I asked this question before, but in honor of this episode’s guest, I’m going to ask it again: Are there too many planners? Gisla Bush, also known as GiGi the Planner, and a self-described urban planning career promoter seems to think the answer is no and goes as far to say there aren’t enough black planners especially.
We also talk about what inspired her to create a personal brand in this space, encountering and overcoming ageism and other challenges in the field and what she feels planners, especially those who want to work in the government sector, need to do to be successful in the field.
You can listen along or read the transcript below.
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And here’s the full transcript of our talk, with show notes embedded.
[00:00:00] Gisla Bush: Hi, my name is Gilsa Bush. My brand name is Gigi the Planner. I would consider myself an urban planning career promoter the purpose behind my organization, my business is to increase the number of black urban planners. So first I do so by allowing kids and teaching kids, black kids specifically, about the filter urban planning through workshops. And I also do career coaching for black planners going into the field and also going into their master’s program,
Kristen Jeffers: Which sounds really awesome and needed. I will tell everybody on the mic when I first heard about this. I was like, yeah, this is absolutely what we need. You know, as those of you who have followed me for a while know recently. I wrote a post about how asking just flat-out, you know, whether or not this is something that is an issue. Are there too many planners?Are there not enough planners? Is there something that happens when you think about marginalized groups such [00:01:00] as you know black or Africaness at least in sort of against say whiteness, not amongst ourselves because we know we’re awesome regardless, and that’s essentially why you’re doing the work that you’re doing to make sure that people know that they’re awesome at this is a career path. So I like to start out by asking when did you kind of have an inclination that I don’t know if it wasn’t planning maybe architecture or just something related to like how we use land and how we do things around like the environment around us. When did that become an option for you or when did that even become an interest for you?
Gisla Bush: Well, my mother is an architect. So I grew up being taught sort of taught under her with drafting and I was going to go into school being an architect. Growing up. My mom always told me that had a knack for color and I’m a designer by heart. So, you know architecture seem like the the [00:02:00] path that I wanted to go into. I had an interesting background growing up and went to college really really young at the age of 15 doing dual enrollment. So I attempted to get into the architecture program at that time and it didn’t really work out. So I had to try to find next best option for me that was sort of similar to architecture but wouldn’t really put me behind and caused me to have to be in school a little bit longer. So the school aid makes you Florida Atlantic University allowed me recently open a program for Urban Design. Which is you know a mesh between architecture urban planning landscape architecture and civil engineering. So I was able to learn about the field of urban planning through my degree in Urban Design. So that’s really how I sort of started in that I sort of know fell into it like most people do I really didn’t know what it was but ever since then I’ve really had a love for it.
Kristen Jeffers: That’s really awesome because your program like coming [00:03:00] out of the gate was an integrated program. So many of us seek have to make a decision like we have to think about architecture or planning especially as we climb the ladder for thinking about even more advanced degrees. I know for me at least if you’re thinking about the North Carolina schools like UNC Chapel Hill has the planning program and N.C State has the architecture program technically, even though we’re in the same university system. Those are two schools and two ways of doing things. To separate degree audits and sometimes a long time in between to be able to complete those programs. And so, you know people who were able to you know, do that program and do doctorates in that program, you know, there’s a 45-minute ride horses, you know and other schools. It’s just a 45-second walk across the hall to meet with architecture advisor, and then you might have a planning advisor. I think that’s something we don’t even think about enough that there are sometimes [00:04:00] barriers. You mentioned that you know going to college at an early age. That was somewhat of a potential barrier just go into what that was like because I feel like you mentioning that there’s going to be a lot of folks who come to this and come to thinking around these things after having even more like years lived, you know, it’s oh I didn’t realize I was a community advocate and I realize now this is a professional field. Oh, you know, I really didn’t know that anything else, you know, I didn’t have a parent connected to the field. I didn’t have anyone who had some form of connection. So, talk about you obviously I’m thinking you might feel like you had an advantage having a hand and having a this interest and having someone recognize that and you as well as other things, is that true do you feel like you had an advantage,
Gisla Bush: um, somewhat somewhere, you know, like I said, it’s just sort of fell into it. [00:05:00] There just happened to be a programmer Urban Design that it just started, you know, it was in second semester when I found out it was a brand new program. I’m trying to get into architecture. I tried actually tried twice to try again to architecture program. But you know, this is separate enrollment process for that and I just didn’t make the cut. So my idea was to pursue my bachelor’s degree in Urban Design and then headed into my master’s degree in architecture. However, I’m going through that program. I learned about you know a little bit about what architecture would be like and I had a class and site planning and it did not really I did not really feel as if you know, this was really what I wanted to do.
