Empowering Youth and the Urban Planning Pipeline with Annette Koh and David Salazar, FAICP

[00:00:00.000] - Sponsor message

This episode is brought to you by Scenario Planning for Urban Futures Certificate Course from Michigan Engineering Professional Education. May 14th through 16th in Ann Arbor, Michigan, or remotely. Learn more at open.engin.umich.edu

 

[00:00:21.540] - Dina Walters

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the APA podcast.

 

[00:00:30.130] - Dina Walters

I'm your host, Dina Walters, Prioritized Equity Liason for the American Planning Association. Joining me today are David Salazar and Dr. Annette Co, who are laying the groundwork for the future of urban planning through youth engagement and community development. Mr. Salazar is the founder and executive director of the Long Beach Community Design Center in Long Beach, California, and is the first Latino fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners in California. Pomona. Dr. Koh is a lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Cal Poly Pomona. Together, Mr. Salazar and Dr. Koh founded the Youth Community Planners of Long Beach, a program designed to inspire and guide the next generation of urban planners. The program introduces high school students to the world of urban planning through workshops, partnerships with local institutions, and pathways to higher education. This program accumulates students with tools to improve their neighborhoods and envision meaningful careers. Today, we'll have a conversation about this program and how it's empowering youth to take an active role in shaping their communities while inspiring them to consider careers in urban planning. Welcome, David. Welcome, Dr. Koh. Dr. Koh, I want to begin with you.

 

[00:01:52.610] - Dina Walters

How has your journey as an educator inform the development of young community planners of Long Beach?

 

[00:02:01.490] - Annette Koh

Thank you for that question. I'll say that one of the things that I think is, I don't know if it's unique about urban planning, but the fact that we are a profession that has so much breadth, so much influence on people's experience of their homes, their cities, and yet are hidden behind the scenes. So when I first started teaching at Cal Poly Pomona, a lot of the undergraduates said that they had no idea that urban planning existed until they started actually at Cal Poly Pomona. I think at the time, the majority were transfer students from community colleges. So they might have been an architecture major and perhaps applied to Cal Poly Pamona thinking that they would continue in architecture. Because there's not enough space in that major, they were told, Well, College of Environmental Design, there's an option called Urban Planning. It's in the same realm. Here you go. And so for the students who entered without any idea of urban planning, seeing how excited they were that they had, in some ways, it's so much more ambitious than architecture I think for those who have a very strong orientation towards social justice, towards improving their communities, it was really exciting for them.

 

[00:03:24.840] - Annette Koh

Then I think realizing that it's not that they had to know about urban planning they entered Cal Poly Pomona, but the option, the opportunity for them to have thought even earlier about this particular field of action, I think was really exciting. I think in addition to that, In addition to that, having been inspired by the work at the UC Berkeley's Center for Cities and Schools and their Youth Plan, Learn, Act Now methodology, gave a template for how one might connect urban planning majors at a university with high school students or middle school students. And so I think that was really the genesis for me was seeing an opportunity to bring urban planning to young people in a much earlier stage of their lives, and offer it as an option for those who feel the need to make change, make improvements in their communities, but just didn't know that it existed.

 

[00:04:37.940] - Dina Walters

Let's talk about when the program started. This program began in the spring of 2022. David, can you talk to us about how the program has grown since then and what do you hope for its future?

 

[00:04:57.210] - David Salazar, FAICP

When we first started, I would call it really basic in its approach. We had an idea that we were going to work with the students at Cal Poly Pomona, the undergrad urban planning students. We had an idea on the outreach, what would take place or what the venue would be. But we weren't quite sure. So it really was a partnership between Professor Koh, Cal Poly Pomona, the city of Long Beach Parks and Recreation, to identify the teen centers. So that's where we started. And then we brought the students in, and we gave the students the opportunity to create a planning one on one type approach And the workshops that we had, it wasn't like a semester long experience for the teen center youth. It was basically two workshops plus a campus visit. So that's That's how it started. As it grew, we got more sophisticated in terms of the approach, what we should be conducting or what we should be talking to the students about. We incorporated walks around the camp, around the teen centers to look at the existing environment, ask them to come up with ideas in terms of improving things that they identified that were negative in the environment.

