WHEN INCLUSIVE DESIGN...ISN'T (PART 11)

TOWN PLANNING MUST SERVE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 

Could planners’ tweets, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, blog and professional/academic article posts address wheelchair users? 

Could they dedicate a few lines about how multimodal mobility, public transit, safe crosswalks, calmed traffic and wide/curbless sidewalks greatly increase access to jobs, education, recreation, aging-in-place, health care, civic space, the arts and shopping for people with disabilities?

Until they do so, their idealistic designs (pretending) to embrace and accommodate all are anything but inclusive.

 

 

WHEN INCLUSIVE DESIGN...ISN'T (PART 10)

TOWN PLANNING MUST SERVE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 

There is a wise and brutally frank saying in the disability community: Nothing about us without us. 

It clearly means that if there are no people with disabilities at the table, no planning with them in mind, nothing good will come out of the well-meaning, but insultingly-paternal plans and processes that exclude them.

Could the vast majority of town planners invest all of five minutes to drag and drop a few people with disabilities into documents marketing allegedly inclusive design?

WHEN INCLUSIVE DESIGN...ISN'T (PART 9)

TOWN PLANNING MUST SERVE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 

Curious, I went online. I found tons of people with disability clip art.

(Getty Images and Verizon Media even teamed up to create The Disability Collection.) 

Diverse image of people with disabilities could readily be dropped onto the wide sidewalk, safe street crossing, bus stop, walking trail and every other pedestrian-friendly drawing in master plans.

I go back to reviewing hundreds of fresh, post-pandemic streetscapes (often called complete streets or inclusive design.) 

I note, by no coincidence or accident, people of every diversity—except disability—in these slick images.

WHEN INCLUSIVE DESIGN...ISN'T (PART 8)

TOWN PLANNING MUST SERVE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 

In these enlightened times, we (thankfully, correctly, appropriately) see a diverse tapestry of people in media. 

Talk five minutes to a planner and he or she will tell you they are the most diverse and enlightened of the many practitioners that shape the built environment. 

As such, I wouldn’t expect to see a sample street section or civic space—with dozens of people enjoying the new human-focused design—and all of them are 30-year-old white males.

And I never do. 

Planners know (whether it is based on truly embracing all, or simply understanding they better market to all) to embrace ethnic diversity in those little mock-up, computer clip art human beings moving about their imagined new towns.

WHEN INCLUSIVE DESIGN...ISN'T (PART 7)

TOWN PLANNING MUST SERVE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

It’s a shame. Most pedestrian-focused design, supported with premium public transit and multimodal mobility—could create a near utopia for people with disabilities. 

But though they are a prime consumer, people with mobility disabilities clearly do not merit even one moment in the vision of these ableist, arrogant designers.

This is the same mindset that for decades, meant greeting cards, TV ads and catalogues were virtually devoid of anyone who remotely looked Black, Hispanic, Asian, LGBTQ, etc. 

The big companies were ready and willing to make a buck off minorities. But show them as end users of carefully managed brands? 

Heaven forbid! 

The world isn’t ready for it

WHEN INCLUSIVE DESIGN...ISN'T (PART 6)

TOWN PLANNING MUST SERVE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 

It is painfully evident that virtually all of these gifted planners and designers have decided wheelchair users

—and those who move about using crutches, walkers and other assistive mobility devices—do not merit one percent of their images or even one line in their 1,000-word design essay. 

Apparently, all the people with disabilities have died or been sent off to Mars in their depictions of a brave, new, pedestrian-as-king world. 

Or maybe they are still being forced to stay home, as if the ADA never existed.

WHEN INCLUSIVE DESIGN...ISN'T (PART 5)

TOWN PLANNING MUST SERVE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 

Those who earn their bread have reacted to this and are positioning themselves to be the shepherds of the new walkable utopia. 

Good for them. You could fill (social distancing observed, of course) a giant stadium with planners patting themselves on the back for creating “inclusive places for all.”

I read their lengthy, gushing posts about their human-scaled master plans.

I gaze at dozens of vivid images of people-centric placemaking.

Then my enthusiasm melts to anger.

WHEN INCLUSIVE DESIGN...ISN'T (PART 4)

TOWN PLANNING MUST SERVE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 

Installing outdoor lifts doesn’t make a place genuinely inclusive.

Outdoor lifts are quickly obsolete, often don’t work, and don’t hold up well in the elements.

Both this lift and the one below are broken 90% of the time. 

COVID has created this situation as a matter of staying alive. 

The reaction to coronavirus has reduced air pollution and emphasized walking, biking and getting around via assistive mobility devices such as wheelchairs and scooters

WHEN INCLUSIVE DESIGN...ISN'T (PART 3)

TOWN PLANNING MUST SERVE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 

Could their tweets, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, blog and professional/academic article posts address wheelchair users? 

Could they dedicate a few lines about how multimodal mobility, public transit, safe crosswalks, calmed traffic and wide/curbless sidewalks—

greatly increase access to jobs, education, recreation, aging-in-place, health care, civic space, the arts and shopping for people with disabilities?

WHEN INCLUSIVE DESIGN...ISN'T (PART 2)

TOWN PLANNING MUST SERVE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 

I really do appreciate how much they are seeing fewer cars on the road and re-imagining wide sidewalks, safe crosswalks, calmed traffic and streets being more for the people than the automobile.

But if they love including everyone so much, you’d think the vast majority of town planners could invest all of five minutes to drag and drop a few people with disabilities into documents marketing allegedly inclusive design?