What do residents and planners think they should be doing to build trust?

  • “If you are truly working to deliver effective communities, viable communities, quality communities, I don't think anything should be a secret, even when you have to prioritize maybe the central business district or downtown over community X. People understand it for a time. You can't keep saying for five years, ten years, twenty years, ‘Oh, yeah, we don't have funds for your community yet, because we're still working on the central business district.’ As a resident, I'm gonna tell them, ‘You don't have a great business model if all you do is spend the money in the central business district. Can't you come up with another model. Maybe the central business district has its own funds, and now you have money for the community?’ It's that type of transparency and dialogue that the planners have to share with the people. Because here's my next part; when you want developers to develop in Chicago, I'm sure you're telling them something, so why are we afforded that same luxury? Tell us something, don't just put us as second-class citizens, because if the developers put up a building, but our community feels like, ‘Yeah, that ain't for me’, guess what? It's gonna fail. So, you've got to give both sides a little something to say, ‘Hey, this is coming. Is there anything that you would like to see in this development? And what would you support if it came to your community?’ So, I think the city can do, the planners can do a lot better in that aspect.”

    Ruth (Souh, Resident)

  • “Our communities are very territorial. We do not appreciate someone from outside coming in to say ‘Hey, let’s do a peace circle.’ So, you have to work through the existing organizations that have already established relationships with the people. And if you can get those organizations to say ‘Hey!’ and they recognize that name, they have a tendency to respond a little bit better.”

    Ruth (South, Resident)

  • “We talk so much, and we plan so much, and those cycles are very good at happening over and over again. But I think what will tip that needle in the positive direction is for us folks to really begin to see some of the things that have been talked about so long beginning to manifest. I think that will go a long way toward healing those wounds, and having folks have more faith in city planning processes.”

    Evelyn (South, Resident)

  • “Residents don't trust me. That's something that I've encountered throughout my career, because I have been working in spaces where the people, I'm encountering have been let down. And so, I sort of have decided that, like, it is not actually incumbent on me, doing my work, to have people trust me. Actions speak louder than words. I don't need to convince someone that what I'm doing is good. I just need to try to do good work. That's the approach that I take. Certainly, I have individual conversations with people or even in community meeting settings. Like, sometimes what I have to say is well received, other times not. And I can't like, as a white person in the year 2023 be like, ‘No, no, no, you just don't get it,’ because people do get it. And they have every reason to feel distrust. I just can't put that out myself. I just have to keep the work going. It took generations for us to get to where we are and it's gonna take generations to repair.”

    Olivia (North, Planner)

  • “I don't expect them to trust me. I give them all the information in the best way I can, and hope that they trust me. And if they don't, I always encourage them to find other routes…I’ve found that working really hard to gain someone's trust isn't always…it's hard. It's hard to know where to invest your time, because if someone's like, ‘I'll never trust you,’ and then you're like, ‘I'm gonna try harder,’ that might not always work. And so, I always just still lean back on ‘What is my job? What is my role?’ and then hope that people find their way to the information they're looking for.”

    Abigail (North, Planner)

  • “I'm keenly aware that I have, like, the perfect white guy voice and a very specific look. I will play up my accent a little bit, I will sound a little more country than I actually naturally would. That plays well with anyone, frankly, whether it's other white folks, black folks or Latinos, they just do their thing. Very explicitly, I never ever, ever, ever talk down to people. I use a lot of words very carefully. You'll notice I rarely use large words, but I do use very clear and specific words. And I think people appreciate the fact that at no time, am I saying ‘Oh, this person clearly never got out of high school, and they live in this South side neighborhood, so I better slow down.’ I don't do that.”

    Liam (North, Planner)

  • “I think for me, as a planner, it means that I am responsible for coming to interaction or an engagement with a clear framing of what the question at hand is, or what the opportunity is, so that the conversation I'm having with a resident is appropriate and can be mutually beneficial in building trust. By that I mean, if we come to someone, and we're like, ‘Hey, what color do you want?’ or ‘Do you want a five story or two story building there?’ then they go off on all their personal things about what they like and the color and brick and all that kind of stuff. But they don't actually get to make those decisions. Then there’s a lack of trust between both of us because I'm like, ‘Why are they spouting off about this, when it doesn’t even matter?’ and they're like, ‘Hey, I told them everything I liked, and look, they put up that one story building over there.’ So, I think it's really important to build trust with community members through your role of being very clear with what the ask is, where they can provide input, and designing your questions and your engagement to be mutually beneficial.”

    William (North, Planner)