 

[00:06:30.110] - David Salazar, FAICP

It took on that life afterwards. The campus visits were always a component of it. Based on the populations that we serve, that was an important piece because a lot of those students was really the first time they ever stepped foot on a university campus, and we wanted to give them that orientation in addition to having the interaction with the students. As far as how it grew or where it is now, it's almost like, I I don't know how to describe it, and it's all positive. It's almost like five generations of improvement in a period of three years. So now out of this idea, and it gets back to how planners think and what they want to do in terms of making an impact in their work, is that now we created a pipeline, where before it was We're exposing young people at the teen centers, but it was very, not superficial, but it was very just elementary in that approach. Now we've created a pipeline where we can say to those same students, if you're really interested in pursuing a career in urban planning, you can go to Long Beach City College and you can take classes.

 

[00:07:53.400] - David Salazar, FAICP

We created an associate's degree of urban planning at the community college now. If After you're done, we created basically a way to transfer directly into Cal Poly Pomona through an articulation agreement, and they'll be able to go after two years and then pursue their undergrad degree. So that was the formalized pipeline that was not there at all in the beginning. Now we have that formalized in a way that it's a direct line between their interest and then ultimately receiving a undergrad degree. Then to cap off that experience, now going back to the city and the Workforce Development Department, we were able to create internships for students that are actually in school. They could be either at Long Beach City or at Cal Poly Pomona. We have direct... We're paying them $22 an hour and then placing them at various agencies in the city. They're at They're in city government from the planning department. They're at nonprofit organizations. They're at architectural firms. They're at Caltrans. They're at Pacific Gateway, which is a cog. We're trying to give them a whole breadth of experience. To answer your question, it's grown tenfold from the original idea.

 

[00:09:23.030] - Dina Walters

Dr. Koh, can you tell us what a typical session or workshop looks like in this program?

 

[00:09:31.560] - Annette Koh

Sure. I think in some ways, there isn't a typical session because each year is a new set of Cal Polypomona students. And I guess I should mention that these are undergraduate students. I think Cal Poly Pomona is unusual for having a full undergraduate major. And a lot of universities that have urban planning departments often only offer graduate degrees. So for the undergraduates, they're fired up, they're excited, they've learned a lot of the tools and concepts and lingo of urban planning and having them then try to figure out how do you then convey that to high school students in a way that is both engaging but also not condescending. So I think David said that it was planning 101, and I think that was really the trick. Every year, we obviously tell the Cal Poly Pomona students, these are the things that have worked. Remember that they're coming in straight from a full day of school at high school. They don't want more school. Under graduates used to doing presentations. They have all the lingo down. They want to talk about walkability. They want to talk about environmental justice. But they also need to remember that these are concepts that make sense to to them now as majors, but aren't necessarily familiar terms to the high school students.

 

[00:11:06.270] - Annette Koh

So I think this is something that has been, I guess, to preview the next question. It's like a challenge every year is to figure out how to convey a field of action in that terminology and some of those tools, using data from the maps for neighborhood change that's out of USA, or using data from UC Berkeley's transportation injury mapping system, and then having that, the undergraduate is bringing that to the high school students. So I guess to back up, one of the things that's really critical is having more hands-on activities. And so I think each year, the Cal Poly students, I think, are inspired by some of the experience experiences they've had in the classroom. So folks who have had an opportunity to take a class and go to James Rojas' Place It workshop. This is fabulous. We definitely need to bring this to the high school students to the youth, or perhaps they've done a walk audit, and it was eye-opening to think about, not just walking to school and feeling afraid that this one intersection, there isn't a protected crosswalk, so then how do I get across it safely? Walking around with a youth thinking about, well, if you take the bus, is there a bus shelter?

 

[00:12:42.360] - Annette Koh

If it's 95 degrees outside is their shade. And then also just bringing their own spin to it. The very first year we did the workshops in spring 2022, one of the sites in Central Long Beach, two of the Cal Poly students were Minecraft fanatics, right? So they ended up, and I think David can share how it actually looked. I was at the other site. They did a whole activity using Minecraft as a way of redesigning, I think, the most dangerous intersection in between poly high school and the teen center. So I think that's the trick. We want to bring our experience and our insights having done this for a few years now. But we also want to make sure that we capitalize on the Cal Poly Pomona students' enthusiasm, their interests, and keeping in mind that they're much closer to the youth than we are. So they're much more likely, I think, in certain ways, to understand how to engage the youth. In other ways, I think they haven't had the opportunity to try to re-explain... Oh, not, try to explain what urban planning is to a non-planning audience. They always talk about how their parents are still very confused what they are majoring in.

