-Life as an Urban Planner-
Danny Brown is an urban planner and registered professional planner and works for the City of Toronto’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division as a Project Officer in the Park Design – Special Projects group.
In his role, Danny works on a range of strategic waterfront projects including the revitalization of Toronto’s Port Lands, Tommy Thompson Park, the Western Beaches, and Toronto Island Park.
Professional Expertise
Prior to his current role, Danny worked across multiple aspects of parks planning for the City of Toronto including conducting development review to secure parkland from new development projects, advancing Toronto’s City-wide Parkland Strategy, and supporting a review of Toronto’s city-owned golf courses.
Before joining the City of Toronto, he worked as a consultant for international firms DIALOG and Urban Strategies Inc. In those roles, Danny worked on high profile, complex projects like the University of Toronto’s St. George Campus Secondary Plan, Hong Kong’s Hung Shui Kiu’s Regional Official Development Plan, London’s Clapham Junction Master Plan, and the City of Stratford’s Grand Trunk Community Hub.
A True Passion for the Craft
He is also a member of the urbanist collective OpenCity Projects where he wrote about public space issues and helped develop the Design for Diversity toolkit, a public space design and engagement resource that seeks to help practitioners build and sustain intercultural public spaces.
Purposeful Work
In his punchier days, he helped lead several tactical urbanism initiatives in Toronto including #SitTO, a public performance advocating for more public seating in Toronto’s public spaces, an art-and-food lead activation of a vacant lot at 307 Sherbourne Street, and Save Jarvis!, a protest action against the removal of bike lanes on Jarvis Avenue.
He has also volunteered with urban environmental organizations Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests (LEAF) and Sustain Ontario.
Educational Background
Danny holds a Master’s of Science degree in Urban Planning with a specialization in Environmental Planning where he undertook his master’s thesis on the topic of civic crowdfunding.
Before arriving at urban planning, Danny trained to become a secondary school teacher with a focus on history and social science and a passion for climate and social justice.
He believes in the power of collective action, civic virtue, and leading with both your heart and data.
Reasons to Listen
This will be a talk worth listening to for:
- those interested in knowing more about the actual roles and responsibilities of the work
- those wanting to uncover deeper insights related to the challenges and rewards associated with a life as an urban planner
- those who are looking for inspiration in so far as potentially pursuing this profession for themselves
Listeners will come away with insights on:
- what being a generalist as far as knowledge and skill has to do with life as an urban planner
- to what degree the profession matched Danny’s expectations when he entered the field and in what ways it was very different
- the profession being a lot more about soft skills and communication as opposed to hard technical skills
- what type of person urban planning is best suited for
- a day in the life as an urban planner
- the degree to which urban planning takes place within an office as opposed to out in the field
- the number of projects an urban planner could be involved in at any given time
- what lead to Danny deciding that a life as an urban planner would be worth pursuing
- what it’s like trying to balance the needs of a modern global city as far as promoting economic growth and green initiatives
- some of the challenges associated with the work
- the degree to which unexpected events or surprises reveal themselves within the work
- how Danny personally gets a sense of satisfaction from the work he has been part of
- the impact of AI on the field of urban planning
- much more!
A Memorable Quote from the Episode:
“Urban planners are responsible for the wise use of scarce resources. So whether those scarce resources are land or money for infrastructure or the availability for road capacity, we think a lot about how to ensure that everyone can make do with what is available to them.”
-Danny Brown
Check out the Video Conversation:
For those who desire to view video highlights of the conversation, you can do so via Youtube.
Discover More
For those interested in learning more about Danny and his work, you can also find and follow him on the following platform:
Keep Listening!
I hope you enjoyed the episode. For more, check out additional episodes here!