An Un-Planned Neighborhood Gets APA Award for Planning

"We were surprised that the American Planning Association recently named Montrose one of its '10 Great Neighborhoods' for 2009. Montrose is a great place. But does it, as the association writes, 'highlight the roles that planners and planning play in creating communities of lasting value'?

We think that planning helped make Montrose what it is. But much of what's great about that funky urban neighborhood had nothing to do with planning — and in fact, arose in spite of it."