 

[00:14:11.260] - Annette Koh

And so trying to figure out, how do we explain what this is? How do we make sure that when we're talking about placemaking, I think sometimes the youth are like, Yeah, there's places. What do you mean placemaking? So figuring that out, I think, is always a challenge every year because their training in the department as majors is to become urban planning professionals. In order to be effective in engaging the youth, they have to strip away that professional mindset and come back to, what was I like in high school? How would I explain this to my cousin?

 

[00:15:00.810] - Dina Walters

What other recommendations, in addition to what you've already stated, would you offer to educators who are interested in tailoring urban planning workshops and activities that specifically resonate with high school students?

 

[00:15:17.370] - Annette Koh

One thing that comes to mind is to, and we say this all the time, that lived experience is so critical, right? That as we, city planners or planners in the public, private sector, yes, we have the expertise, but the community, residents have a lived experience. So I think for me, I was really impressed and a little bit humbled by how knowledgeable the high the students were. And I think bringing it down to Earth for them, so showing them a map of asthma rates in North Long Beach. And one student was like, Oh, yeah, that's the 710. They're naming the freeways. They clearly see the corridors of pollution. They may not have the specific lingo, and they may not have access to the data per se, but they have that knowledge. The youth have that knowledge. I think just figuring out a way to make it concrete. It's the abstract concepts of planning are available to them as long as it's clearly linked to their lived experience, where they actually have the expertise. They know, you show them an intersection by their high school, and then they have lots of opinions about every single aspect of the intersection.

 

[00:16:42.450] - Annette Koh

They know that that particular Bush in spring covers the stop sign. So I think that was the realization for me, is that we both have to try really hard as educators, as urban planning majors, to to link what we know to what they know, but also keep in mind that they already know so much. They really do know so much. And so it's a two-way street. I guess that's the other piece of it is that don't think that we're just imparting planning knowledge on from high, but that we're really learning just as much, if not more, from the youth than as much as we're trying to introduce to them.

 

[00:17:33.410] - Dina Walters

Have there been any unexpected challenges that either of you have encountered and overcome in creating and progressing this program forward?

 

[00:17:47.980] - David Salazar, FAICP

I know that Annie had one related to before one of the workshops in Houghton Park, which is in the northern part of the city. Maybe you can describe that me?

 

[00:18:02.210] - Annette Koh

Sure. One thing is, where is the workshop located? Who's your host? We're incredibly lucky to partner with Long Beach Parks and Rec, and they have teen centers. Those staff have relationships with the teens. They're, in some cases, literally dragging in the youth into our workshops. But that also means that we're located in a particular park, in a particular park may experience particular challenges. So the very first workshop we ever held, and again, David was down in Central Long Beach, I was in North Long Beach. There had been a shooting in the park the day before. Before. And so we had zero youth come in. And I think that's totally reasonable. But it was definitely a let down, a disappointment for the undergraduates. They had prepared so much. They were so excited, and then no one came. And I think that's a lesson for any community planner. Just because you have an event, it doesn't mean that people will show up. And so thinking about that component. Well, So A, how are we getting youth in the door? If it's not part of their school day, where they're already obligated to be in the classroom, how are we getting them in the door?

 

[00:19:26.140] - Annette Koh

And then what are some of the barriers for them to actually be there? And then not take it personally. And so that was one surprise for us, and really, literally out of our hands. But also then, how do you roll with that? So if we had planned to do a bunch of activities, that first workshop, no one shows up, then how do we compress what we wanted to do from two workshops into one?

 

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[00:20:25.400] - Dina Walters

For planners who are interested in developing a similar youth program for urban planning in their communities, what would you both say are essential steps that they must take?