Kristen Jeffers: Hmm.
Gisla Bush: So I got a taste of I got a taste of architecture while in Urban Design that I figure out that that’s not what I want to get into its little bit too nitpicky for me. I’m going to be probably stressed about all the little details as you know goes into architecture. So I just felt like you [00:06:00] know through Urban Design. I’ll have a better way and urban planning to as well, but a way to express my design.
Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely can see that. It’s for me. It’s been coming up with the right kind of language to talk about what I’m doing. And again, I’m primarily a words person. I came to this because I was writing down things and I just went to journaling and then the next thing I know I’m like, okay, well maybe I could build something and then over the years I found value in staying in to how we talk about things. Because often times you can draw the best building you can have the best land use plan if you can’t convince neighbors or convince the media. Like the mass media that this is a good idea. You may not even get to the stages of construction management. You know, it may just sit as like, I don’t know and it’s been a while since I’ve been through the phases of construction, but it definitely won’t be going into like an actual build phase. It’ll just be collecting dust and you know, I just heard about. Somebody else [00:07:00] finding plans for some form of mass transit that was supposed to be built in Baltimore and it was like, yeah, it’s not going to be built because it’s you know, it’s years ago. But again, someone was probably paid, someone who probably had a planning degree or architecture degree or even an urban design degree or engineering degree to make that plan, but it never made it. So just thinking about how so many of our, so much of our work so much of our ideas and goals of always get there. That’s definitely something that I think about a lot and honestly like you coming into thinking about the a way to open up the field, you know, you have created a brand much like I created a brand and just staking a claim to say not just that on here, but your, you’re taking it a step farther. And say how can I make sure [00:08:00] more people are here, you know, where did that calling and drive come from initially?
Gisla Bush: I guess the idea stemmed from me, you know surfing through LinkedIn and I happen to come upon a young lady from North Florida area doing some work with black girls architecture. There was a Barbie architecture camp that she had and I thought it was really interesting and then maybe a few weeks later I found about the Hip-Hop Architect. And so when I saw these two people, you know doing things for architecture and I just thought to myself. Well there needs to be somebody, you know, that’s promoting urban planning for blacks. So I thought you know, I think this is a good opportunity for me to you know to birth this dream so that was about, that was about a year ago and I started about May, I actually started this journey, but that was sort of where it, it started also, you know [00:09:00] being working in local government and the city in South Florida, I’m currently the only black planner at my office and we have I would say a pretty large department but 15 planners and often times I feel lonely, you know, I don’t fully, you know mesh with the rest of them because of know just different backgrounds initially when I got there there was a black gentleman and he was an architect, he was like an Urban Design planner and he left after a year and then a few years later. I was able to get my friend become an intern there and she was there for a few months. But you know, I’ve been there for five years and you know, it’s kind of lonely, you know being the only black person in the room.
Kristen Jeffers: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Gisla Bush: So that’s sort of you know, that’s all sort of my drive. That’s also why the emphasis is for why I decide to do what I’m doing also because of that another factor is you know, going to school in the urban planning and went to Florida Atlantic University. As I said before. I got my bachelor’s and my [00:10:00] masters and I noticed, you know, quite a few black people in my program, but I did some of them did actually, you know, they got their degree in urban planning, but then they just work somewhere else. So I just felt the need that there needs to be some sort of retention and you know the graduates that’s coming from this plan program to still pursue planning because you know, What good is it to have planners out there that are just you know, you know maybe working as a teacher and that’s the same thing, you know, I guess being a teacher but you know, we have a great disparity of you know, white planners planning our communities and we really need a lot more black planners planning our communities because you know, the residents can resonate with them better. There’ll be more open to listening to them. So through my career coaching that as part of you know, what I’m trying to do is sort of help. People get to their next stage because I know there’s an issue with people trying to find jobs and not really knowing the steps. [00:11:00] So those are you know, the reasons why I got into what I did and the impetus for why I decided to move forward with them.
Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. It’s definitely a huge need like there’s a need from the community standpoint of having enough people that you know, understand the cultural dynamics. Essentially, especially in communities that have essentially been like planned off the face of the Earth as we’re seeing, you know, another wave of property values of land speculation of what we’ve termed gentrification but really it is a lot of things that are underpinned by that whereas in other assets there’s a lot of folks in the black community who have access to capital and access to creating new neighborhoods and sometimes neighborhoods that you know, That mirror some of the new neighborhood sometimes there are cases where we have as black folks have been able to aid [00:12:00] in gentrification, you know having folks having more diverse perspectives in the room having more of diverse perspectives both on the technical side as well as the sales side the be able to talk people through things because ultimately there’s a lot of folks. I feel like at the community level who just own hot property, if they’ve been able to own property and who can’t fathom the fact that you know, after years and years of being you know, ostracized or oppressed by landlords or even other government officials, I think it’s really important to have people in the room that are dedicated and have either examined ways in which they thought they had to say certain things or do certain things to get ahead in the business or even just thinking about like personal family issues because sometimes you know, some of us have land in the family and it’s not always ours to access at least not in our generation or we’re not quite on the right side of the family to deal with [00:13:00] that or the lands been lost and it’s in pieces and there’s just all sorts of elements and angles you talked before about feeling isolated that there were no other people like you in your office and even you may have the technical prowess, but there’s just certain things where people ask questions or they try to get holidays right or they try to get hair right and all these things just come up that you know, you just wouldn’t have if you had a more and I definitely say diverse and inclusive office across the board not just your black diversity, but your diversity across like gender identity, sexual orientation and number of women versus number of men versus, you know, other other marginalized racial groups and cultures just having a lot of folks, especially the number of folks that reflects your population numbers you know there may still be some communities a majority of white European oriented folks, but there are a lot of [00:14:00] black and Asian and Latinx communities that were they are the majority. But do they have the same representation and governmental offices, especially in long-range planning when we’re long range planning where we’re thinking about how we put it infrastructure. Are we thinking about how are we going to teach how we’re going to put in infrastructure and have to teach people or are we looking at how communities are using things and potentially, you know, the things are already there. But really it’s awesome that you’re focusing in on and obviously you coach people from around the world. All from all different backgrounds, but I think this is a great opportunity to talk specifically about black women and some of the issues we face with stepping into a field again. There’s been a lot more attention paid to stem oriented fields. I feel like there’s a lot of more programs. You have a youth program. There are hundreds of others again. I’m you know, we part I partner with The Plug [00:15:00] which is another just media source that highlights activities and STEM of you know, especiallyblack women looking at what Arlan Hamilton’s doing with Backstage Capital the potential to fund being on the VC level and on the investor level but really what would you say and how what specifically are things that you started to see come up when you’re canceling your black women clients as well as other friends and colleagues on getting in and staying in and maintaining yourself in our field?
Gisla Bush: Well so far most of my clients have been black females and I think because I am a black female they’re naturally drawn to me. I would have said I was think there was anything different from them versus, you know, somebody else as it relates to male or other races that have any particular issues I would say though that you know, they’re very [00:16:00] passionate about what they want to do. They have you know, a lot of drive. One of the things I realized that you know, the people I’m coaching our don’t really have a good knowledge of what urban planning is. So me helping those, you know, moving forward into the field, you know, just trying to just let them know about the ins and outs of what it’s like to be a planner, you know just be real with them, you know and let them know that. You know, these are some of the issues that I deal with, you know working in there and I’m just not trying to paint a facade. I don’t try to play a facade like urban planning is the best field ever. I don’t try to do any of that.
Kristen Jeffers: Yeah,yeah
Gisla Bush: I love the field but there are some things about it that you know, I don’t love
Kristen Jeffers: Yeah
so that’s something that I’ve been trying to, you know, make sure that I, you know, let my clients know about know the Hard Knocks of life was really going to. When you get to know working in a department or local government, but I really can’t speak to where its private because I’ve never worked in the [00:17:00] private sector, but at least let him know what happens, you know working in the public sector some of the things that you’re going to be facing some type of work that you’re going to be doing and just no getting a sense for you know, how it’s going to be.
Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s valid, you know, someone who has like a master of public administration or of technically affairs in my case. There’s this is a little bit of a distinction there, you know, we learned everything from public budgeting, you know where your money comes from and how it can be lost and you know, how on basically it’s at the mercy of elected officials how a lot of what you do as a public administrator or someone who works in government as you’re at the service of government officials, you know people who are elected and often times. You may want to consider elected office especially if you really want to set the agenda set the budget agenda, set the agenda that goes out to The [00:18:00] Press set the things that keep people when people do organizing if they’re talking about whereas if you’re great with being behind the scenes, if you’re great, especially with you know, doing mapping GIS coding it there’s a lot more coding involved now and always has been but it definitely is a area of coding and you know, That aspect where people there is some overlap there where two other sort of more general fields of computer science or you know website making and software making you definitely do have to be you don’t really get to have an ego a lot of times, you know, your plans go through multiple red lines. And if you hated the red on your teachers pages when you were coming up, you’re really gonna hate it when you hear in the professional setting now, it’s. that doesn’t go away you I think you have to really like if you decide to do more public engagement like you but or if [00:19:00] it’s actually something you have to do and generally you have to do it when you’re in the government sector. You don’t really get the specialize like you doing private where it private you have people who are just GIS technicians, and that’s it. And then you have people who do the public meetings or people who had the meetings with the stakeholders and they go to different peoples meetings and go to different community meetings and sometimes yeah, you get that separation in the government sector, but sometimes your agency or your even your firm is too small for you to be able to differentiate I would think you would agree with what a lot of what I just said and that’s probably some of what comes up when you talk to different people about the realities of field where there any things that I missed. And that analysis of just the kind of the quirks of the field, especially since you are actively working and have been actively working in the field for a while. And like I said, you see it everyday versus me seeing it. It’s been a few years since I’ve been in private firm and it’s been a couple years since I’ve done like I on-the-road project.
