaborative—playing a fundamental role in trying to re-orient planning practice and research in the city of Memphis. The paper offers some general insights to reflect on the role of urban design as a public and civic endeavor supported by collective interdisciplinary research.
