Bill Fulton Charts a Path for San Diego's Urban Evolution

"When I arrived in San Diego as planning director 18 months ago, I came with a strong sense of mission," writes William ("Bill") Fulton to open the column. "My job, as I saw it, was to help the city successfully transition from a suburban to an urban place. This transition still seems inevitable to me. And I still believe that if San Diego does not confront this challenge directly, it will become not an elegant and well-functioning 21st century city, but rather an unworkable jumble of halfhearted efforts to both embrace and repel a more urban future."

Fulton, well known in planning circles as the former mayor of Oxnard, former vice president at Smart Growth America, and the publisher of the California Planning & Development Report, goes on to provide anecdotes from the up-and-down history of delivering on the state mission of his position as he issues a clear call to action for the city and its leaders to support the City of Villages planning agenda adopted by the city a decade ago.