Introduction 

The Civic Tech Scholars had the opportunity to meet with a panel of urban planners and gain tremendous insight on how the leaders of our physical city in terms of architecture, transportation, and other infrastructure balance their priorities and goals for San Antonio. This post will examine the takeaways of our conversation as a part of our series of panels with the Public Policy and Urban lab. 

Background on Experts 

David Robinson Jr. is a Development Manager at Weston Urban, which is responsible for a significant amount of the development in San Antonio, contributing to the vibrant startup culture and public infrastructure in San Antonio. Aside from his work with Weston Urban, Robinson has participated in think tanks and lectures. Robinson calls himself a “lifelong student with a deep interest in urban planning, real estate and the sustainable development of communities.” 

Anthony Chukwudolue is a Civil Engineer for the City of San Antonio. He has worked

for COSA for almost 16 years, having worked as the Assistant Director of the Transportation and Capital Improvements Department, the Interim Director of Public Works, and the Assistant Director of Public Works. 

Chris Ryerson is a Planning Administrator for the Citywide Planning team at COSA. He has dedicated his career to planning for the intense population growth San Antonio is and will continue to be experiencing. 

Sonia Jimenez is the Deputy Director of the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is dedicated to providing the city with efficient and safe transportation. Before her position at AAMPO, she worked in consulting and also has a law degree. 

Paola Sofia Fernandez is a Senior Urban Planner at Stantec, which is an organization dedicated to sustainable engineering and urban planning consulting. Having studied architecture at UTSA, she has been involved in urban design with several different organizations, and had leadership positions at Activate SA, VIA Transit Keep SA Moving, and many more. 

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Key Insights and Takeaways 

From the discussion, we have organized our thoughts into several different categories to provide an understanding of the bigger picture and next steps.

1. Key Themes & Opportunities for Further Exploration 

Our conversation led to the discovery of these three most prominent themes: 

• Community engagement is key to developing a city in which people want to live. We must preserve the history and culture of San Antonio, as well as its green zones, while continuing to improve and develop public infrastructure. 
• The future of transit is multimodal: it requires utilization of personal transportation, mass transit, and micro mobility, among others.
• We have a need for inter-organization collaboration: public and private, different levels of government, etc.

2. Promising Practices 

During our conversation, our panelists enlightened us on several active efforts in San Antonio public infrastructure. As you can tell, most of these are tackling the threat of climate change. 

•  Resilient SA / SA Tomorrow: Developed a comprehensive Resilient SA plan that focuses on community resilience against climate change and other stresses, measures include enhancing green spaces, improving infrastructure to withstand extreme weather and fostering community engagement to build social resilience
• San Pedro Creek Project (2018): Designed to manage flood risks while providing recreational spaces and preserving local ecology, this approach combines sustainability with resilience by addressing immediate environmental challenges and long term community needs
• Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP): San Antonio utilizes data from initiatives like the CAAP, they are integrating climate projections and risk assessments into urban planning, this helps in proactively designing infrastructure that can adapt to changing environmental conditions. 
• SA Climate Ready (2019): Focuses on a more equitable, safe, affordable, and prosperous future for all San Antonians
• Incorporating AI, AR, and other visualizations in the community to show what civic changes are looking to be made
• Initiative to push for citizens to be within walking distance of a park, 20% of citizens are currently a 10 minute's walk away from a park with this statistic growing
• Plans to place residents into the downtown region through rental housing
• Millions (even billions) of dollars are being awarded throughout San Antonio to improve infrastructure. More bonds will be awarded in 2027
• Bexar County Emission Practices soon to reduce the emissions generated in the county from vehicles and projects
• Smart traffic signal practices to improve traffic throughout the city based on bottlenecks in certain regions
• Improving community engagement practices because citizens want projects that they have participated in to succeed
• Preserving History and Culture of San Antonio, looking back on our history when developing for density to see what we did right and wrong while preserving downtown culture
• The 300 Main project is going to provide population dense housing in downtown San Antonio.

3. Critical challenges 

•  Issues and challenges are multi-pronged and systemic. They tend not to be mutually exclusive, and instead, are interconnected and complex. Thus, problem-solving is a lengthy and flawed process.

Public policy process and governmental structure is a critical challenge as change cannot happen without approval. Example would be Paola’s instance of seeking governmental approval for a highly requested and planned project that was rejected in the last hour. Even when citizens are engaged, the public policy process can delay or halt significant change.

• Mobility & Transit

Economic segregation in San Antonio, Texas, leads to disparities in transit and mobility, with lower-income neighborhoods often facing limited access to reliable public transportation, resulting in longer commutes and reduced access to essential services and opportunities. This exacerbates economic inequalities and hinders overall economic mobility for residents in these areas.

VIA Metropolitan Transit, the primary public transit provider, faces issues with limited coverage and frequency of services, making it difficult for residents to rely solely on public transit. Additionally, many people are unaware of the schedules, further complicating their ability to use the service effectively.

Rapid population growth has led to increased vehicular traffic , resulting in congestion, especially during peak hours. Aging infrastructure and insufficient investment in maintenance and upgrades lead to deteriorating road conditions and inadequate transit facilities.

• Civic engagement and participatory planning

When the city votes on a policy, the state can still shut the idea down, so policy and politics can work against sustainable development. There is not enough civic engagement for the support needed to implement solutions for issues we are facing.  Reaching all parts of the population to address issues and present solutions is difficult because people aren’t engaged and looking for these opportunities, however they are also not hearing about them.  

In the digital age, technology is the most prominent form of communication, so for those who do not have equal access to technology, it is difficult to stay in the loop with sustainable development, and give input. 

• Resident displacement & resistance to change

Urban density can cause a rise in property values which leads to displacement for those who can no longer afford homes that they’ve lived in. This will cause a resistance to change such as urban density leading to more accessibility to resources and transportation and decrease in urban sprawl. 

The “small town feel” of San Antonio is loved by all residents, however population density would help with a lot of sustainability and infrastructure issues, so we need to maintain a balance. 

• Allocation of public resources is a critical challenge as millions of people rely on our Edwards Aquifer and electric grid for utilities.

Water & energy conservation is a major challenge with anticipated growth. A neighborhood of single-family homes requires more water to maintain lawns, wash, etc. than a multi-family development built with density in mind. Moreover, climate change will intensify droughts and temperature extremes, which will necessitate greater surges in energy and water consumption.

Weather and heat in the city are critical challenges as high temperatures, especially during summers, make waiting for public transportation uncomfortable and even hazardous. This is potentially discouraging the use of transit services and increasing resilience on personal vehicles. Also, extreme heat can strain transit infrastructure and operations, leading to potential service disruption. 

Conclusion 

From this session, we can take away that civic engagement is key, and it is a critical challenge because it is a multi-layered issue. It is an issue of accessibility, information, the digital divide, socio-economic segregation, participation, interest, and more. There are exciting challenges to tackle in urban planning, for example stopping urban sprawl with urban density, microdistrict, and re-development while also preserving history, culture, and preventing displacement. 

If you are interested in collaborating or participating in further developing this research with us, sign up below to learn more about how you can contribute and benefit from this ongoing research.

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