YEAR 1: URP 611 Radical Planning Winter 2023

Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan

FACULTY LEAD

Dr. Larissa Larsen, Chair and Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning

STUDENT LEADERSHIP TEAM

Kathryn (Katie) Economou, Kira Barsten, Griffin Sproul, Vaidehi Shah

FUNDING PARTNERS

Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, CEW+, U-M Library

ABOUT THIS YEAR

The inaugural Radical Planning course launched in Winter 2023 as a student-spearheaded speaker series challenging the status quo of conventional planning practice. Offered as URP 611, a one-credit hybrid course, it brought together graduate students from Taubman College and the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) to engage practitioners, community organizers, and scholars whose work centers equity, power, and justice in the built environment. The course was deliberately designed to fill gaps in formal planning education by centering BIPOC, LGBTQ+, Indigenous, and other underrepresented voices, and by repositioning planning as a bottom-up, community-driven practice. Weekly guest speaker sessions were paired with optional discussion conversations and a participatory feedback workshop at the close of the semester. The course produced a printed course booklet documenting session takeaways and student reflections for each speaker.

BIG THEMES

• Navigating Conflict and Collaboration

• The Right to the City and Confronting Manufactured Exclusion

• Indigenous Land Theories and Settler Colonialism

• Power Analysis and Radicalizing the Planning Profession

• Insurgent Planning and Deep Democracy

• Community-Driven Planning and Vision Building

• Environmental Justice and Clean Energy

• Planning Co-production and Civic Capacity

• Participatory Budgeting and Wicked Problems

• Equitable Community Development Financing

• Anti-Racist Community Engagement

GUEST SPEAKERS

• Julia Minson (she/her) | Associate Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government | Topic: Conflict Resolution and Collaborative Approaches

• Britt Redd (they/them) | Principal Planner for Land Use Strategy, City of Indianapolis Department of Metropolitan Development; Manager, Peoples Planning Academy | Topic: Reckoning with the History of Planning

• Malulani Castro (he/they) | PhD Candidate, U-M School for Environment and Sustainability | Topic: Indigenous and Settler Theories of Land

• Simone Sagovac (she/her) | Director, Southwest Detroit Community Benefits Coalition | Topic: Coalition Building, Community Benefit Agreements, and Community Empowerment

• José Richard Aviles (they/he/elle) | Equitable Transportation Planning Analyst, Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley; Adjunct Professor, UC Berkeley | Topic: Power Analysis and Radicalizing the Profession

• Taru (she/her) | PhD Candidate in Urban Planning, Taubman College | Topic: Insurgent Planning and Deep Democracy: Speaking Truth to Power

• Yodit Mesfin Johnson (she/her) and Jessica A.S. Letaw (she/her) | Co-founders, FutureRoot | Topic: Returning Home: Community-Driven Planning, Power and Vision Building

• Juan Jhong Chung (he/they) | Climate Justice Director, Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition | Topic: Planning for a Clean and Just Energy Future

• Valerie Lemmie (she/her) | Director of Exploratory Research, Kettering Foundation | Topic: Planning and Co-production: Working with the Public to Develop Inclusive Land Use Policies and Practices

• Mike Huggins (he/him) | Retired City Manager and Community Development Director, Eau Claire, Wisconsin | Topic: Wicked Planning Problems and Participatory Budgeting

• Rebecca Karp (she/her) | Founder and Managing Principal, Karp Strategies | Topic: Community Development and Equitable Community Development Financing

• The Ginsberg Center | U-M Edward Ginsberg Center for Community Engagement | Topic: Anti-Racist Community Engagement Workshop

MAJOR OUTPUTS

URP 611 Radical Planning Course Booklet (Winter 2023): A designed, printed publication produced by the student leadership team documenting all ten speaker sessions. Each session entry includes a speaker biography, session takeaways, and student reflections. The booklet served as both a course artifact and a public-facing record of the inaugural year.

Course Conversations: Weekly optional discussion sessions hosted by the student leadership team, held in Taubman Commons, creating informal space for students to process speaker content and connect with peers.

Participatory Feedback Workshop: A student-led closing session on April 17 inviting the full class to reflect on personal and professional growth and contribute ideas for future iterations of the course.

STUDENT FEEDBACK

What students loved: 

• Students overwhelmingly valued the low-stakes, low-assignment format that allowed them to be fully present with speakers. 

• The hybrid and asynchronous options were especially appreciated by dual-degree students managing complex schedules. 

• Students repeatedly highlighted the interdisciplinary community, the quality and diversity of speakers, and the free food at in-person sessions. 

• Paid student leadership was named as a clear positive. 

• One student captured the feeling well: the ability to simply show up, hear a compelling talk, and be fully present without worrying about note-taking or graded work was something students did not experience elsewhere in their programs.

What students wanted more of: 

• A strong chorus of students felt the course should carry more than one credit given the time commitment. 

• Many called for GSI status for student leads rather than the paid student organizer model. 

• Students wanted more time and better physical space for peer discussion, and several specifically requested field trips and site visits. 

• There was mixed feedback on workload, class time, credit hours, and the term in which the course was offered, with no clear consensus on those questions.

What students learned: 

• Students entered the course most familiar with environmental justice and community-driven planning, and least familiar with insurgency planning and equitable community development financing. 

• By the end of the semester, comfort with environmental justice deepened significantly, and familiarity with the history of planning, power relationships, entering and exiting community, and conflict resolution all grew. 

• Insurgency planning, participatory budgeting, and equitable development financing remained areas for continued growth.

By the numbers: 35 of 38 students said the course positively contributed to their professional development. 100% of respondents said the course should be offered again.

FACULTY FEEDBACK

Faculty interest in the course extended beyond the immediate instruction team. Kim Kinder, a faculty member from outside the core team, requested to attend all eleven guest speaker sessions as a silent observer, reflecting the broader faculty appetite for the kind of practitioner engagement and critical content the course offered.

A NOTE ON YEAR 1

This was the first time a course like this had been offered at Taubman College. It was built from scratch by four student organizers working alongside Dr. Larissa Larsen, with no prior template to follow. The fact that every single student who completed the post-course survey said the course should be offered again is a testament to what that founding team built.