Museums and Planners: We Need to Talk...
to Each Other
Welcome to the Planning-Curious Museum Person blog!
The mission of this blog is to make museum partnerships with urban planning professionals as common tomorrow as our partnerships with schools and universities are today.
I’m out to:
Increase awareness among museum professionals and urban planners of the intersections between our work.
Inspire new partnerships that increase meaningful community engagement in urban and regional planning.
Identify, adapt, and disseminate museum practices such as hands-on learning and community science which could enhance community engagement in planning projects.
Develop a Community of Practice of museum and planning professionals to share ideas, inspiration, and best practices.
Here’s my Theory:
Museum People and Planning People may not need each other, but once we start collaborating, we’ll wonder why we didn’t get together sooner.
Why Museum People Should Be Planning-Curious
If you’re looking for a new way to extend your museum’s long-term impact on your city or town, please take a look at your local or regional planning agency.
“The goal of planning is to maximize the health, safety, and economic well-being of residents in ways that reflect the unique needs, desires, and culture of those who live and work within the community.”
~ Cynthia Bowen, Past President, American Planning Association, “What is Planning?”
Helping people shape the very future of their community is pretty darned impactful. Planners are responsible for helping their town, city, or region address housing access and affordability, improve environmental health and justice, become more resilient to climate change, strengthen transit systems, expand access to green space access – and much more.
Despite its contemporary focus on improving the lives of all of a community’s residents, planning was historically in the hands of wealthy white men intent on bringing colonial ideals of order and “beauty” to cities. (Sounds a bit like some museums’ origin stories, no?) The deeply inequitable results of past municipal master plans are visible in the physical layout of our communities today: from redlining and the targeted destruction of Black, Brown, and immigrant neighborhoods for federal highway and “urban renewal” projects, to the maldistribution of community resources such as green space, safe housing, transportation, education, and investment capital.
Chances are good that your museum’s mission ties to one or more planning issues – or to the historic sins that created them.
Where Museum Skills Come In
To address and hopefully undo planning’s unjust and racist past, the planning process is now expected to include a significant community engagement process. What is more, community engagement is not just important to the writing of robust and just plans, it is equally critical for realizing the plans’ goals. Good regional and municipal plans are comprehensive and ambitious, but they are just that – plans. To be put into action, plans must be enforced through a combination of targeted investment, and updated regulations and zoning ordinances, which also requires civic action by well-informed residents.
This is where many museums can offer value – by using our program- and exhibit-development skills, we can engage people of all ages in the complex and nuanced issues of municipal planning. Climate communication experts recognize that, as trusted nonpolitical players, museums offer an effective “side door” for educating people about climate issues. That side door is open for engagement in any number of complex planning topics.
In coming posts, I’ll share examples of museums doing this sort of work to spark your imagination. But in the meantime, just know: Planners are cool people.
Why Planning People Should Be Museum-Curious
If your idea of a museum stems from a bad school field trip led by a droning docent spoon-feeding “facts”, think again. (Actually – on behalf of museums - I’m very sorry!) First, “museum” is a very broad term that does include museums that hold and display collections of “stuff”, but also children’s museums and science centers, zoos, aquariums, nature centers, historic sites, and botanical gardens. So, while some museums were (and a few still are) the place for dusty nightmare field trips, many, many aren’t.1
And science and children’s museums (my arena) really, really aren’t like that. We base our exhibits and programs on learning research – the study of how people learn – especially in informal (outside of school) venues like museums.
In the American Planning Association’s 2020 Research Agenda, FutureShape, I noticed that “public engagement processes, strategies, and methodologies” appears repeatedly as a research priority. This is what we do! Many of us have partnered on research projects to test new methods of engagement. Like tactical urbanists, we prototype our ideas before we produce them, so we’re really good at iteration to get the best learning and engagement outcomes.
Stay tuned for future articles with examples of what I’m talking about. Including my partnering with urban planning professors to embed community engagement research into a museum exhibit. But in the meantime, just know that museum people are cool.
~ Betsy Loring2
The Planning-Curious Museum Person
Sharing stories and ideas for other Planning-Curious Museum People and for Museum-Curious Planning People.
By the way…
If you’re already engaged in a museum-planning collaboration, tell me about it! Interested in expLoring a collaboration with me? Let’s talk! betsy@exploringexhibits.com.
In the meantime, please subscribe so you don’t miss a post!
I would be remiss not to mention many museums were founded on colonial ideals, and still hold collections of objects (and human remains) stolen from people and cultures who were colonized. Some are making good-faith efforts at reparation and repatriation, others - not so much. And the bulk of U.S. museums’ contributed funding come from white, wealthy donors and their foundations, which is its own source of problems.
Betsy Loring is founder of expLoring exhibits & engagement. She has over 20 years’ experience in project management and exhibit development in multidisciplinary, indoor and outdoor museum settings. Her services include exhibit master planning, content and interactive development, and writing, with a focus on hands-on STEM. She also offers staff training in exhibition planning, formative evaluation, and prototyping. Special interests include multi-institutional collaborations, peer-to-peer professional development, and of course – collaboration with municipal planning practitioners.
Glad to know I'm not the only planning-curious museum person! Cheers!
Welcome! I’m sure there are plenty of us - we just need to find each other!