REVOLUTIONIZING PLANNING, ENGAGEMENT, DESIGN, & MUNICIPAL ORGs

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Protopia Podcast Launched




I have finally launched my podcast, Protopia

Protopia is a collection of conversations with people that are envisioning a better world, and making it our new reality.  We will be talking about successes and failures, next steps, and first steps, inspirations and journeys. It is time for less words and more action.

Hope you enjoy it.


Sunday, April 18, 2021

IN Real Time - Home is Where the Community Is



I had the pleasure of joining Dat Huynh from QuadReal on his IN Real Time podcast the other week.
We explored the topics of land lease developments, attainable housing, and the importance of supporting the sense of community in new developments.




 



 

Monday, August 17, 2020

The New Community Commons for COVID-19

Here is an infographic to help your town or city in adapting its streets & public realm to address CV-19.  

If done right, you can carefully change your main street and retail corridors with landscape interventions as framework to support public health, foster safe and accessible pedestrian movement, ease social distancing, support comfortable local shopping, and provide for safe access to the out of doors for all.


Community Commons by robert voigt on Scribd

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Reflecting on the Future Full of Ethical Challenges

The future is full of increasing ethical challenges created by integrating new technology into our work as professional planners and community builders.  In this Ontario Planning Journal article I briefly outline a few of these. 

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

The Technology Siren Song for Urban Planning

The future of the Planning profession isn't necessarily rosy when it comes to technology.  We have a lot to learn, evaluate, and consider, if we are going to serve the public well.

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Two Minutes on Attainable and Missing Middle Housing

I recently had the pleasure to take 2 minutes to share ideas about attainable and missing middle housing with Municipal World.
Here is the video:


Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Technology's City Building Laboratory


My latest article for the Ontario Planning Journal.

This one deals with my preliminary explorations about community building issues related to the cutting edge waterfront project being developed by Google's Sidewalk Labs in Toronto

Friday, July 28, 2017

Keeping Great Company - Top 100 Planning Blogs

It was a pleasant surprise to receive an email notice that CivicBlogger had been selected as one of the TOP 100 Planning Blogs by Feedspot.

When I started CivicBlogger in 2008, this type of media platform was not common in the world of urban planning. In fact, CivicBlogger predates most of the others on this list of extraordinary blogs.  I don't know if my work influenced any of the others that followed and are consistently adding to the vibrancy of the online discussions relating to urban planning and community building. But I do know that I have been in turn influenced by their work. I encourage everyone to take some time and explore the blogs on this list, because in these online publications there is much to learn, admire, and be inspired by.

In the end, it's not always about being first, success comes from the company you keep. That relates to blogging, professional development, business and team building, and employee management. With that in mind, here are three principles that can help you with the goal of keeping great company and driving your success.

Always recruit up: Put aside your ego and find people with more success that you and whose vision compliments your team's; being a successful leader does not mean you always have to be the most skilled in the room, seeing the skills in others and bringing them together is far more valuable.
Play at work: Find ways of integrating play into your work; it's an inherently effective way of learning and builds passion for what you are doing.
Share & pollinate:  Be open with your ideas, and more importantly about struggles and failures; you'll find that the feedback will be valuable and the self-reflection you go through will boost your creativity for new iterations or projects.

So go out and have fun running with the best, and be sure to tell us all about your journey.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

The Power of Place

In this Municipal World article I provide a basic overview of the place-based structure I use in my work.
While it's just the "tip of the iceberg" of my Power of Place structure, I describe a number of items that anyone can take action on right away in their community building activities.

 

Work at Play

In this article for the Ontario Planning Journal I briefly discuss the importance and value of play in our professional planning work.
 

Podcasting for Urban Planning

My regular article for the Ontario Planning Journal; this time discussing the potential of podcasting for urban planning. Also happy to give a shout out to the Strong Towns podcast, easily the best I have found.
 