[00:20:00] Gisla Bush: I mean what other things that I let people know is that you know, you have to deal with the public. That’s one of the biggest things, you know working specifically and local government is dealing with the public and they can be brutal. They can be very brutal. Everybody wants everything yesterday. You can’t get it to them fast enough and you just have to know stand your ground know what you’re talking about. I feel like sometimes there’s another ageism issues. I’ve had somebody tell me, they didn’t u say to me specifically but they told a co-worker. How old is, why do you guys have kids working, you know the department and you know, I felt like this to that and you know people look at using as if, I have some people ask me how old I was a few times and different things like that that you have to deal with, you know, especially being a black female working in a professional environment, you know people, you know marginalize you. [00:21:00] I’m the youngest in my department and only black person been there for five years and I still be I guess yeah, I started working there when I was 18 as an intern. I moved up slowly but you know, it’s something that I think about constantly on a daily basis, you know, just making sure that I am you know performing my best doing my best and try to not let you know my coworkers. And you know the public or anybody let me down. You know, you just have to really have a strong backbone. I would say, you know working in local government dealing with the people on a daily basis and screaming at you yelling it at you cursing you out and it could be really, really depressing I was saying yeah, especially if you deal with it for so many years on a daily basis, you know especially working at the public counter. We have all these people coming in and a lot of them being homeowners wondering why it’s taking you so long to review the requirements [00:22:00] and their site plans and everything and you just have to just let them know there’s other people, you know ahead of ya. Yes. So no I deal with it all the time. I’m in is something that you know, you just have to get over.
Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, so I thought a couple of things that you mentioned that I would think we’re great you mentioned agesism. And that was something that even like I forgot not, that I forgot about it being a thing, but it’s been a little while and I just I feel like I just aged out of the ageism but that was definitely a factor coming in. I definitely dealt with a project where I worked on where people were definitely use it as a attempt to, rail against the younger people coming up. You know, when we do long-range planning, we think about everybody from you know, the common phrase in the field is 8 to 80 and a lot of people’s like. Oh, well, I’m here at this public meeting to keep things the way they were I’m here, just public meeting the keep things. [00:23:00] You know, like I said this these kids are a problem or, or sometimes it’s the flip side, you know only the old people here don’t like know what they really know what they know and they only want us to have issues. And so there’s definitely a clash of generations and so being able to balance that is definitely something that I think you have to be successful at especially when you’re working front facing in a more customer service vein of this not you know, you’re just sitting around and theorizing you’re doing research and it’s kind of isolated from. The public side of things again for folks who may be thinking about this who are thinking about leaving say customer service oriented jobs. Say you’re already saying teaching in a classroom or maybe even in full-time Ministry and you’ve been doing community projects of your church or synagogue or any sort of religious organization. You want to add like a professional element to it or you know, you’ve been working retail or you [00:24:00] own a business on say like a little Main Street and that’s you know, you had the Main Street. Location of the historical classification you start really digging into what that means and you decide. Oh, well, maybe I want to design more Main Streets or oh, maybe I want to like be the president of my Main Street organization. You know, what does that really entail? And yeah, you definitely those things you have to be considerate of like that’s just kind of the nature of public-facing planning. But have you have you encountered in your counseling some more theorists, like folks like myself who kind of preferred a more, not to say that I don’t do public facing work. Like I actually do have a degree of love for customer service and helping people and doing things tangibly. But you know, what’s your balance beent people who want to either go into a more public-facing job or you know people who have decided that maybe they want to stay a researcher of theory or people [00:25:00] who decided they just want to plan for whatever they’re doing like, We want to be more folks. They want to be able to teach that each unit of social studies on say how cities are made and how places are made better or they want to be a better pastor to their Church community, you know, have you what have you been encountering, you know that you’re able to share and some of the conversations you’ve had around those thoughts.