 

[00:20:40.950] - David Salazar, FAICP

I can start, I think, from my standpoint in being a practitioner and then basically leading the nonprofit, I think the idea about just the need to talk to young people about planning, what that's all about. Then on In addition to that, offering them the possibility of pursuing that through an academic career or an academic degree. Then the other piece is the recipe for success for me has been partnerships. Whoever wants to work in their community related to this, whether they're working in city government or in private sector or whatever, find partners, willing partners, not just partners, but aligning missions with different institutions, whether it be city government or other nonprofits, foundations, other groups that work with the young people. I think that's key because my experience so far has been that when I talk about the program and I talk about what we're trying to accomplish in working with youth, everybody is just 100% behind it. It's almost like when you talk about a assisting youth or helping youth or mentoring youth, there's no negativity related to that. It's a matter of now just putting together a program, fashioning a program that will serve the needs.

 

[00:22:13.720] - David Salazar, FAICP

Urban planning, talking to youth, talking about the importance of urban planning in their communities, and then creating that program.

 

[00:22:26.260] - Annette Koh

I think I could add a little bit to that. One of the things They were just talking about the importance of partnership and finding enthusiastic partners, and we were really lucky. I will be honest. We had started talking about this, I think, I want to say, August of 2021, and I was all in. I had my studio class. We're talking about, We're going to do this thing on Long Beach. Until, I want to say early December, we did not have a site for the workshops. We were looking, trying to compact I think teachers in the school district. And then, I'm not even sure how we got connected with a Parks and Rec, David. I don't know if you remember, but they were thrilled. And part of it was that the city had just gone through a youth strategic plan. And it was really important to the city to be able to offer more meaningful, I guess, areas of action and engagement for young people in the city. And young people in the city had already led that. They said, Why are we spending all this money on policing and not that much money on actually investing in the future of youth?

 

[00:23:40.220] - Annette Koh

So they had created a new Office of Youth Development in the city. Simultaneously, the Parks and Rec Department was going through, and maybe had just completed their strategic planning process. So they had this whole thing about park equity, when they assigned, I guess, requested certain sites in the city, was very much in line with, Okay, well, these are the areas that are underserved by parks. They also, at the teen centers, were putting together a program that would really push forward I think the idea was preparing youth for career in college. What we were trying to do, I don't think we had necessarily thought of that. I hadn't thought of it quite in those terms at at that point. But they're like, Yeah, this is both a career and a college pathway. This is fantastic. Hence, the request to do a campus visit. Hence, they were like, Well, can you show them some of the, I guess, fun things about being an urban planner, some of the tools of being an urban planner. And so I think I feel like we were so lucky that we were able to work with the city of Long Beach at this juncture, where they had decided that they needed all of these things, and our little program fulfilled a whole bunch of them.

 

[00:25:10.080] - Annette Koh

We started very small. I think that's the other key. We really were thinking, Okay, what's the smallest thing we can do, especially given this compressed time frame? I know that a lot of cities will have similar opportunities where they have a goal. They gone through a strategic planning process for some component of the city, and then they're like, well, how do we actually do this? So I think in some ways we swooped in at this prime moment where they're like, great, you can help us do this. Yeah.

 

[00:25:47.010] - David Salazar, FAICP

And can I add something to that? From a planning perspective, it was almost that, and this was nothing that we had anything to do with. I mean, we weren't at the front end of that strategic plan. They were doing that already, So they set the stage for us in a way, and they were just looking for someone to help them implement it. Can a nonprofit fit that bill pretty well, and a connection with an academic institution at that time, Cal Poly. Now, Long Beach City College is involved now, too. It was all good. It aligned really well, and it was a timing issue for sure.

 

[00:26:27.090] - Annette Koh

And yeah, I think the Cal Poly participants, after I think the workshops were over. They're like, They asked us so many questions about Cal Poly Pomona. They asked us why we decided to go there. I mean, a lot of what the youth were interested in wasn't necessarily planning per se, but it was access to a whole bunch of undergraduates and just wanting to know, well, why did you go to college? And why did you choose this? Tell us more. And how much does it cost? Do you live on campus? And, oh, you transferred? Where did you transfer from? And I think that was the piece, too, is knowing that maybe our priority goals weren't going to be in the same order as our partners, but they were all in alignment. To be supportive and not just say, Oh, no, no. We're only going to focus on urban planning. I was like, No. You want a bunch of undergraduates to hang out with a bunch of high school students and talk about college? Sure. We are thrilled to do that, and that's actually incredibly useful for our graduates as well.

 

[00:27:31.970] - Dina Walters

I want to talk more about this opportunity to pursue urban planning as a career and as a major in college. David, you touched on this earlier, but I just want to talk more in detail about the advancement opportunities these students may have through the program into college, into pursuing this as a career, potentially.

