(Youth – Plan, Learn, Act, Now!)
Y-PLAN is an award-winning initiative where youth are engaged as genuine stakeholders and participants in local planning projects with the mentorship of UC Berkeley students in urban planning, design, and education.
Building on a decade-old tradition of UC planning students working with local schools, CC&S founder Deborah McKoy, PhD created Y-PLAN in 1999 as both a pedagogical, professional development tool, and a planning studio for youth and students that addresses specific issues in local communities.
Funded by the UC Links Program and Stuart Foundation, UCB mentors are enrolled in an interdisciplinary seminar class looking at the intersection of city planning and education. Course lectures and discussion focus on theoretical tools in participatory planning, community development, and teaching, complemented with practical application.
High school students work side-by-side with UCB mentors for ten weeks, learning the fundamentals of community development by engaging in real world planning projects. As the capstone piece of the curriculum, the high school students present their plans to their “clients” – city leaders and the community. Past projects have ranged from the redesign of the Historic West Oakland Train Station to a local mini-park.
The Y-PLAN provides an opportunity for project-based learning in classrooms and challenges professional planners to explain what they do in youth-accessible terms. How do current planning practices limit the involvement of youth, families, and schools? And what are the alternatives?
As documented in our 2007 Journal of Planning Education and Research article (Vol 26(4): 389-414), success of the Y-PLAN depends on its meeting the following three conditions:
- City and school leaders, professional planners, elected representatives and city residents must work with students on authentic problems. All of the participants—young and old, professional and student—must focus on a real planning challenge in their community and work together to create a “community of practice.”
- Adults must share decision-making with young people, giving them a meaningful role in the outcomes of the projects.
- Projects must be successful for the students and institutions involved, in order to promote the sustainability of student-driven redevelopment projects.
WHAT DOES Y-PLAN LOOK LIKE IN ACTION? > >
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