Name and profession:
Deland Chan, Senior Planner, Chinatown Community Development Center in San Francisco, CA

How did you get involved in your career?
I was born and raised in Lower Manhattan, and my worldview is strongly defined by New York City and the sheer density and diversity of its many neighborhoods. It helped that I had access to a great public transportation system (and a discounted student MetroCard) that enabled me to traverse across different communities. My experiences traveling throughout the City opened my eyes to the possibility of urban planning as a career. I spent my high school years traveling daily from the Lower East Side to the Upper East Side, with occasional trips to Inwood Hill Park where I organized my peers to restore a native species garden. I would say that my career in urban planning started innocently enough as a series of questions: “Why does my neighborhood look so different than other neighborhoods in the City?” and “Who gets to make the decisions about what my community looks like?” From the beginning, I sensed that this concrete jungle was a product of human-made influences— which is why I was so intrigued by the notion of going back in time to restore a piece of nature in the last remaining natural forest in Manhattan!

After 18 years of New York City, I wanted to spend more time exploring other parts of the United States. I started my bicoastal commute to and from California and New York when I enrolled at Stanford University. I graduated in 2007 with my BA degree in Urban Studies and co-terminal MA degree in Sociology. I chose Stanford specifically because it offered an urban studies program and because I was attracted to the practice of “place-making” given my own personal experiences of how place shaped my opportunities and choices in life. My sociology training also sharpened my thinking in terms of how certain segments of the population are barred from the same privilege of decision-making when it comes to determining a community’s ability of self-determination and how the defining characteristics of privilege are so arbitrary, whether it is the favoring of one dominant language over another, or the color of one’s skin over another, or the monetary value of certain work over others. For me, this work is about recognizing a human need to feel in control of one’s environment and restoring a sense of dignity to communities whose processes of self-determination has been usurped by others. I care about giving a voice to those who have been rendered voiceless, whose stories have yet to be told, and those who have not been equipped properly or given the chance to determine and have control over their quality of life.

In college, I was fortunate to study abroad in Beijing and was drawn to rural-to-urban migrant worker communities. I eventually wrote my honors thesis on how these workers, in facing institutional barriers, determined their own housing conditions. I continued to pursue a graduate degree in City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley and followed the road led back home when I chose to write my Master’s thesis on the prospects of community organizing in the Lower East Side and Chinatown after 9/11. After Berkeley, I found myself at the crossroads debating between continuing with the PhD program in City Planning, teaching English in Hong Kong, or working as a planner in San Francisco. I decided to take the job and make the West Coast my permanent home for now because I felt that it was really hard to pass up this great opportunity to apply my technical and linguistic skills.

I am currently a Senior Planner at the Chinatown Community Development Center. Our organization develops and manages affordable housing throughout the City for working class families, very low-income seniors, and the formerly homeless. We are also community organizers and planners. My major areas of work encompass (1) strategic planning, (2) land use/transportation advocacy, and (3) youth leadership development. On the strategic planning front, I provide support to my team as one of SFMTA’s community partners on the various aspects of the Central Subway project, a major infrastructure project that will create much needed congestion relief along the Stockton Corridor and connect Chinatown to the southeast neighborhoods of San Francisco. I also worked directly with two interns to create the Chinatown Pedestrian Safety Needs Assessment and Plan. We just received a Caltrans Environmental Justice grant to work with the San Francisco Planning Department on the Chinatown Broadway Street Design to improve pedestrian conditions along Broadway from Grant Ave to the Broadway Tunnel, and I am overseeing the public engagement strategy to ensure that the people who live and use this stretch of Broadway daily have the opportunity to participate in the creation of a community-serving plan. I’ve also been involved with various transportation advocacy issues as they come up, particularly if they affect low-income transit dependent communities (of color) where access to reliable public transit and safe streets is a necessity, not a choice. Lastly, I enjoy working with youth and had a lot of fun writing the curriculum and leading the inaugural Chinatown Urban Institute last year, a summer program that exposes youth to urban planning concepts. I continue to host a biweekly young transportation people of color advocacy group, consisting of former Urban Institute fellows. I thrive on teachable moments, especially community mapping projects.