 

[00:27:57.970] - David Salazar, FAICP

Absolutely. Yeah. An update based on what I described earlier, our focus up to date has been at the teen centers, right? So there's about three or four teen centers that we've been working with, and some of them we just replaced one with another and try to cover as much territory in the north and the western part of the city. But they're all based on the students coming from an adjacent high school and then hanging out at the teen center. And that's been our demographic. But one thing, I think after the first year or two, Annie and I started talking, we're thinking, We got to penetrate the high school. We got to get into the high school and get into the classroom. It was the idea, but in the same time, we were moving forward with the teen centers. It took us a little while to figure out who we needed to talk to at the school district. Just like any bureaucracy, it's giant. Talk to this person, talk to that person, that That thing. Eventually, we found out that the high schools had designated pathways, and these pathways related to the arts and becoming a police officer and going into science and a whole variety of pathways.

 

[00:29:15.860] - David Salazar, FAICP

I think there's maybe nine pathways total. Once we found out the pathway part, we said, let's start engaging them and say, let's pilot it in the high school, not giving up on the teen center, but actually because the population would expand tremendously. It's not just who shows up at the teen center, we're actually in the school. There's classes related to planning. So the closest one that we're able to identify was architecture. Right now, we're talking with one of the high schools in the city, McBride, and we're going to pilot a program there, and we're going to do a hybrid with architecture and in urban planning and design. Some of the students are really interested in heat island effect, like the heat island effect. That's a way for us to introduce urban planning and talk about it in that urban context. And so once If this takes place, then there'll be multiple. I predict there'll be other high schools that we can offer that same program. Will we abandon the teen centers? I don't know. That's an open discussion. But But the idea to complete that pipeline and have it start K through 12, community college, four-year institution with the additional internship program and with the idea that they would be viable candidates for employment afterwards.

 

[00:30:47.420] - David Salazar, FAICP

So the pipeline, in a sense, would be completed at the front-end with the K through 12.

 

[00:30:54.870] - Dina Walters

I know this program has only been active for a couple of years now, almost three years. But do you know of any students who have let you know that they do plan to pursue this as an opportunity?

 

[00:31:09.900] - David Salazar, FAICP

We weren't able to track the students that we were engaging at the teen centers. We weren't that sophisticated. We probably should have found a way to track them, say, Hey, where are you going? But some of them, I was just talking to them on my own. Some of them wanted to major in business, agriculture, other things. But But as far as tracking the students now that are entering the community college, in the fall, this is the first year that the program got started. So we're definitely going to track them now, and then see how far it takes for them to get through the pipeline. The other piece of this is that at the community college level, we wanted the high schools to be the marketing tool, to get to the students in high school and say, You can go to Long Beach City College virtually for free and have that be the first wave into the program and then ultimately into the pipeline. But we definitely will be tracking them going forward.

 

[00:32:18.240] - Annette Koh

I think, if I remember correctly, David, last year at Houghton, I had a... I want to say they were in our senior year of high school, and they had attended, I think, a previous workshop It might have been at the teen center or it might have been one that the Long Beach Community Design Center had hosted at one of the local libraries. They were so enthusiastic about planning, and they were like, When is Mr. Salazar going to come to this teen center? I really want to talk to him and say that the workshop inspired me so much. So again, I don't think I even remember that young woman's name, but they were just jazzed. They just had so much possibility, I guess, open up in their mind. And so I don't know if they're actually going to pursue urban planning. But I think that's the other piece of it, is that for a lot of folks, they don't need to have the major urban planning, or they don't need to go and get a planning degree per se, to have that role and that knowledge of urban planning make them more effective in their communities.

 

[00:33:26.920] - Annette Koh

So I think that's maybe Given that APA, I'm like, I'm okay if they don't become planners as long as they bring all of that enthusiasm and knowledge into the communities with that.

 

[00:33:39.820] - David Salazar, FAICP

That's super important because we realize that a lot of these students aren't going to pursue a degree or a career in planning, but to have them at least knowledgeable so they can engage civically in their community and understand how some of these decisions are being made and influence at a different in a different way, not from a planning degree perspective.

