Over the past 25 years, the western edge of Missoula, Montana, has been a hotbed of growth. Thousands of residents have moved into new neighborhoods built on former agricultural land, with big box stores like Costco and Home Depot cropping up nearby. The city and county are now considering multi-use development of the 2,000 or so undeveloped acres remaining in the area—a tract surrounded on two sides by housing and adjacent to a main thoroughfare and the regional airport—and public input is key to shaping the direction of the project. But with the COVID-19 crisis halting all in-person planning meetings and approvals in the region, including a scheduled community charrette, the planning process went online.

During a multi-day virtual charrette in April, participants watched presentations and videos on the current plan, whose elements include affordable housing, community-supported agriculture, walkable urban centers, and the restoration of a local creek. They submitted questions and answered daily online polls, and those who couldn’t attend could access videos and submit comments after the fact. All told, more than 280 people participated in the charrette or later visited the “virtual studio.” The videos—on topics including historical and environmental preservation, traffic planning, and stormwater management—have gotten thousands of views.

“The event was attended by far more people and a wider variety of people than a live event,” said Jason King, a principal at Florida-based project consultant Dover, Kohl & Partners. “Landowners called in from Seattle, and a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation called in from the Flathead Reservation. These are people who it is difficult to get to an on-site charrette but who we talked to specifically because they could call in from their homes and offices.” At this virtual charrette and others the firm has held, King says, “we see more than just ‘the usual suspects’ from city council night.”

Amy Cotter of the Lincoln Institute, who previously directed regional planning initiatives for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in Boston, says casting that broader net can make planning processes more representative and more robust. “Using technology could open the doors to people who have barriers to attending public meetings in person,” said Cotter. “Maybe they have to look after kids in the evening, or they don’t feel comfortable entering a public building, or have night class. By giving people more ways to access meetings, you’re going to get more participation and, I’d argue, better decisions.”

But shifting to virtual convenings isn’t always simple. Many localities have had to wait for state leaders to remove legal barriers preventing them from going forward. Florida, Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Rhode Island, and Utah are among states with executive action seeking to suspend, amend, or clarify open meeting laws to allow for remote meetings. Some legislatures are taking up the issue as well, with states including Oklahoma, Ohio, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania considering legislation that addresses open meeting laws and virtual engagement.

In New York City, the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis in the United States, Mayor Bill de Blasio temporarily suspended the city’s land-use decision making processes even as the city received state permission to hold online meetings. Anita Laremont, executive director of the city’s planning department, expects that planning meetings will restart shortly. But she also said that COVID-19, the economic crisis it has created, and its disruption to daily life means that planning departments need to be realistic about what needs to move forward and what can wait.

“We will look at everything we put forward through the lens of whether it helps with the recovery,” Laremont said. “If we have neighborhood rezonings designed to develop additional affordable housing, we might choose to go forward because that remains an issue in the city.”

When it comes to executing the meetings themselves, planners must consider access and equity. How can online meetings conducted in English provide translation for speakers of other languages? How can cities best reach those without internet access or technical know-how?

Many platforms do offer language interpretation services for meetings and webinars, and options such as a call-in number can give attendees without internet access the opportunity to listen and participate in a meaningful way. But whether planners use general videoconferencing tools such as Zoom or GoToMeeting or planning-specific tools such as coUrbanize and Polco, figuring out which platform’s services work best for a city’s needs requires legwork. 

“It means speaking to all of these platforms and trying to understand what they can accommodate,” said Laremont. “That’s the only way we’ve really been able to do it, is to go and talk to them.”

Comparing notes with fellow planners is also vital, said Milwaukee Long Range Planning Manager Sam Leichtling. His department has been exploring the methods peers across the country are employing and collecting examples of approaches that capture different audiences. 

“I applaud the private vendors trying to adapt their technology to COVID-19, and with the right scenario, those tools have amazing uses,” Leichtling said. “But as a profession, we have to acknowledge that’s not going to be the solution to every case. Phone trees, dropping literature off at neighborhood facilities, these analog methods are still vital.”

It may well be that future planning processes use some combination of methods to reach as many people as possible. King confirmed that Dover, Kohl intends to combine virtual and on-site sessions going forward, pointing out that online convenings offer additional benefits including a lower carbon footprint and reduced travel time and costs for consultants and other experts. Cotter also noted that the Lincoln Institute advances more effective and inclusive public engagement strategies through its Consortium for Scenario Planning, which involves stakeholders beyond the planning office by introducing diverse voices into the process.

“Will we return to a situation where we rely only on traditional public meetings?” Cotter asked. “I doubt it. I think this will be a component of the way cities conduct business going forward.”

Liz Farmer is a fiscal policy expert and journalist whose areas of expertise include budgets, fiscal distress, and tax policy. She is currently a research fellow at the Rockefeller Institute’s Future of Labor Research Center.

Photograph: A virtual charrette allowed planners and the public to exchange information and ideas related to a potential development in Missoula, Montana. Credit: Courtesy of Dover, Kohl & Partners.

As Greece emerges from a decade-long financial crisis, the city of Athens is grappling with major challenges: E.U.-imposed austerity measures, a real estate collapse, ongoing security and migration issues, climate change, and now COVID-19. Kostas Bakoyannis, 41, was elected mayor in 2019, promising stability and reinvention. The son of two prominent Greek politicians, Bakoyannis is the city’s youngest elected chief executive but has had considerable experience. Holding undergraduate and graduate degrees from Brown University, Harvard University, and the University of Oxford, he was governor of Central Greece, mayor of Karpenissi, and served at the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Parliament, and the World Bank. He also holds positions with the Hellenic Agency for Local Development and Local Government, European Council on Foreign Relations, and United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. On a recent visit to Cambridge, he spent time with Lincoln Institute Senior Fellow Anthony Flint.

