Is 'planner' an accurate title for our profession?
From Cyburbian hennybenny: I was thinking, what if we, as a collective planning community, made a conscious decision to change the title of our profession? This is such a huge, diverse field, encompassing so many different occupations. I'm so sick of the question "What does a planner do?". We need a better moniker. Or some of us do. I haven't figured that part out yet. And I don't have a better title in mind either. But think of it. We need something like this: doctor, teacher, etc. If you say "I'm a doctor" or "I'm a teacher", people immediately identify with that, and ask the presumable follow-up "oh, of what?"
We need something like that. If we could turn "planner" into that, it might work, but I'm afraid it's too trite. People either automatically associate such a common word with other planners; day planner, wedding planner, etc., or they hear planner and immediately associate it with administrative beaurocracy and glaze over, (maybe they'll ask what a planner does, leaving you to flounder with "do I answer with my own job description or a generalization").
So, am I off my rocker here, or am I on to something? What do you think?
I think this is the reason that more information is not shared through GIS. I am just as much to blame as the next person. I understand what the issues are with my data and I can make adjustments to it or with it but the second I share it someone will critique what I do and it won't hold up to that scrutiny.
That is one of the reasons that our local utility companies will not share is because of the quality of the information they have. I certainly don't understand why they don't GPS pipelines and such, especially as easy as it is to do now.
The forgotten part of GIS - the metadata. Good metadata should tell you about the quality, how the info was derived, etc.
Our economic development folks used to purchase data from a vendor. Our department finally got hold of it and systematically discredited every bit of it. We are now the source for most of their information, and the little bit they purchase gets vetted by our department.
The data are put together to help companies sell things to people with money. It is not put together with an eye towards scientific or government accuracy concerns. It is very problematic, as you point out.
That's just the problem. I was going to use this data for a market analysis.
Cardinal, have you tried Buxton?
I used them for a project in Texas and it replaced older Claritas data. Their sales rep really took care of me- get your corporate credit card ready...
Oh God, no!!! :-o
Stay away! Stay away!
agreed
I agree but am also confounded as to what to call it. When I say land use planning, people are still confused, when I say urban design, people really have no clue. The associations that come with the term placemaking make my skin crawl. So I don't know. Wasn't this a useful post? :)
i don't have the source in front of me, but i have read in a few places about the under-representation that exists in market data for minority or impoverished neighborhoods. i'll try to find it. this underrepresentation, as you have pointed out, can lead to faulty decision-making, since the data being analyzed is incomplete.