The Plannerās Pledge is as follows:
WHEREAS:
- Car-dependent development is destructive to our health, our economy, our environment, and our social fabric.
- Planning around the car is a self-fulfilling prophecy: traffic studies and parking minimums perpetuate and worsen the very car dependence that they hope to mitigate.
- Land-use zoning, beyond its original purpose of separating housing from noxious uses, creates car dependence.
- Most negative impacts of car-based planning will not be alleviated by electrification, especially the wasteful consumption patterns caused by decentralization.
- Single-family zoning, invented to perpetuate racial segregation in the face of civil rights laws, is morally bankrupt and destructive to overcoming past injustices.
- Income diversity within neighborhoods is a social good that developers will typically not allow for unless required to do so by local ordinance.
- Affordable housing is not fully affordable if its residents cannot lead productive lives car-free.
- Walkable, bikeable communities provide their inhabitants with a superior quality of life and must be acknowledged as an unmitigated good.
- Achieving walkability depends on the creation of a physical framework in which walking is truly useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting.
- The majority of the American built environment is car dependent. These places should be allowed to grow, but only in ways that lessen that dependency.
- Homelessness is a condition that cities can address most affordably by first providing housing and only subsequently placing any demands upon the person housed.
- Primary schooling is best provided in neighborhoods in which it can be reached on foot. The same is true of daycare, playgrounds, parks, pools, and other municipal amenities.
I PLEDGE THAT I WILL:
- Encourage more housing in walkable areas.
- Encourage the construction of schools that most students can reach on foot or bike.
- Encourage the construction of small local parks and other amenities.
- Mandate inclusionary zoning.
- Allow accessory dwelling units everywhere.
- Support Housing First policymaking to fight homelessness.
- Work to eliminate all on-site parking requirements.
- Require all apartment properties to decouple parking fees from rents.
- Require all large employers to offer transit passes, bike subsidies, or simple cash payouts to employees who do not drive, of equal value to a parking space.
- Work to locate dense development along frequent transit routes and vice versa.
- Encourage the implementation of docked bikeshare programs.
- Insist that all new streets and roads offer low-stress micromobility routes, either through protected lanes or mixing with truly low-speed traffic.
- Encourage congestion pricing for crowded roadways.
- Encourage the adoption of Vision Zero policies.
- Engineer new roads with a design speed no higher than the desired driver speed.
- Advocate for firefighting equipment that fits streets and not vice versa.
- Replace traffic signals with all-way stop signs wherever feasible.
- Work toward a goal of continuous tree canopy above all thoroughfares and parking lots.
- Advocate against bike helmet laws as they suppress ridership and worsen safety.
I PLEDGE THAT I WILL NOT:
- Encourage or assist in the consolidation of schools or parks into larger facilities.
- Encourage or assist in the proliferation of rideshare services like Uber and Lyft in places with significant transit ridership.
- Encourage or assist in the development of any autonomous driving technology (or any technology) that limits the freedom of pedestrians and cyclists.
- Build or abet the building of any new highways or highway lanes.
- Allow traffic studies to limit new development or mandate wider streets.
- Build or abet the building of any new throughfare that does not safely welcome pedestrians and cyclists.
- Locate any parking lot between a right-of-way edge and a front door.
- Locate any parking structures directly against the sidewalk edge without another use at ground level.
- Encourage the destruction of any substantial sidewalk-facing building facade more than 100 years old.
In signing this pledge, I understand that it is equally binding as the AICP code of ethics, and that any violation thereof is grounds for revocation of my AICP certification.
Thank you for your understanding as you consider this profound change to our way of serving the public. For professional planners, we ask for your understanding and compliance. For everyone else, we ask for your forgiveness.
The American Planning Association and American Institute of Certified Planners had nothing to do with this text. It is fiction, a mere proposal. But wouldnāt it be nice if it were real?
www.strongtowns.org