Anthony Flint: You have said that you are focused not on grand projects, but on day-to-day quality of life in a city trying to make a comeback in a more incremental fashion. What are your reflections on your successful campaign and the experience thus far of being at the helm of local government?

Kostas Bakoyannis: I think in any campaign, it’s always about the message and not the messenger. Elections in the past in Greece have been about candidates higher up, talking down to the people. I took a different approach and started walking out in the neighborhoods. I listened with care and found that the people want a city to build its self-confidence and be optimistic again. Now we are reinventing city services and reinventing the city. Athens has three records: the least urban green per capita in Europe, the most asphalt, and our houses have the most square meters. We want to reclaim public space and especially reclaim space from the automobile. We have been studying traffic circulation, and are planning to close parts of the city center to cars. We will also create an archeological walkway around the city.

All in all, I’m living my dream. I’m giving it my all. I’ve been in local government for 10 years; higher office doesn’t compare. One day, when I first began my journey in local government, I was depressed and thinking we are a failure, and then I walked out and saw a playground we had just opened. It’s not about resolving the conflict between North and South Korea. It’s real, tangible, incremental change, improving the quality of life.

AF: Athens has been vexed over the years by the problem of vacant buildings and storefronts, graffiti, homelessness, and a general image of being dark and dirty. Can you tell us about your plans to clean things up?

KB: There was a very good article in an international magazine about the Greek economy, but at the top there was a photo of Athens, with two homeless people sleeping in front of closed stores that were full of graffiti. This is our challenge. Don’t forget that we are in a global race to attract talent, technology, and investment. And Athens is changing day by day. To mention a few examples: We have adopted the “broken windows” theory of social behavior [which suggests that visible signs of crime and decay invite more of the same] and are coordinating with the police. We have special equipment and run campaigns to clean up graffiti. We have a program called Adopt Your City, and public-private partnerships that are already bearing fruit. We are asking people who care and love the city to come help us. Regarding drugs, reforms have been made. The parliament recently passed a measure on supervised spaces for drug use—we haven’t operated one yet, but we are preparing to make it mobile, so it doesn’t stay too long in any one neighborhood. Local government will be able to operate such spaces. We are reclaiming public space, like Omonia Square, a city landmark—I think that’s going to be a symbol. There are elevated expectations about public space . . . it’s not just public works. We are producing more of a product, an experience.

AF: As part of that effort, you attracted controversy for clearing out squatters in the neighborhood of Exarchia, an effort that included dawn raids and relocating refugees and undocumented immigrants. How do you fulfill your campaign promise to restore law and order and curtail illegal immigration, while still being sensitive to the human lives at stake?

KB: Here is an example: An individual calling himself Fidel was running a hostel in a school, occupying it, and charging money. We securely moved the children to take advantage of social service provisions. Greek media have a thing about Exarchia. It becomes a political weapon for one side or the other. I don’t look at it that way. We have 129 neighborhoods, and Exarchia is a neighborhood with its own issues. Much of what we do has to do with persisting and insisting—it’s a question of who will get tired first. We will not get tired first.

On the subject of pluralism, we’re the canary in the coal mine. We survived the economic crisis, and we’re stronger today than in the past 10 years. We have more depth to our democracy, stronger institutions. We isolated extremists. We confronted the Fascist Nazi party Golden Dawn—we went to neighborhoods where they were doing well. We didn’t wag our fingers and tell people they were bad for voting for Golden Dawn. We said: we can provide better solutions to the problems you face.

Athens is a Greek city, a capital city, and a center for Greeks around the world. Having said that, Athens is changing and evolving. I remember seeing a young woman who was black in a parade, and she was proudly holding the flag—I think what she was saying was, ‘I’m as Greek as you are.’ We want to make sure everyone living in the city has the same rights and obligations.

AF: What are the most important elements of your plans to help Athens combat climate change—and prepare for its inevitable impacts in the years ahead?

KB: Think different! It is all about working bottom up. What’s happening that is most interesting in terms of public policy is in the cities, which are true laboratories of innovation. Nation-states are failing—there’s so much partisanship, and a toxic environment, and bureaucracies that cannot handle real problems; cities are closer to the citizen. We are proud to be a part of C40. Athens has developed a policy for sustainability and resilience. Among other things, we are working on ambitious but realistic interventions to liberate public space, multiplying green space, and creating car-free zones. For us, climate change is not a theory or an abstraction. It is a real and present danger that we can’t just sweep under the rug. It demands concrete responses.

AF: You recently had the opportunity to return to Cambridge and Harvard. What level of interest did you find in the future of Athens? Are there things you have learned from American cities, and what can the United States learn from you?

KB: I was enthused and heartened by the level of interest and am thankful for the engagement. I must admit that I was very proud to represent a city with a long and glorious past and a promising, bright future. We may live on different sides of the Atlantic, and in very different cities, but it is interesting that we face similar challenges as urban centers evolve and are transformed. And it is always great to share experiences and learning moments. Policies to further resilience are the most obvious example. And of course, battling social inequalities is at the top of all of our agendas. I am glad to have begun promising and fruitful conversations which will continue in the months and years to come.

Photograph: Athens Mayor Kostas Bakoyannis. Credit: City of Athens.