No more waiting for Superman: teaching DIY urbanism and reflexive practice

Self-made urbanity is not a new phenomenon. However, decades of economic restructuring and a neoliberalization of the city and state have made the public realm vulnerable to changes in the economic winds. Increasingly, such an environment poses limits to what can be done via formal planning and urban design processes while do-it-yourself (DIY) activities challenge basic assumptions of who and how spaces may be produced. We (the authors) have recognized this challenge and have worked to bring this awareness into our classroom. Through this paper, we illustrate how DIY approaches have been integrated into our interdisciplinary course, the Community Planning Workshop. We describe how the classroom environment can foster an appreciation for DIY approaches, how DIY practices bring the social and the physical into focus, and how grassroots' strategies have transformational impacts upon students and their understanding of the roles of design and planning professions.