Hello!
First of all, I can't believe it took me so long to find this wonderful site.
As far as introducing myself goes, I am in my early 30s and I can honestly say that discovering the field of planning about 4 years ago has proved a catalyst for wholesale life changes - all of these changes for the better. I have an MS in Community & Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin and I am working as a city planner in a mid-sized southern city.
I would say my interests are based in taking critical approaches to planning practice, particularly as it relates to our reliance on 'best practices' to offset the inevitable challenges of skepticism, resistance to change/preservation, and/or the constraints on our time. This interest pushed me in graduate school to the margins of the field which in turn opened me up to many other disciplines which also study cities and analysis urban life: ex. geography, sociology, philosophy, history, cultural studies, film studies, literature. I was lucky to have professors who encouraged this pursuit, but always required me to provide strong justifications for how my research related back to planning practice.
Anyway, I eventually would like to head back to planning school for a PhD, but in the meantime, I am paying off college loans and learning the ins and outs of municipal bureaucracy, planning processes in the south, and seeing everyday the differences between planning in school and planning on the job.
I look forward to talking more with all of you, and thanks to the administrators who make this site possible!
