Title

The Tea Party, Property Rights, and Mega Planning in a Digital Era

Time

Friday, 1:40 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Location

1605 Tilia, Room 1103, West Village

Abstract

Please note that this week’s seminar was not webcast or recorded

The Tea Party exploded on the U.S. scene after President Obama’s 2008 election, and its role in national politics has been well researched. Less studied is the fierce opposition Tea Party and property rights advocates have directed at sustainability planning, particularly high density development and affordable housing. I undertake a comparative case analysis of regional planning efforts in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and Atlanta, Georgia, examining participants’ motivations, their use of the web and social media to communicate, organize, market their cause and refine their strategies, as well as planners’ responses, largely reactive and catching up to the challenge, and impacts on practice. I gathered evidence through 28 in-depth interviews, meeting observation and review of key documents and online sources. I developed a conceptual framework synthesizing literature from planning, sociology, political science, and communications/new media studies. Key findings from this research will be presented.

Biographical Sketch

Karen Trapenberg Frick, PhD, is Assistant Director of the University of California Transportation Center. She also is a lecturer in the Department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley and teaches graduate classes in transportation policy and planning, and is the academic lead for the College of Environmental Design’s [IN]CITY summer program in sustainable city planning. She holds a Ph.D. in city planning from UC Berkeley and a master’s in planning from UCLA.