We have an organization for anything and everything in the United States of America. With the American Planning Association, the professional arm, the chapters and sections, the divisions, the consultants, the educators and students, and the persons elected to head up the many boards and councils, we seem to have fulfilled our responsibility.

But every once in a while we are obliged to figure out why we join the organization. The new director of the American Institute of Certified Planners, Glenn Coyne, in the January 1999 issue of the monthly magazine, said that he intends "to do what he can to tell planners why membership in AICP is important".

It's a good answer. Very likely the main reason is that the human specie is a social one and that we gather for common needs and common interests.

But, in our professional practice we are often limited in what we can say or do. We have to take a good look. Most of us are working with the public dollar and we have to ask: is the biggest part of that dollar devoted to our main interests? If it is not, there is cause to think that perhaps we are working in the wrong place.

For example, in the vicinity of Tucson there is a special place called CIVANO. Far from downtown but within city limits on open land, it has had benefits not given to-other developers. And they are deserved in that they offer design and environmental qualities that are worth doing. But in the older part of the city there are other things worth doing too. And from the looks of things the city does not have the funds to do right.

So the question comes, which shall be funded first given that the city has limited funds?