Nurmeberg-like trials for urban planners
Submitted by: misterconcrete
3 July 2008 - 9:57pm
Far from the halls of academia, urban planners have been busily rubber-stamping approval of the wholesale destruction of the American landscape for the last century. Every single bit of sprawl and ugliness out there was rubber stamped by a so-called urban planner.
When will these people and this so called profession be held accountable for laying waste to this country? Why was not the sprawl denied and stopped? How long can they hide behind the Constitution and continue to draw a salary?
What is the point of this profession, exactly?
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Sprawl and Ugliness
I'm not sure that planners and politicians are really to blame for how our cities have formed. I'm pretty sure the automobile, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, and glorification of big front lawns all played a part as well. There are definitely some other social factors involved, but that list is good for now.
I will also say that I'm not so sure that suburbia is bad or ugly. It offers a product that many people are still willing to buy into (almost 60 years after Levittown's completion). Who are we to tell people where and how to live? Economics will change behavior, not the planner's pen. As the price of gasoline rises, you may see more changes in social behavior.
When the time comes for change (and I believe the time is near), planners will be there to provide solutions. Planning is about working with people to give them what they want (safety, privacy, community, employment, transportation, entertainment, etc.) in the best form possible. Planning is certainly NOT about telling people what to do and how to live.
Planners And Sprawl
This obviously should not condemn all planning, but if you read the planning theory written from the 1930s through the 1950s, you will see that city planners virtually all agreed that it was a good thing to build freeways and encourage sprawl. This ideas were an over-reaction against the dense urban slums of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and they involved excessive faith in technology and progress (which planners shared with most people at the time). Even Lewis Mumford, who later became one of the early critics of freeways and Levittown, supported freeways and low-density suburbs during the 1930s.
This planning theory was, in good part, responsible for post-war federal policy that supported freeways and neglected public transportation. Planners tended to lead the way because they focussed on the issue, just as planners are now leading the way to transit-oriented development and walkable neighborhoods because they focus on the issue.
These early planners did, in fact, tell people what to do and how to live. Because of this early planning theory, the US spent 25 years after World War II building virtually all new neighborhoods as freeway-oriented sprawl, leaving people with little choice but to live in these neighborhoods. These were the days before public input and before environmental politics, when people generally thought that the experts were most qualified to make this sort of decision.
Charles Siegel
You don't get it, do you?
You don't get it, do you? Planners don't make land use decisions they provide analysis and recommendations to the elected officials. Conduct some research and develop an understanding of the profession before you make such statements.
Yes, how dare I state the
Yes, how dare I state the obvious - that this profession has been complicit in the destruction of the American countryside and landscape? Yes, it was the elected officials, right. What exactly did this profession do to stop suburban sprawl, aside from writing interminable books condemning it? What support did the profession give to the planners in the field who had to stand up to the developers and "elected officials" but couldn't. What support does the profession give to the small proportion of planning students who have been militantly anti-suburban sprawl?
I say, on with the trials and let us be rid of this "profession". It is nothing but a rubber stamp for suburbia, much as 1 part per million of chlorine in your drinking water is OK, because it is approved by the EPA.
It's been my experience that
It's been my experience that things that happen and survive in this country do so because the public wants it and pays for it. Since most local and state governments are still representative of the people, and are driven in part by political will and in larger part by, again, money, we often see things happen and survive that defy common sense or the best protestations of the planning profession.
I'd venture to say the the planners out there have the ability to see a little farther ahead than most when it comes to the impacts of development, and as a profession, have consistently included that messaging in thier reports and analysis. The fact that the decision makers may choose to ignore, or minimize that message is not part of the planner's purview, under the current representational political structure. We are advisors, and it is up to the prince to make the decision.
If you don't like the decisions that are being made, you should elect a new prince, or, perhaps become the prince yourself. If the planners become the princes, they compromise their objectivity and professionalism...it's the nature of the roles within the system. Get involved and make a difference as a prince, work to change the public's opinions and priorities as an activist or priest, or develop the skills to advise the prince when he faces difficult decisions -- but don't tear apart the only system we have without a solution in mind for a better alternative.
Robert E. Smith, AICP
Anvil Partners, LLC
www.anvilpartners.us
http://www.linkedin.com/in/robertesmith
No one wants Private Property Rights legislation so try this.
Lemme guess: This post is written like someone is either sad about no one voting for anti-zoning...er...private property rights initiatives (if there is such a groundswell, where are they on this year's ballots?), or someone wants to rezone their property and cannot, so they want to eliminate planners. Well bew-hoo-hoo.
Talk about argument from logical fallacy (hasty generalization, conflation, incorrect premise, bare assertion, Post hoc ergo propter hoc, failure to provide burden of proof, take your pick).
For others who may read this thread, one of the main issues in zoning to stop sprawl is regular folk want single-use zoning to protect their property values. So they lobby their Councilperson-American and then the politician directs staff to ensure single-use zoning across 80% of the town for single-fam detached with big yards for the 1.0 child and yellow Labrador retriever, despite the fact that this demographic is far less than half the population. Obsolete parking standards and traffic throughput ideas reinforce the status quo.
As Euclidean zoning goes away, Patriotic Americans will have greater choice in housing and sprawl will slow. That is, provided we can continue to afford housing choices after the economic shakeout subsides.
The neoconservative ideology of "free" markets and little of th' regalayshun has failed for those of us who don't own multinational corporations. We are watching the failure rapidly unfold before our eyes (and the movement of capital upward into the hands of a few), and we all will be paying for it for decades in dollars and reactionary regulation.
Paroxysms such as misterconcrete's forum post are to be expected from this unfolding. Let it go, son, and move on.
Best,
D