fwiw: tentative lessons on minimizing police interference of protests from an urban planning / urban design perspective. 1/x

in grad school for urban planning, i did my thesis on the role of urban design in the 2015 baltimore uprising. i'm not an expert or central in this discourse (obvs), but wanted to share what i had learned from interviews, GIS analysis, and past research, in case it's helpful 2/x

target a big open space (a big square, street intersection, or broad avenue) that has lots of little access points and small streets leading off of it. in 2015, these factors made it much harder for the police to contain action at mondawmin and penn @ north. 3/x

the important thing here is the variety. big wide gathering place plus lots of small alleys and dense road network to move into as police work the area. 4/x

symbolic spaces can be important in coalescing a crowd, but if they're limited access it can be a recipe for heavy use of force by police. same goes for the big streets you get in a lot of US downtowns that have long blocks and no alleys. 5/x

(i got to experience the trouble with large downtown streets first-hand when b*st*n p*l*ce surrounded the counter-protest of straight pride on congress street and pepper sprayed us. thanks again for that.) 6/x

it doesn't seem like anyone's trying to do highway-blocking rn, which i think is a good call from the perspective of minimizing police action. it's a fair symbolic move (at least pre-covid with more cars on the road), but the limited access could open you up to crackdown. 7/x

to disrupt police formations, work with steps, hills, berms, etc. their formations are less effective working across topography when you're protesting across topography. also remember they're on the rooftops and in the air. cops think in 3D, and you should too. 8/x

barricades can serve multiple purposes, depending on what type of street you're on. they can block police on smaller streets, but even on large streets, smaller barricades can make it harder for cops to run their tactical formations...splitting their lines, etc. 9/x

an obvious caveat: no one really "controls" where protests happen, so take this with a grain of salt for sure, but any organizers might want to consider urban design features when thinking about where to direct action, inasmuch as they can do that. 10/x

more broadly: urban planning as a profession is dumb about protests, and, collectively, white urban planners like me have really messed up the latest events. 11/x

contemporary urbanism is a poverty of ideas. anyone selling it as a holistic approach to making cities needs to grow up. i don't know what a better urban planning profession looks like, but maybe a planning that addresses real needs. 12/x

for starters: actually affordable housing, a functional economy for all, environmental justice, fixing the many slow-rolling public health crises, and (relatedly) a vision for a different kind of "law enforcement" 13/end