How do you connect bicycles with what you do?
As someone who did not learn to ride a bike until I left New York, I know that inner-city youth face many barriers when it comes to adopting bicycling as a mode of transportation. For example, my family and I lived in a tiny apartment— bike storage was a problem. My neighborhood was full of feeder streets for the Williamsburg Bridge and FDR Drive—it wasn’t seen as a safe place to bike. I am encouraged now to see the recent bicycle additions in my old neighborhood. Ideally, I would like to see these physical improvements coupled with programming activities that make biking accessible and relevant to communities which, out of economic necessity, do not own cars and actually have a lot to benefit from safer streets to walk, bike, and catch public transit. I see my work as engaging those communities in the transportation planning process, particularly low-income immigrant communities of color that experience barriers to meaningful participation, so that they are able to benefit directly from these improvements.

One of my highlights of my job was leading the bike tour component of the Chinatown Urban Institute last year with 12 Fellows and my coworkers. At the end of the tour, as I collapsed into a chair and was quietly rejoicing in the fact that we made it alive, one of the Fellows said to me, “Wow, I’ve lived in San Francisco all my life, but have never been to the Castro [neighborhood]. It was really great to see something new!” That completely energized and made my day, since it reminded me that the work I do is about connecting people to possibilities. To me, exposure is the first step towards building that pipeline of young advocacy planners.

What are some challenges you have faced in the field?
My organization is unique in that we are one of the few community development corporations (CDCs) with a strong history and tradition of community planning from the ground up. The values and practices that we take for granted internally sometimes leads to a jarring disconnect when I leave that bubble. I have been in meetings where everyone else around me is literally and figuratively not speaking a common language or may not hold the same values of how I approach planning. To me, that’s okay, because there is always an opportunity to reach out, educate others, and find common ground in terms of actual substantive outcomes. I’m not saying it’s easy though. My coworkers and I recently joined the local YMCA (with its brand new beautiful facilities!) and together we have a positive outlet towards alleviating that stress.

What is something you wish someone had told you before you started working?
Know your non-negotiables. I would say that for me that my career is closely tied to my personal trajectory and values. I really love and am passionate about my work. That means that the separation of work and personal life can be difficult since I have a hard time “shutting it off”—90% of the time, I have something work-related on my brain. Why? Because it starts in my heart. While it’s great to have found something that doesn’t feel like work, it’s also very easy to overdo it and forget to take care of the people around you (who may not be involved in the same line of work directly). So if you are the type of person who really falls hard for your work, make sure that you set some non-negotiables. It can be as simple as eat dinner together every night with your loved ones. Do it.

What do you think could be done to encourage more minorities to enter the field of planning and design?
I can think of improvements in two concurrent tracks, one in the professional world and one in academia. I think it’s really crucial for planning entities in all sectors to expand their youth leadership and recruitment programs. Not only would this help professional organizations to build and sustain relationships in the communities that they are working in, but it actually results in good planning when you foster direct involvement and input from the communities that are most impacted by your practice. I also think that many young people are natural urban planners. They are incredibly astute and intuitive and notice how the spaces in their community is used, who is using the space, and so forth. What they might need is some guidance to let them know that the shaping of that space is called urban planning and that they can make a career out of it. In that vein, programs like VeloCity and the Chinatown Urban Institute allow youth to try out the urban planning hat for a summer without making a permanent commitment, and they also end up meeting like-minded advocates in their own community.

As for academia, sometimes I think there’s a disconnect for youth coming from certain backgrounds to sit in a classroom and receive information about things they’ve probably witnessed every day in their lives— poverty, blight, violence, etc.—in the form of a lecture or book. What I would like to see is a variety of teaching methods (and materials) that adequately reflects this point of view. It’s not necessarily about the teacher in front of the room disseminating knowledge, but the student and teacher working together through the tough questions facing our cities today, with both parties starting out on equal footing and a level platform of producing and validating knowledge. Somewhere in there, it’s not all about theory– some technical skills need to be taught as well. How do you produce a map, for example, and how do you run a community meeting? How do you do all of the above while acknowledging how you may be perceived, what skills you bring to the table, how you might recruit others to add to the skills set around the table?