 

[00:34:07.000] - Dina Walters

You both have spoken about the enormous support that the city has offered and the partnership with the city, especially with the Parks and Rec Department. But can you speak more about how you create buy-in at the city level and the nonprofit level and even navigate changes in city leadership?

 

[00:34:30.670] - David Salazar, FAICP

Yeah, I can start with that. This is all a combination of a whole bunch of things. But I knew higher ed because I worked in higher ed my whole career almost 30 years as an administrator. I knew the system of higher Ed and how decisions get made. I also work in city government and politics, so I had an idea how that works. Then I also had partnerships with both friendly partnerships and working partnerships with architecture firms, engineering firms, planning firms, all that. I had all this in my bailiwick. When it came time to put this together, I just activated all that knowledge and all that expertise and all those contacts. Whether I was talking to city government, doing my pitch about the program and what it meant and for them to buy in, I did it basically all the way around. I had a relationship, obviously, with Cal Poly Pomona because I went to school there. But I knew the dean and I knew the department chair and all that. It wasn't just a cold call. It wasn't just some person saying, Hey, I have this idea to do this. They knew me. I already and all that.

 

[00:35:45.700] - David Salazar, FAICP

So I think part of it is a level of trust and a level of a relationship that you have. If I don't have the relationship, then I find other people that do, and then an introduction and all that. So There's a lot of the interpersonal stuff that goes on to put something together like this. But also you have to be perceived as, okay, this person knows what they're doing, and this sounds like a great idea. How do we work with this person? Or how do we work with this institution or this organization? That's the secret sauce, I think.

 

[00:36:21.510] - Annette Koh

To build on that, I think with David's deep knowledge and deep Rolodex, I I don't know if that's even a useful metaphor in 2025. This would have been impossible. But also, I think something that was just fabulous was that when Parks and Rec came on board, it was one particular staff member, and they connected to other staff members. Then that first staff person took a step back. And then one of the ones who I would have thought of, for lack of a better word, as a lower level, just was so enthusiastic about the program. Just became our point person since then. They're located at a particular teen center, but they're like, Oh, yeah, I know this teen center or that teen center, and I'm going to connect you to all of these other teen centers, and I'll make sure that we connect with the people at the PR department at the city. Also figuring out that your champion doesn't necessarily have to be the most powerful person. They just have to be in that right leverage point to make things happen. We were very lucky that we found two of those people twice. I think the other piece of that, and this is speaking not from this particular program, from Young Community Planners of Long Beach, but my very first year at Cal Poly, when I started in 2018 and 2019, I was trying to do this thing on my own.

 

[00:37:49.010] - Annette Koh

So I reached out to a geography teacher at a high school that was, I don't know, 15 minutes drive from campus. They were excited because they were... I mean, this is like, plugging into things that people already have. So they had a civics project that was mandatory for the students. And I was like, Hey, I can help you with that. And they're like, Yes, that's awesome. And they're like, The principal is on board. Let's just meet with them. And then I had to negotiate an MOU between the university and the school district. And it took so long. I thought we were going to be in the school by late February. We didn't get there in the high school. We didn't get there until early April. And then it was a one-off because I didn't have that network. I didn't have those relationships. They were enthusiastic, but everyone has their own, I have to do. And so what we were doing was a nice to do. And then I think that one teacher actually went on parental leave So realizing the difference between when I try to do this as a, I'm just going to cold call somebody, versus being able to work with David and Long Beach Community Design Center, and having that deep expertise/network in Long Beach has been so vastly different.

 

[00:39:27.500] - Annette Koh

I mean, even the fact that David has been chipping away at the behemoth bureaucracy of the school district. I mean, this is our, let's say, this is our fourth year of doing this, right? So it is in year four that the school district is like, This is fabulous. Let's do it. And I think in previous years, they're like, Oh, that sounds nice. Or a teacher would be like, That's great. But there wasn't, I think, the enthusiasm. But now we've been around for four years. Now they've seen David working with this city college, creating this pipeline, having paid internships through the city. So I think that longevity, or I don't even know what the right word is, but really that persistence and that consistent presence, maybe that's the right word, is so critical because I wouldn't be able to do that at all. I'm in traffic, a 90-minute drive away I. I don't have those relationships. I'm doing it within the confines of a school year, a school semester. And so I think that's been critical, that Universities often have service learning. They always have studio classes. But the time frame for that isn't the time frame to build relationships and trust and to show that you're going to stick around in the same way Especially, I think for a lecturer like me.

