There are significant deficiencies in how our cities worldwide operate and serve the people who live in them. Bureaucracies, red tape, and other limiting processes that publicly drive our cities towards their futures are often the aspects that cause change to happen at such a slow pace that by the time an issue is addressed, five more have popped up in its place. Over time, society has come to accept that when the systems we have in place don’t do much to serve our needs, it forces us to turn to alternatives to advocate for change. Some urban issues have found the best solutions after initiating social movements and the formation of grassroots groups.
City-making has long disguised itself as a democratic process. While many people work within the design realm and influence the buildings constructed and the expansion of urban areas, historically, the large-scale decisions have been left to the hands of only a few people. In New York, the City Planning Commission, which is staffed with thirteen architects, engineers, and other highly-specialized urbanists, has oversight of every aspect of the growth and development of the city. With a similar model, Los Angeles has only nine members who help shape the city’s zoning laws and other regulations. In other places where zoning is less of an issue, like Houston, which has rejected the implementation of zoning laws three times, city planners are more concerned with how to subdivide land.