Gisla Bush: Well, a lot of people that I’ve spoken to so far. I still like in that idea phase they’re trying to find out what they were or figure out what they want to do in the future. They have an idea and I’ve spoken to a few people and they have, you know, a lot of ideas. So trying to sort of coach them and direct them in the right path. As you know, I’ve been sort of what my thing is, you know, some people want to go into GIS, a lot of people are going to community development. I think that’s you know, a lot of blacks are going into planning to do community development. So most of them had been sort of in that idea phase [00:26:00] so far. I’ve actually spoken to one person who knows specifically what they want to do and I was actually surprised because she she works in the department that she wants to work in and I was asking her,You know, this is your goal to work here. Why are you trying to pursue a degree in planning? And she mentioned to me that you know, there’s a particular department that I want to get into and you have to have a master’s in planning to get into that department. She said there’s like a culture and in department where if you and one department for over two years your started. The key can like move to another place. So she said, you know starting her master’s will you know push her into the other department so never been you know, a lot of different facets about a lot of different things we want to do but it’s mainly been community development for the most part. That’s what seems like, you know, most blacks, you know, getting to planning one sort of like help others like themselves minorities and other blacks and just you know, help promote our community.
[00:27:00] Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, and you brought up something very, that’s I would say one of the bigger controversies right now in our field is like credentialing and what kind of credential you should have especially past the Bachelors level essentially, there’s been a lot of the conversation around who’s a planner who is in the planner centers around our certification exam. You know, it’s basically the acronym is essentially the American Institute of Certified Planners. That’s what the acronym actually stands for. You just get the opportunity, much like when you get a masters degree or when you get a doctorate to add that to your name on your LinkedIn profile on your business cards, you know somebody, you know can verify that there’s a certificate and there’s an exam and then there’s people who have vouched for you to do that. If you’re looking I would say if you’re looking at the broader world of thinking about the ways we use [00:28:00] land, we build on land, we think about how land works of course what we build on top of land and how to get around land. There are so many paths in and out that may or may not require certain certifications. However, as you just said, there are definitely departments. That look highly or even restrict access to people who don’t have a masters or the at beyond the Masters having the AICP designation having taken the exams and continuing to maintain that certification. You know, there’s obviously the architects, of course talk about the levels of certifications and the years of testing and sometimes multiple type takes of said tests to become, have the ability to use the word architect in front of them essentially those of you who are not familiar, you can’t exactly you can’t call yourself an architect. And actually you’re not supposed to call yourself an architect at all of any sort of type unless you’ve gone [00:29:00] through those levels you start out as an architectural designer once you’ve passed your exams you have the ability to legally be an architect now obviously some in other organizations and other fields they’ve basically adopted that word to talk about what they do, but if you’re actually working on buildings and if you’re actually, you know in the grounds to be licensed, you do have to be licensed you can’t do what’s called sealing drawing you actually literally kind of like a notary does, have a seal to stamp off on drawings. Same with some of our Engineers, but essentially you know, what you mentioned is this clear there are limits but there aren’t limits and a lot of ways. So what would you say to someone who has a more general interest and is you know doing something? Like I said, they want to they want to kind of do it by the book versus not by the book. Like how do you [00:30:00] nudge folks in a particular direction? And what are some of the things you would suggest for people to do? I obviously think that determining if you want to do it by the book versus not by the book is number one, you know, you’re not going to get far if you’re going to go in one direction without the credentials that you need in another direction unless the complete system blows up overnight and granted we do have folks who advocate for that. But essentially what are some things you’ve said for to do for people to get started with say a viable career as well as a not viable career in the states.
Gisla Bush: Well, I think especially for minorities and black specifically I think it’s important to have all those credentials because you know, as not being a minority especially in the field of planning you’re competing against, you know whites and a lot of them have those credentials and when it comes down to it comes down to it when an employer’s looking at all these resumes and they see they have five people with [00:31:00] Masters two people with bachelor’s they might may not even look at those people with the Bachelors degree just because you don’t have a Masters. I’ve even heard some people say before, I heard one guy. This was another field, accounting but it’s still sort of relevant, but he was saying that, you know even looking for intern. He said that if he got Masters degrees to apply and bachelors, people that work with their Bachelors to apply, He doesn’t even look at people, The Bachelors. Looks at those are the Masters. So I think you know it helps you be, you know, more competitive in the field to have those credentials because in general, you know, planning most people the planning degree has their masters and planning. There are a few schools that offer bachelor’s degree in planning, but I still think it’s important to go that next step and get your Master’s. It doesn’t have to be in place specifically, but just to have a master so you can be competitive with everyone else.
Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, and it’s easier again, even know the rules have changed with taking the AICP exam and I came out of grad school. I was [00:32:00] looking at eight years even with a masters before I could sit and that’s eight years consistent with a mentor with people who can sign off on projects that I’ve done people giving me projects that would count as far as projects to write an essay on and it have you know documentation for and then also sitting for the like the exam I feel like honestly the exam itself. Is it as difficult as finding obviously your projects because again the exam is just this kind of like you sit for the GRE or any other interest exam, you know, you can study for that. There are tools it’s basically standardized testing. There are right answers and there wrong answers, but when it comes to writing your essays and writing your recommendations, there’s really no substitute for time in the field and time working, but I also want to touch on kind of, what it takes, you know, if you decide not to say be employed like say if you decide to [00:33:00] start a development firm say, you know, you come up on some property and you decide hey, I’m actually going to be a land developer. You know, what are your thoughts? And what’s your advice for folks who decide, you know that that’s going to be the career option if you have thought through that and if you can count out anybody you’re coaching who said after this, you know, yeah, I could go and get all these certifications but my family owns x amount of acreage in a certain area. You know, how do I hire people or a family, you know, you have like a three flat and say Chicago or Baltimore somewhere. You can just rent out your rooms, especially now that Airbnb allows you to rent out rooms, you know, does that you know, how do you feel about advising this person? And how do you explain to them that even though what they’re doing is not quite planning. There’s definitely some form of development there like or [00:34:00] is this something you’ve encountered in coaching and even in like obviously you work the public desk that so you’ve probably run into some black folk singer like yeah. I want to build a shed or oh, I’m gonna build five houses on our own Farmland, you know talk about that a little bit.
Gisla Bush: Um, well, I haven’t encountered anybody yet. I’m asking about land development. But if there was anybody that I would have in the future to coach I wanted to get into that I would tell them. No to first of all find a mentor vital in development or that you you can’t, you know, get under their tutelage. Which as well as you know work in the field a little bit understand the nuances of the field. And even with you mentioning we know work at the public counter. I remember encountering a lady she came and she wants to build a Triplex. She bought the property and everything already and she came in one to build the triplex, but it wasn’t done for a Triplex and she was getting mad and frustrated saying that. There’s a Triplex right next door. Why can I build a Triplex and she doesn’t [00:35:00] understand there’s more nuances in just that, you know being educated about the process. So I would say that’s the most important thing to do is to get that education about how what you need to do and where the steps need to be taken that to get into development. A lot of people don’t know about zoning, you know, you know, you can’t build whatever you want, you know where you want to build it?
Kristen Jeffers: Uh,No.
Gisla Bush: Yeah, so I. Think that you know, it’s very important to understand that specific Nuance, especially as it relates to develop development because that’s going to make or break any project that’s going to make or break anything that you want to do in the future as it relates to, you know, making a lot of money. So if you don’t understand that, you know, you can build this high-rise here. Um, they maybe shouldn’t buy that property know a lot of people buy these properties prematurely because they just don’t have the education behind all those different nuances. I would I would say, you know find a mentor number one and the number two just so, you know, [00:36:00] maybe even work a local planning, you know planning and zoning department local government and just get understand what it all entails to, you know, get into development and even work for the private sector to because there’s there’s two different sides to the point, but I would say local government. Probably the number one place to work at least start out.
Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, I think that’s a that’s great advice because again, if you’re not familiar with the process you’re going to get frustrated anyway, and sadly, you know, if you haven’t had an inspection and know what that is sector supposed to be looking for because it tends again that inspector a lot of places that inspector their lives in the plane Department that is Department of planning and inspections for a reason because inspecting land that could potentially be a development site is important. Inspected to make sure that it’s not a flood plain or there’s not any this isn’t like a home place for not just [00:37:00] natural wildlife, but also are their graves on that site. Is this site sacred land that’s just been taken away but there’s history and background at this is not necessarily the place that you need to be going. But also kind of a more I would say easy question for you as you are looking at youth and kids who start to have this interest like I don’t know they watch Sesame Street or they watch Richard Scarry’s Busytown or they play SIM City or City Skyline or just various things. They’re essentially toys. And so for me, it was like playing with Lincoln Logs playing with Matchbook cars, reading maps pointing out where things are, you know looking at train schedules looking at bus schedules. I feel like it’s we’ve gotten better.Identifying giftedness and quirkiness or different different types of thinking amongst black kids, you know, [00:38:00] where as when that correlates with being on the autism spectrum. We’re doing a better job of identifying the fact that there are black autistic kids and this may be an interest for them because in a lot of ways tracking mapping and using GIS and coating helps with, you know, processing numbers and processing patterns, but also just you know, if. Kids getting involved, you know everything from the kids who spoke out against the school shootings to kids who go with their parents to Black lives matter rallies and other civil rights rallies. And then like I said you watching your mom do her work over these years and wondering well could I do that? You know, I guess the advice and the question I have is for folks. How do you how do you cultivate that what is your advice for? Debating you interest and pulling that youth interest past just interest through if they decide to major in [00:39:00] that or make a career out of that as they become adults.
