#BUCPUA Professor Details the Unethical Political Pressure Facing Urban Planners

Tej Karki, Ph.D., is an urban planner originally from Nepal whose expertise ranges from politics of urban planning implementation, climate change and its impact on cities as well as sustainable urban planning. He is a professor at Boston University’s Metropolitan College in the City Planning and Urban Affairs program where this spring semester he is teaching special topics course Urban Sustainability and Climate Change. Recently, Dr. Karki has written an academic piece “What Should Planners Do to Address Unethical Political Pressure?”, where he discusses the use of coercion experienced by city planners to carry out the needs of politicians regardless of the social and ethical implications. The piece uses examples of city planners in Nepal – due to his personal experience as well as additional interviews and research conducted – as case studies to address the different strategies that urban planners may perform to fight against this political pressure. Below follows an interview that allows one to better understand the motivation behind the piece as well as the greater impacts of unethical political pressure.

Cecilia: Was there any particular event that motivated you to write this piece?

Karki: I was a civil-servant planner in Nepal for many years. In one land development project, when 95 percent of landowners wanted to finish the fieldwork faster, and the remaining 5 percent never agreed despite providing several possible concessions, I had to intervene and start the fieldwork. Local politicians backed those remaining 5 percent of landowners. As a retaliation to my intervention, they were able to transfer me from that position to another department. This is just one, but there are many such examples. Now, after entering into the academic world, when I reflect back, I found unethical political pressure the hardest part in the planning profession, particularly for civil-servant planners, and I started thinking more on it and started searching literature and finally, I was able to write this piece.

Cecilia: Was there any particular reason you picked Nepal as the main case study for this piece?

Karki: First, I chose Nepal because I thought I am familiar with the type of political pressure there and could capture the planners’ story and context very well. Second, most planning stories and literatures are only from the US and Europe, very thin literature from the developing world. For decades people are citing John Forester and Charles Hoch’s planners’ story from the US and no new things were coming, so my interest was to familiarize Nepal’s case to the US and EU readers. First, I had sent the article to the Journal of American Planning Association (JAPA) for publication, but they did not like the Nepalese story (they probably trust or think that only local scholars are superior). Thanks to the Planning Practice and Research journal, they finally liked it and it got published. Now, I can say that I have finally succeeded taking Nepal’s story to the US and EU readers.

Cecilia: Do you believe there is a difference in the level of unethical political pressure experienced by urban developers in developed and developing countries?

Karki: Most human beings have a tendency to maximize self-interest by crossing ethical limits as far as they can. In this sense, it is the same in both the places (Professor Charles Hoch has written that US planners were bribed and threatened to do unethical work). Only the strict legal and social rules can contain their unlimited unethical wishes. In the developed world, the rules are strict and effective, media is sensitive as well, as a result, the pressure is cautiously applied, but in the developing world, the politicians are more open and care free or a little bit shameless in applying unethical pressure. So, it is the planners’ common problem all over the world.

Cecilia: Are there social components to these strategies that allow each one of them to be more influential than others in specific countries?

Karki: I partially answered this above. Yes, the level of social norms and values, media and law can determine the pressure and the planner’s ability to cope with it. Just one example I want to cite is that the most Chinese planners can in no way dare go against the city mayor’s views, even if it has drawbacks. The planners just show blind loyalty. Political regime type and a culture that believes that disagreeing with a senior person or boss is disrespectful, also matters.

Cecilia: Are there any other strategies you have come across in your research that urban planners have used to escape unethical political pressure?

Karki: You cannot escape, you have to make choices: either show blind loyalty like the Chinese planners or try to educate the pressure-maker to change his mind. If you cannot do either of this, then leave the job (use threat to exit or resign). It is context and situation dependent. There are stories where one man eats the other in the desert when they have no food many days. So, adaptive strategy perhaps may be needed, like the tortoise head: be ethical as long as you can (take out your head from the body) if you cannot then hide your head inside your body until next opportunity arises, if your shell (tortoise) is strong enough to withstand the pressure. If not, exit from the job. Some call this practical judgment.

Cecilia: Would you say that the political pressures explored in your piece are also the main sources of political pressure in the United States?

Karki: Yes of course. There were literatures about planners facing pressure here in the US. For example, in cases where planners were ordered to draft exclusionary zoning codes to exclude low income families from the town, very few resigned; those who resisted were fired in some cases; and those who accepted survived. There are cases where entire planning departments and planners were fired to serve the private interest because the planners refused to go against the zoning code to serve the private interest. Some of the examples, I have shown in my article. Because the rational planners did not pay attention to the dynamics of these pressures (focused only on their work), they were shocked and surprised, and they don’t know what to do for such unexpected unethical pressures. So, I have put these in perspective in my article and then focused on Nepal’s case.

Cecilia: In your opinion, which practical judgment action would work best in the United States?

Karki: One thing I did not write in this article is how prepared a planner should be beforehand for a possible and unexpected political pressure. Planners should, anticipate and should have plan A, B and C for any possible political pressure. Colonel John Boyd has invented a theory: Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. Planners should observe (watchful on who are the political pressure groups and who are controlling them), then orient yourself (reposition) decide a course of action and act. This practical judgment makes them better, and I am planning to write based on Boyd’s theory in future.

Cecilia: Can you give me a brief description of your course UA 510 this semester?

Karki: UA 510 deals with the impacts of urbanization, globalization and climate change on cities and presents ways to deal with those impacts. It prepares planners on how to deal with a climatically and politically turbulent world (cities grappling with frequent floods, storms and droughts). This course tells students how town mayors driven by profits and private interests exert unethical political pressure to planners to approve unsustainable development projects (reject solar and windmills to favor coal fired electricity and fossil fuel) and what practical judgment they could apply.

Cecilia: With your expertise in global warming, do you think it will be possible to see an increase in the political pressures urban developers experience?

Karki: The level of awareness on global warming and sea level rise is very high worldwide, and this might reduce pressure to push unsustainable projects. But more work need to be done at the local level. For example, the city of Miami is sinking, and the city is trying to raise the ground level of the whole city, but at the same time there are congressmen and politicians who say global warming is not happening. In many other places, there are private interests who do not want to compromise short-term profits over long-term climate change impacts (like tragedy of commons). This is the area where planners would still continue to feel unethical pressure for car and oil, over train or bicycle.

You can read more about Dr. Karki’s background here.

-Cecilia de Almeida, CAS’19