The toddler’s approach to problem-solving

One of the first toys that a toddler tends to receive is a shape sorter. It usually looks like a box with holes or cut-outs in it, through which objects of different and unique shapes can pass through. It’s like a puzzle that helps to build shape recognition and problem-solving skills in children.

If only the problems of society were that simple. If only things like housing, traffic, crime, and environmental degradation could be isolated, like the child’s shapes, and treated independently of each other to solve the puzzle.

Need housing? Build housing wherever there is land. Check. Too much traffic? Widen roads and add extra lanes. Check. Too much crime? Build high walls topped with broken bottle or barbed wire. Check. Worried about the environment? Plant trees everywhere. Check.

Wishing for, and treating complex problems, as anything other than what they are, doesn’t change the nature and reality of the problem.

We have found ourselves at a place where plans are being formulated, actions being taken, and boxes being ticked, by specialists and in the name of special interests.

There are the home-builders, the traffic-solvers, the crime-fighters, and the tree-planters among others. And, more often than not, they work independently of each other.

We have forgotten the importance of the role of a generalist, or what is often derided as a “jack of all trades”. One who has just enough knowledge of seemingly disparate issues, and is able to articulate a coherent framework for how each is related.

In considering the design of a hypothetical downtown street, urban planner Jeff Speck clearly illustrates the dilemma:

“First, we would need at least four (12-foot) travel lanes and a centre turn lane, to keep the transportation engineers happy (60 feet overall).

To satisfy the business owners, we would need angled (as opposed to parallel) parking on both sides (another 40 feet), and 8-foot separated bike paths against each curb for bicycle advocates.

Then we would have to add two 10-foot continuous tree trenches to satisfy the urban forester, and two 20-foot-minimum sidewalks for the pedestrian advocates.

We now have a Main Street over 175 feet wide. This is more than twice the normal width and about as efficacious an urban environment as a large-jet runway—and just as conducive to shopping.”

In other words, generalists, like urban planners, must temper the enthusiasm of specialists.

Planning is neither construction, nor engineering, nor criminology, nor environmental science; yet it is all of these things and more in one. It’s typically not glamorous or sexy or appreciated, but it’s indispensable work.

It’s a bit alarming therefore that the specialisation bug has also bitten planners. There’s an increasing and marked trend towards a singular focus on environmental planning; no doubt partially as a response to the current global predicament.

Climate change is arguably the greatest problem of our time. But there is also a reason why sustainability rests on the three interrelated pillars of the people, the planet, and the profits.

We have found ourselves in the current mess by focusing heavily on the profits, somewhat on the people, and little on the planet. Let’s not exacerbate matters by over correcting with a singular and idealistic focus on the planet.

Ironically, while the growing number of environmental planning specialists increasingly brush economic concerns and context aside, they too are being motivated, quite naturally, by economic forces.

The job market, as it is in many other professions such as medicine, is increasingly favouring those with specialised skills. In turn, that motivates more and more people to upgrade their outdated generalist lens for new specialist spectacles.

Of course, the fascination with specialisation begins in our education system. It works like the sorter, treating us like simple shapes that can be fit into a box. In fact, had it not been for the liberal arts university education that I received in the US, I doubt that I would have found myself in this profession.

After all, how often does one, only exposed to the regimented local secondary and tertiary education system, and who studied chemistry, physics, and biology for A-Levels, end up with a bachelor’s degree in computer programming and a master’s degree in city and regional planning?

It is perhaps this early indoctrination in specialist mentality that has led us to a situation in which a well-funded agency, charged with the urban development of our capital city, lacks a single full-time urban planner on staff.

A situation in which decisions with complex interrelated social, environmental, and economic consequences are being made by engineers, project managers, and others who have not been taught to solve these kinds of problems in the first place.