Bruce Donnelly

Bruce Donnelly is an urban planner, editor, and New Urbanist intellectual based in Cleveland, Ohio. His main work is in editing plans and published works, and in analyzing codes and documents and framing/explaining issues, problems, and solutions. He has collaborated on codes and comprehensive plans for several cities, has worked on the Louisiana Speaks recovery plan, and has authored essays in Landscape Urbanism and its Discontents and the upcoming Transect Reader.

Lean Ethics – the Big and the Small

Regulation and government programs are supposed to protect the consumer and empower the market. Too often, though, they favor big, incumbent businesses. They require things like bonds, copious paperwork, and multiple layers of review. They are too expensive and time-consuming for small builders, small businesses, and homeowners. Programs politicians told us would create opportunity for everyone instead create opportunity for big incumbents. The young, immigrants, people who work with their hands — “makers”— suffer particularly. Such suffering is unjust in a system that is supposed to create opportunity.

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