On Plans That Turn Out Like News Years’ Resolutions

"We plan. We like to plan. Because it’s fun. We have a planning council. One of our suburbs is called Plano, and we have a movie set here that made famous the phrase 'Planning to Plan'," according to an article by Robert Mundinger.

After noting the many planning efforts currently or recently underway in Dallas, Mundinger decides to critique planning in the city by evaluating the goals of previous plans from the city’s history. His conclusion after evaluating planning on eight specific local and regional goals:

There’s a lesson here. These are just plans. They’re just pieces of paper. They’re the equivalent of getting a sticky note out on January 1 and writing  “I’m going to run 5 miles every day this year.” That’s the easy part. Execution is hard…

…We make shiny plans with renderings. We go to charrettes and place sticky notes on maps. We meet for hours at a stretch talking about data. That fools us into feeling like we’ve accomplished something. But we haven’t.

As an alternative to the old ways of planning, and for a chance to succeed in delivering on goals for the city, Mundinger suggests following the example of Better Block, "which got a $775,000 grant from the Knight Foundation" to demystify and redefine the planning process.