Thursday, February 16, 2017

3D Printing the Future

As technology changes urban planners and others that work with communities to influence their future need to work harder to keep up-to-date.  This is because many of the citizens and communities we work for/with are often adopting these tools at a faster rate then we as professionals do.

If you are alert to the changes and think about how they can be integrated into your work, you may see that they often are just adaptations of things we are already familiar will. 

In this article for the Ontario Planning Journal I discuss the use of 3D printing for urban design, how it can better connect us with citizens, and how it taps into communication methods of the past.

 

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Planning for the Public Realm

Here is the latest animated explainer video I created for the Ontario Professional Planners Institute.  This one deals with the very complex subject of the public realm.



Monday, May 2, 2016

The Impact of Development Form on ROI for Municipalities

Here is the recently published Municipal World article I write on the impact form of development has on municipal tax ROI.  This is based on research I have been doing with planner John Douglas RPP, MCIP.


Animated Video for OPPI

Below is an animated video I created for the Ontario Professional Planners Institute.  It provides a short 4 min overview of the history and work of OPPI.


Ontario Professional Planners Institute from Robert Voigt on Vimeo.

Friday, February 26, 2016

Emotional Compass for Success

Here is a post that I originally published on LinkedIn a few weeks ago.  It should be helpful for people both professionally and personally, in terms of how they improve and progress toward achieving their goals.  Enjoy.

11 days into 2016 and the initial excitement and trepidation that comes for many with entering a new year has now passed.  Countless resolutions have already been left behind by people who are instead choosing to continue a familiar journey along a well worn path over a new one.  However, there are still many more that are continuing their commitment to positive change.  

Below is a diagram from the Facebook page of Mindful Schools in California.  They are an organization that provides online and in-person courses for adults to learn mindfulness and use it with youth.  They presented this colourful chart as a tool for adults to improve communication about emotions with young children.  It broadens and connects vocabulary with the nuances of emotions and their diversity.  

The reason I am including this here, is that I also see it as a tool for adults to become more aware of their own emotional states.  This awareness is important because it lets us identify the visceral feelings that often dictate our life’s direction, and the eventual outcomes of our goals. 

The magic of invention, creative thinking, and success happens at the edges of things.  When one area of your life or your skills crosses another, or when a tangential interest or goal makes you stretch in a new direction and leads to reinvention or full-circle rediscovery of something familiar.  On these edges is where inspiration makes itself known, and where success begins.  But to have the ability to see it, and take positive action requires awareness.  This awareness, unfortunately is often overrun by doubt, worry, and any number of other negative feelings.  

For success, we need to move toward greater awakening to experiences without judgement or “reactionary” emotional direction; an overall enlightening and empowering mental/emotional state.  To do this we need to be able to identify those emotions that are holding us back, as well as those that are positive in our lives.  This is where the wheel comes in.  

We can use the wheel to help provide clarity.  By being able to find a descriptive word of our emotional state on it, and seeing what its basic root emotion is (at the centre), we can better determine “where” we are, and where our emotional compass is pointing.  This can in turn allow those of us that have not abandoned our dreams and goals to assess ourselves and make necessary changes. 

I suggest that this is a simple, practical and effective tool for improving awareness of (often subconscious) personal emotional states.  We can use it periodically to “check in” with ourselves in times of reflection, and to make sure that our emotional compass is pointing to the destination we seek.  This way, by the time 2017 rolls around we will be well practiced, be more mindful, and prepared for our next set of stretch goals on our journeys to make grand dreams come true.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

What ROI is Your Town Planning and Designing For?

The assumptions many communities have that unquestioningly link growth with community prosperity need to be re-examined, recalibrated, and retooled.  This is because unfortunately, the form of development that this growth takes and that we encourage and regulate, can have significant negative impacts on the tax revenues of communities.  The wealth that they are seeking is not being generated, instead they are unknowing creating a financial burden that far outweighs benefits.  Yet almost all communities are unaware of this relationship and its results. 


The article below is one I recently wrote that explores how this process of enlightenment can begin, what is involved, and most importantly why every community needs to take action.