What is one piece of advice you would suggest for someone entering the world of planning?
Know yourself very well and know what you have to offer. This isn’t necessarily exclusive to the world of planning, but it certainly helps. In a recent conversation with a long-time community member, he said something to the effect of, “In San Francisco and the Bay Area, we see a somewhat warped view of this country’s reality. This country is entering ‘uncharted waters’ right now, mostly relating to taxes and public spending, and how it comes out of the next 10-15 years will determine whether we’ve already hit our peak as a society, or whether we have a truly brighter tomorrow…” It really does raise the question of what does it mean to be studying planning right now. To that end, while the political and social winds of your work environment may shift the sand from one side of the sandbox to another, it helps to ground yourself. My advice is to start from a place of self-awareness and to craft a strong narrative that speaks to you.

As a native New Yorker, Samuel Harris has always known the effect that the built environment has on those who live within it. As a kid, growing up in both the Bronx and the greater New York area, the theme of “place” has always had intrigue and meaning to him. A self-starter, Sam followed his interest in the element of place through his college and graduate studies at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and Oxford School of Architecture respectively. He currently practices at Thomas A. Fenniman Architecture Firm in his hometown of New York City. Additionally, Sam is an avid bicyclist, with experience bike commuting both here in the states and abroad. Sam spent some time telling Velo City his story, and how and why he became involved with his career.

VC: How did you become involved in your career?
SH: Space has always been a theme in my life. I have a very unique growing up story, and spent time in many different living situations. Before graduating High School I had experience living in all sorts of housing types from foster homes, to group homes, apartments, and shelters. Space and my built environment was always a very present. I was forced to pay attention to my environment, and that stuck with me.
Growing up, I found that my talents were in creative and technical tasks. I was formally introduced to architecture in High School and it embodied both of the elements of creativity and technicality. I was encouraged to pursue Architecture or Engineering. It was a personal and academic interest.

VC: How do you connect bicycles with planning and design?
SH: When I was studying and working in Europe I was introduced to the idea of healthier modes of transportation, and the way that people there incorporated exercise into their daily lives through bicycling. First of all, it’s healthy for people, which leads to healthier communities of people. But also, it’s healthier for the environment. I got my MSc (Masters of Science) in Energy Efficient Building and Sustainable Design, which perfectly aligns with alternative transportation. It has taught me how to implement sustainable modes of transportation into existing urban areas as a means to reduce demand on public transportation, encourage a healthier lifestyle and promote responsive design.
When I was in England I biked all over the place because there was infrastructure set up for me to do so. From bike lanes to showering facilities at work, there was incentive and support for leading a healthy lifestyle in this way. It is important to realize that interconnectedness of all the elements of design, the environment, and lifestyle.

VC: What are some challenges you have faced in the field?
SH: Hmm, there are a few different ways I could answer this question, but the first thing that comes to mind is that office life can get you down if you let it. Don’t get me wrong, I love working where I do, but I have learned it’s important to have a life outside of your work, both personally and creatively. It’s important to make sure you are challenging yourself with projects, or at least ideas, of you own outside of work. This allows you to be better at doing what you do, as a designer, architect, planner, or anything else.
I would also answer that question by saying that there were many challenges I have overcome in my earlier life, and along the way. Most recently, I have been challenged by allowing my voice to be heard in a professional setting. I am also challenged constantly by continuing to constantly network and establish key contacts in my field.

VC: What is something you wish someone had told you before you began working?
SH: Office culture is as important as the work you will be doing. This is a view taken very seriously in Europe and I was able to observe and experience it during my time there. I believe that diversity leads to greater creativity being pushed out of firms, and allows for much greater depth in cultural awareness. This is especially important when pursuing projects in foreign countries as well as domestically; with the global economy we have now. When I someday start my own studio/practice I definitely intend on replicating the European work culture I experienced.

VC: What do you think could be done to encourage more minorities to enter the field of planning and design?
SH: In a word, Exposure. I think the bigger someone’s world gets, the bigger they are allowed to dream. Nourishing and encouraging talent, as well as recognizing and cultivating someone’s interest are also important. I believe exposure has an immediate and intense impact. It’s important for youth to know what is out there, and how many options they have for following their dreams. Also, never let anyone tell you that you can’t do it. If I had allowed that, I would have stopped a long time ago.