Gisla Bush: Well, you know with my workshops I try to you know, emphasize the fact that you know, planning is a broad field you can get into a lot of different things especially politics. I think a planner, you know, getting to politics is like that perfect mesh. I actually had up workshop last weekend and I had. I’m a senator to come in. He was a planner a certified planner I think he’s the first [Florida state] senator that’s a certified planner and you know, he understands the development, you know, he understands the development side and him running as,the first state representative. And now a senator he was able to you know, really touch on those issues that you know, a lot of government officials understand, you know, I you know working, you know in my capacity and having gone to City commission meetings and you’re hearing these you know, the mayor and the commissioner speak. They don’t understand they don’t fully understand that [00:40:00] aspect, you know of development and that’s all really a city’s about development and a lot of these people that come into the city making their case before the commission the city council a lot of issues or things that happened with their home. A lot of things that planning is owning types issues. That’s what a lot of the issues are things related to planning and zoning. So I just feel like a lot of a lot of youth that are you know, proactive they want to make a difference, you know, and I think planning is one of those ways that you can make a difference and I tried to make sure that I emphasize that you know in my workshops. You know planning is a broad field is a lot of different things you can get into it. You just you don’t have to be pigeonholed to work in planning zoning department working for planning consulting firm. There’s a lot of different things that you could do, but the plenty of. So I think that’s one of the things that I think should be probably spoken about more, you know, the broad aspect of what planning [00:41:00] is because there’s just so many things that you can get into.
Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, absolutely like that’s bringing up the fact that and I think we talked about this earlier in the hour, you know, being elected and having like I said having gone through the certified planar process or even certified as an architect like again, if you’re to be governing over this thing that we’ve built knowing the technical side of how it’s built I think it’s very very valuable. And I think especially if your child or if you’re if you’re really young if you’re a middle or high school and you’re listening to this or you’re thinking about these things, that’s the perfect time you have a lot of time ahead of you to plan through finding mentors, finding projects getting jobs in the field. You know, you have a lot of time to try. You know and you know, if it’s going to take four to eight years for you to get certified as a planner or four to eight to 10 years to find the body of work, you know to really get [00:42:00] cranked up, you know, the sooner you’re able to know that the better but if you’re thinking about this thing you’re saying in your late 30s early 40s or even older or younger somewhere in between. It’s not impossible. There’s definitely a lot of you know across other fields. You’ve seen a lot of career changes, but I think it’s possible for people. To come into our field if anything it comes back to ages. And will you let people in at after a certain age? Will you let people in at a young age? So get to know what the fields like and start to get their feet wet, you know, a lot of planning is observing. A lot of it’s anthropology literally getting to know how a community functions, how community uses the spaces you’ve created at the walls everything from the walls to the ground to how they come to and from it all those things and as we get into this like the internal side of things and kind of come to the end of the conversation, you know, you mentioned earlier that if you’re not ready for [00:43:00] going into planning, especially working for a jurisdiction working in the government sector sometimes working with governments and other developers as a private part, it’s a private firm. You can definitely fall off but you can definitely get depressed and you can definitely have issues with just sometimes even yourself or for whether or not you know, you just exist as a person and again anybody who’s listening or read me knows that this is a personal thing for me. I’ve definitely been through some of those struggles. What do you do personally to ensure your own self-care like what are some things that are not planning not this career work that you value you and you enjoy not just the sheriff or folks just to know what other people get into besides their planning work. But also things that you could potentially get into so that you’re not tied to your planning work.
Gisla Bush: Well, I do a lot of host of other things beyond just you know, working as a planner. I am a classical pianist. [00:44:00] So I did piano. I also tutor kids in math, you know low-income mainly predominantly blacks in the in the in the subject of math , you know DF students and just trying to know help encourage them. I think you know the the best way to deal with self-care is you know to help others. Now be it through planning or outside of planning just to you know, get into the realm where you’re serving. You know, that could be very therapeutic to serve and you’re putting a smile on somebody else’s face and helping somebody else with the problem. So that’s what, that’s what I do with me and my sisters. We have a tutoring program that we do on the weekends and free tutoring program. And that’s just you know, some of the things that that I do also, you know part of some advisory boards with the city that I [00:45:00] live in with education. It does not come out the some ideas about how education could be, you know be made better within the city and just doing with youth. So I’ve been dealing with youth for a while. You know, I’m so like a youth myself. But yeah, I think you know like I said before serving is I think self-care what’s up here things that I deal with right now. I’m sort of like all over the place with so many different things going on. So every once in a while, I just need to sit down and take a breath, but I know I think reading is also really I love reading I haven’t been able to read much since my college days, but other than that, That has been one of the things that I’ve always enjoyed doing. sort of outside of that realm.
Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, all those things are excellent. Like just you know, I posted recently after you know, Aretha Franklin’s passing, you know, how much I wish that I had spent more time with my [00:46:00] piano. Like I took lessons in college and just being able to play at that level being able to switch in and out of styles and piano. Obviously, I still go to a lot of concerts. I literally for those of you listening before we got on the mic to record. I was just buying concert tickets and making sure that I was going to be able to go to my first concert. What will be my return to DC. So I’m excited about that. I this is the day where recordings normally my yoga day. And again, I had been away from this particular studio looking forward to getting back into that and you know, I find myself watching a lot of things on YouTube that don’t necessarily have anything to do with what we’re doing. Like I watch a lot of hair videos, you know doing my own hair as well as like the artistry of you know, doing hair and you know going out for walks now like I made myself walk to like my other job, and I’m like just. Getting a sense that actually [00:47:00] using the city that’s why I call it like as much as we plan for the city as much as we plan for places. Sometimes you can get caught up in like the mechanics of it or sometimes, you know, if there’s been political battles over a plot of land or area of land. Sometimes it can enjoy like what we have like one of the things I absolutely love doing especially being in a black body in this country and just period is the travel that I do going to. The traction sitting in tourist attractions to be like, hey, I can afford to be here. I’m here now I paid for this. This is you said this was fun for anybody who can afford it. You know, I’m here, you know as much as I like challenge the fact that you built something that’s quote-unquote unaffordable or unattainable. Guess what I got in here somehow so it wasn’t completely out of the out of bounds. So yeah, I guess as we wrap up just any other last thoughts. Of course, I’m going to ask you to tell my way to find you, but just in general, like [00:48:00] what’s one thing that as your coaching people as you are becoming more of a established planner and eventually will become a certified planner. You know, what’s one thing you want listeners to kind of leave with that you feel like a specific to you like a piece of advice or you know, Something that really moves you about your work that you want to make sure people know.
Gisla Bush: I would say, you know, it’s to be confident be confident in yourself, especially, you know being young coming into your field that I think it’s very important that you know, you find your confidence. I’m still finding my confidence. I’ve come a long way, but they’re just a lot of different things about you know working and you know, the government is working in a professional environment and being young as I was mentioning before. The ageism issues, you know, you feeling that you’re not adequate that you can’t you’re not capable of you know speaking to your elders and sometimes I see [00:49:00] myself, you know speaking to somebody, you know developer or others and thinking about you know, they’re listening to me. There are they are taking my word for you know doctrine and you know, you thinking I’m just, you know a young girl and like. They to really listen to me. So you just not defy your confidence be sure of what you’re saying, you know speaking to people and just you know, I think through your the way you find confidences by, you know, knowing your craft like really researching and fully understanding what you’re saying because I think a lot of times people doubt their confidence is when they when they’re not when they’re unsure about what they are, you know, telling the public telling others offering information. I think no being confident. I think it’s probably one of the most important things
Kristen Jeffers: I agree that and again what you’ve been able to do in just a short time like at a young age and that I’m not saying this in the condescending way. I’m saying this in the this is [00:50:00] awesome way, you know, but again, you don’t have to do all this at once folks. If you’re listening at home, you know, there’s plenty of time to do awesome things. But you know, it is it is an achievement to be able to do things kind of on a either slower timeline or even a longer. Like I feel like the timelines matter in some ways like that and I think that’s awesome. I think it’s awesome the you’ve a peer mentor for so many years. I continued to be a peer mentor both inside and outside the field and that you’re willing to be a peer mentor and a friend to so many of us who are looking at planning careers or related careers and finding our way. And again, it’s an honor to be able to be a resource as well and reach out. And with that being said, how can people find you.
Gisla Bush: So you you all can go to my website www.gigitheplanner.com. I’m also on Facebook and Instagram at Gigitheplanner. You can follow me there as well.
Kristen Jeffers: I also thank you so much for coming by and [00:51:00] coming on the show and I myself Kristen will be back to wrap up any loose thoughts and things after a break.
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