Unleashing the Planner in Everyone

"Increasingly cultural institutions and other creative venues and genres are embracing high art and popular culture efforts that engage the general public in civic design and policy topics from park building to transportation upgrades. And as ideas get those initial avant-garde airings, they're more likely to be realized. (Paging Rem Koolhaus.)"

One project in Los Angeles is headed by urban planner James Rojas, who has specialized in model-building exercises that get people of all ages involved in thinking about how city form impacts their lives.

"Rojas' latest found-objects interactive exercise is part of a pop-up exhibition in downtown Los Angeles. The exhibition, LA Beyond Cars: A Global Perspective on Rail and Public Space, turns previously empty lobby space overlooking one of downtown's most heavily pedestrian-trafficked intersections into a multi-media forum for provocative visual, textual, and hands-on discourse about sea change California transportation topics."