What we perceive in City Planning today seems to take ages to happen. And it is even further from our reality to consider history in other terms. But it might be interesting to relate another time to our own struggles.

Before 1750, in the New World, only France remained to challenge British dominion. And France's presence was formidable, with explorations and settlements from Quebec to New Orleans, claiming lands both east and west of the Mississippi, from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. The claims were challenged, and for seven years the French and British-Indian War raged (1756-1763). At its conclusion, Britain won all of Canada, and all of the interior lands east of the Mississippi River.

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(This review brings enlightened language to an area usually bereft.)

Focussing on swift multicultural movements, "Bypass208", which opened yesterday, is a long awaited link between the brassy cacophony of the north and the subtle gentility of the south. While a far cry from the gripping but humorless Jones Productions of the 1960's, it does pay technical homage thereto. What sets Bypass208 apart, and some might say above, the set-in-concrete styles which dominated for several decades, is the gracefulness of paths the production takes, extending even to the generous, almost playful, ramps, with sufficiently subdued back lighting. Certainly a candidate for technical nomination.

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In thinking about the role of the professional planner, it is helpful first to look back. Before there were professional planners, there were “citizen” planners. They weren’t initially called “citizen planners,” they were members of civic improvement associations which came into being after the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago — a spectacular showcase of buildings, architecture, and civic design, which inspired business and community leaders across the country to see what they might do to improve their cities.

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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".

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It may be a tad bit contrived to set up Garreau v. Duany as a symbol of the conflict, but there is a conflict, a historical one, which is represented by the products which these two have presented.

In Edge City, Garreau looks out and views the post WWII evolution of the built environment in our metropolitan regions: first the outmigration to the Levittowns and the Park Forests, then the auto-oriented shopping malls, then the nice clean electronic ratables and landscaped office parks. He sees a new coalescence of urbanized nodes (e.g., Tysons Corner), the product of free flowing free enterprise, he gives them a name, and he calls it good. He credits it to the deeply rooted good sense of the general public to know what is going to work.

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Most of us would like to think we are sort of mysterious and unfathomable, not in a devious way, but rather in some darkly romantic way. "Oh, that Rick Bradford, he's a deep one, I'll tell you. He knows a lot more than he lets on." There's a Rick Bradford in every romantic novel.

Alas, most of us are not mysterious, deep, unfathomable and darkly romantic. We're creatures of habit, quite predictable, and strung out on a network of routines that could be graphically portrayed by a spider web, with the spider calling the shots.

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No, this is not about class, it's about perception. And it is just about as difficult as are such ideas as time and space. Try to have fun with it.

As you read this, you are most likely in a room. Am I right so far? It is also likely that the room is square, or rectangular, that it has one or more doors, and one or more windows, a few electrical outlets and telephone connections, and a ceiling you might be able to touch if you're six and a half feet tall. You are in A PLACE. If you have been in this place for a few months or a few years, it probably has a comfortable den-like character. And it is reasonable to conjecture that the same fuzzy feeling obtains with regard to the apartment or house in which the room is located.

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[Caution: Put Tongue in Cheek Before Reading]

Contrary to convention wisdom, what's wrong with the country today is not solved by tax cuts for the middle classes. All this speechifying that is going on these days simply distracts us, even further, from the real problems and the real solutions. This is largely due to the fact that politicians don't really know what the problems are, so of course they probably can be excused for coming up with cockamamie solutions.

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For years professional societies, in behalf of their members, have been probing the many and varied information sources relevant to the purposes of the society and its membership. And having ingested and digested the information gleaned from that probing, they have packaged their findings and regurgitated same to their members. And, although that regurgitation is now a mix of paper and bytes, the central idea of association ingestion and regurgitation remains. And I would suggest that it is time to revisit that idea.

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For most people, I assume, the word "plan" suggests a scheme or program, prepared and used in order to accomplish some objective in the future. We're planning our vacation; we're planning for retirement. We don't plan backward, we plan ahead. At one time, in our profession, we too were focussed on the future, on The Plan for the future of our community. Known variously as the Master Plan, or the Comprehensive Plan, it was our device for achieving that elusive objective of a better city, one that maximized the opportunity for all people to realize their full potential. It was the focus, the raison d'etre, of our profession. And the "planning" we did was to produce that Plan, and to update it from time to time as conditions changed.

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