a resource for urban planners & designers
Planning Culturally: a practitioners toolkit
This Toolkit is based on the notion that “Planning Culturally” requires the gaining of “Cultural Literacy” and the ability to undertake “Cultural Impact Evaluations” to understand the positive and negative impacts that urban planning and design decisions can have on the cultural life of a community.
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The reality is that planning and design practitioners are often constrained by their local planning system which may be influenced by neoliberal policy agendas, plus economic and environmental imperatives. Therefore, in Australia’s culturally diverse society, while working within the existing planning systems, urban planners and designers need to gain the skills and competencies required to navigate and mediate culturally diverse community expectations.
NOTE: The Toolkit is under development and feedback and comments welcomed.
Toolkit Structure
The Toolkit comprises two Tool Sets, each Tool Set comprised two parts, first the Guide and second Worksheet templates. The Tools, address the issues associated with practitioners gaining “Cultural Literacy” and the second Tool Set exploring the processes involved in making a “Cultural Impacts Evaluation”. Each Tool comprises a Guide and Worksheets, in each case the Guide section provides an introduction and discussion and is supported by a series of Worksheets that can be used by practitioners to record the process and outcomes.
THE TOOLKIT FORMAT
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TOOL SET 1: CULTURAL LITERACY:
The notion of Planning Culturally requires the gaining of Cultural Literacy that brings together: firstly the awareness that has been referred to as “Planning Culture”. Secondly, Planning Culturally requires the gaining of the Cultural Knowledge to understand and respond to the built environment needs of culturally diverse communities. There are a range of models to assist planning and design professional to understand cultural competency, sensitivity, and awareness. Given the hyper diversity of many cities, especially in Australia, it is important to state that when we talk about planners and designers gaining Cultural Literacy and therefore having cultural knowledge, it is not an expectation that the professional will have an intimate knowledge of other cultures across the great diversity that is to be found in Australian cities, especially as all cultures are dynamic and constantly evolving.
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TOOL SET 1 DOWNLOADS
THE GUIDE:
THE WORKSHEETS:
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TOOL SET 2: CULTURAL IMPACT EVALUATION
Finally, we also need to acknowledge that every urban development intervention in the built environment will have an impact on the community’s cultural life. These impacts, both positive and negative, may be small incremental effects or major life changing effects. Therefore, it is critical that the planning and design teams involved undertake some form of Cultural Impact Assessment both during the project inception stage and during the various planning and designing stages to ascertain potential impacts and review potential mitigation practices in response.​​​​​​​​​
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TOOL SET 2 DOWNLOADS
THE GUIDE:
THE WORKSHEETS:
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​​​​​​For further detailed discussions on these issues see Cultural Practices section of this website