 

[00:41:05.260] - Annette Koh

I mean, I'm full on. I'm committed to Cal Poly Pomona. But I think having that buy-in requires someone like David to be there. Obviously, the university is thrilled. Our dean of the college is thrilled. I think Dean Akers joined David at APA California. Is that right? It's not that the university isn't behind it, but we have our own preoccupations. We can't be the actual prime mover and shaker, I think, in this program.

 

[00:41:42.330] - Dina Walters

Are there ways that listeners can support or even get involved with this program?

 

[00:41:50.220] - David Salazar, FAICP

Yeah, well, they can contact me through the website and all that, and I can provide any information in terms of how to get started with something like this, and I'd be more than happy to talk to folks about it. Part of what we intended from day one, especially on creating the pipeline, is that it could be duplicated, it could be replicated and customized. It's not one size fits all, but the spirit of it, engaging youth, talking about planning, create a career path, et cetera, et cetera. That's what it's all about. We did do a conference presentation this past year in Riverside for our Cal conference, and the dean was there. We have representation from Long Beach City. I was there. We talked about this whole concept about duplicating in the state of California and finding out ways to move it up to Northern California, Central California, Southern California. I'll be the Johnny Apple seed, I guess, of the pipeline here and I'm really excited.

 

[00:43:02.740] - Dina Walters

Those were all my questions. I want to thank you both so much. This has been wonderful. Is there anything else you wanted to add before we wrap this up?

 

[00:43:17.840] - David Salazar, FAICP

I'll start. I think speaking philosophically, I guess, for a bit and not so much as a planner, but I think from the community side, it's super important to bring planning as a field, as a tool to improve the quality of life in those communities. Our focus has been 100% in underserved communities. So stripping away all the technicality related to planning and how we describe our world and our work from a community standpoint, they need tools like that to move forward, to advance, to create capital in their communities in order to, plain and simple, just improve the quality of life. I think to me that that's the overarching philosophical mission, so to speak?

 

[00:44:19.030] - Annette Koh

I guess maybe as a corollary to that, this is maybe being selfish, thinking about the planning profession and what it has to benefit from this or similar. One is that I think obviously planning is improved when you have young people involved. Sure, they don't have the lingo. Sure, they may be a little bit unrealistic, but they also have the most at stake. We talk about skin in the game, and people are like, I'm a homeowner and tax payer. I'm like, These kids are going to be in this world for the longest. We need to be planning with them and for them. Just from a strict good planning as well as equitable planning, you need to be involved, period. It's not like a cute photo op. It's absolutely essential. And then I also think that even thinking beyond that, there are a little bit of a... They're the bridge as well. So if you think about, a lot of them are children of immigrants, if not immigrants themselves. A lot of them are coming from low income homes. So these are not folks who are showing to our planning meetings. These are not folks who are actually engaged in the process yet.

 

[00:45:35.900] - Annette Koh

It doesn't mean that we should expect them to show up to City Hall all the time. But having a way to connect people who have so much at stake to the process, to the institution and this field of action, I think is really critical and will improve us, as well as, I think what David was talking about is that it's essential for the community members to to have these tools, to have this access.

 

[00:46:05.610] - Dina Walters

David, are there ways that we can get in touch with you to obtain any additional information about this wonderful program?

 

[00:46:12.420] - David Salazar, FAICP

Sure. They can visit the Design Center through the website. That's lbcdesign. org, or they can contact me through email, info@lbcdesign.org.

 

[00:46:29.040] - Dina Walters

Dr. Koh, David, thank you so much again for joining me. This has been a wonderful conversation, and I wish you well as you continue to advance this really important program. Thank you for everything you do.

 

[00:46:41.550] - David Salazar, FAICP

Thank you so much.

 

[00:46:42.920] - Annette Koh

Thank you.

 

[00:46:45.770] - Dina Walters

Thanks for listening to another episode of the APA podcast. To hear more episodes, visit us at planning.org/podcast. You can also subscribe to the APA podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Overcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

[00:47:09.980] - Sponsor message

This episode was brought to you by, Scenario Planning for Urban Futures Certificate Course from Michigan Engineering Professional Education, May 14th through 16th in Ann Arbor, Michigan, or remotely.

 

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