VC: What is one piece of advice you would give someone interested in entering the world of planning and design?
SH: Pay attention to detail. Remain passionate. Show initiative and be proactive about your professional development. Make sure you follow through with every single task, and take ownership of your work. This never goes unnoticed.

Franny and her bike Celeste

Franny Hays is the latest addition to the Velo City team.  She recently moved to New York from Seattle in search of adventure, and to experience the cool things going on in the bike world here.  Franny graduated in Spring 2010 from University of Washington with a degree in Community, Environment, and Planning and minors in Geography and Portuguese.  She spent her senior year of college teaching adults how to ride bikes, and through that gained a passion for connecting with communities through bicycling. When not hanging out with the Velo City crew Franny can be found making lots of coffee in cafes in New York, riding her bike, dancing, seeking out delicious eateries, and attending as many free events as she can find.  Franny is excited to contribute to Velo City’s blog by posting interviews with Urban Planners, Architects, Landscape Architects, and Designers who have a passion for bicycling and the work they do, to provide a face and a story to anyone interested in learning more about the field. If you, or someone you know is interested in being featured on our blog, email info@velocity-rides.org

VC: How did you become involved in your career?
PA: Most of my professional experience has been in the visual arts, painting and doing public murals. I got my Bachelor’s of Arts as well as Masters in Fine Arts. However, in my work I have always been connected to bicycles. It’s a funny story. Years ago, I had an art show in Massachusetts in a place that shared space with an organization called Bikes not Bombs. I later moved to Tucson Arizona, where my first commissioned job was with a bike organization called BICAS (Bicycle Inter-Community Art and Salvage). Finally, when I moved to New York City, my first project was for Recycle-A-Bicycle. Bikes have for some reason have always been my first and foremost welcome to a new city.

I was thrilled to participate with Recycle-A-Bike, I had heard of them before. The first project was a school based arts project in Washington Heights. I did a mural with middle school kids, and I loved it. After that R-A-B hired me for a summer, map-making project with youth, where kids became experts on an issue in their community doing inter-disciplinary research. This was my first experience learning what a powerful thing it is when youth become teachers and experts on any subject. Through making the connections and becoming experts at the project I saw the kids completely transform. I came to the realization that whether it is an art project, math class, or a garden, it doesn’t matter the medium, but youth development happens with the child engages with the subject themselves. As an educator I help to create a space where young people are supported and encouraged for whatever it is that they are.

I continued my career working as a freelance artist doing murals at construction sites in New York City. When the real estate market crashed I decided it was time to try something new. I called Recycle-A-Bicycle and Karen Overton, the founder, called me back. I offered to help out Recycle-A-Bicycle in any way possible and I began with a few different projects including writing a grant for “urban garden” art installation of 20 sculptural flowers made entirely of bike parts, as well as putting a youth program together. I went outside of what I thought I was capable of, and surprised myself. I was good at it and loved the work I was doing! After a few months of volunteering, the board of directors approached me and I gladly accepted the position of director, on January 5, 2009.

VC: How do you connect cycling to Urban Planning/design/development?
PA: If I weren’t a painter, I would be a planner. It has always interested me. I understand the planning connection from a youth development perspective. At R-A-B we have chosen bikes as the format through which we explore youth empowerment. When young people learn that the world is not this way because it just happened, but because people shared ideas, and made decisions, it is incredibly important. When young people realize that they can be an equally powerful voice in that conversation, and they can be a part of changes, that is an incredibly powerful thing. It is amazing. As a director of a youth development organization I am very interested in urban planning as another tool through which we find that.

VC: What were some of the challenges you have faced?
PA: If we had this conversation five years ago, I would have answered very differently. I started working at R-A-B nine years ago, and at that time when I would tell people about it they didn’t know what to do with it. They didn’t have a place to put it. It seemed like they thought it was “neat” or “cute” perhaps, but they couldn’t really wrap their heads around it.
Now when I have that conversation, there is a very different response. It seems that the general public now has a reference point for these issues. Green alternatives in transportation, childhood obesity, exercise, and other issues are all becoming much more mainstream.
Now I would say the biggest issue is that it’s difficult to decipher and distinguish all the resources that are available to us. Once upon a time we were a tiny grassroots, really localized entity, and now we are an organization that practically runs itself. Now the challenge is being aware of what a big part of the conversation R-A-B, and we want to make sure we are being responsible for that.

