Former San Diego Planning Director Examines Efforts to Revive the City's Planning Department

Following the election of Mayor Bob Filner last November, San Diego is anticipating a separation of its Planning and Permitting departments, which were merged into a single Planning and Development Services agency as part of former Mayor Jerry Sander's recessionary budget-tightening.

In the following interview with The Planning Report, Anderson, president-elect of the American Planning Association, and Principal, Vice President and Director of Economics and Planning for US West at AECOM, describes the varying organization, agendas, and partnerships of "best practice" planning departments, from Portland to Pittsburgh, that San Diego has studied as models for its own restructuring. 

Anderson notes that a city is most successful in achieving its planning goals when its planning department is tailored to the uniqueness of that vision. For San Diego, this means a department that can deliver on economic development and sustainability.