VC: What do you think could be done to encourage more minorities to enter the world of arts and design?
PA: Community based organizations can act as a very powerful facilitator between large-scale city agencies and the human beings living their lives days to day. Often the community based organization can have a clear voice, and be able to accurately portray what the people want, because they both have their feet on the ground with the community as well as a strong presence to the city agencies. In my experience I have been to many meetings recently about new bike lanes, and it is a direct conversation with community members and the city. When you put a community based organization in the middle it can be a powerful thing, and I think that planning is no different.

VC: What is something you wish someone had told you before you began working?
PA: I wish someone had told me that it’s okay not to know. And sometimes better not to know. Then you can enter a conversation with open ears and an open heart. The learning that can go into something that you really don’t know is rich and incredibly valuable.

VC: Please tell us a little something about Recycle-A-Bicycle’s upcoming conference
PA: Last March was the National Bike Summit in Washington D.C., over 700 people were in attendance. I went down with a colleague and two high school students who are involved in R-A-B. The students, Christy and Kim were the only two people in attendance under the age of 28. I had spent so much time preparing Christy and Kim for the event, and thinking about how wonderful this was going to be for them. And it was an incredibly special, fun, weekend, but what struck me the most was how much these two teenagers had to contribute to the summit. As soon as I got there I saw how immediately interested everyone was in hearing from these two young voices. Everyone wanted to know what they had to say. Being the youngest in attendance, they offered a unique perspective and the summit was incredibly responsive and interested in it.
On the bus ride home, as we de-briefed the whole weekend we realized young voices needed to be a stronger part of the national dialogue on bike related issues. We began brainstorming about reaching out to other bike organizations in the Northeast, and creating a model similar to the Bike Summit’s. We imagined we created something like the bike summit, but highlighting young voices and visions. We developed the idea more, and starting taking care of the logistics and now we are going to host the first annual youth bike summit this weekend!
The response has been unbelievable. We are getting great feedback already from people from all walks of life, all ages, professions, demographics, everyone. And most excitingly there is already an energy for this within people. It is great to promote something like this, and feel like the conversation has already been started in many different arenas. There’s no convincing we need to do at this point. We are really excited! We are going to learn a lot, and we are happy to be at this moment where this is the conversation we get to have.

VC: What is one piece of advice you would give to kids about following their dreams?
PA: You get to take initiative and create the world you want to live in. There is nothing besides you that stands in your way.

Check out these sites for more information about…
Youth Bike Summit: http://youthbikesummit.eventbrite.com/
Recycle-A-Bicycle: http://www.recycleabicycle.org/

Pasqualina at Velo City's final event in August 2010

Velo City has had a busy spring in anticipation of our first summer program. In April we won a $400 grant from FEAST (Funding Emerging Artisits Through Sustainable Tactics). We presented a prelimainry outline of the work that we will be doing with the students this summer in a science fair type style. We are going to put that money towards our on line mapping project that the students will produce.

April was a busy month for us. Our launch and fundraiser was a great. We were happy to see our freinds and family and to see new faces. Thanks to those of you who came out on the 29th to our launch and fundraiser. We also would like to thanks those of you who were unable to attend but made donations.

We have been working on developing the curriculum for the Bikeslporation summer program and will be recruiting students to participate in the program.

Velo City in partnership with Recycle-A-Bicycle will run a 7 week summer program once a week on Saturdays for youth ages 16-18 years old from the Lower East Side. The program will be based out of the East River Park in the Lower East Side. We are looking to work with 10 to 15 youth from the neighborhood who are interested in exploring their community on bikes. The bikes, we will be using have been donated by the Dutch government,and have been made available to us by Recycle-A-Bicycle.

If you would like more inforamtion about the program and know students who would like to participate get in touch with us.
info@velocity-rides.org