Rock Stars
Originally published at TERRAPLANNER. You can comment here or there.
It was like the red carpet scene at a Hollywood premiere. People cheering as the guests of honor arrived to take their place at the table. Strutting in together with flashes bulbs blinding the room as they take their seat. You might ask yourself who are these people, and is this what happens when you get seven planning directors from seven major cities together at one event? Well, not exactly like this, but its what played out in my head as the a great discussion got on its way.
Last week I had the pleasure of attending a question and answer panel that featured the planning directors for the cities of San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Minneapolis, and New York City. The event was entitled Planning on the Edge: A Conversation with Six Planning Directors, which took advantage of the timing of the Urban Lands Institute’s annual conference being held here in San Francisco. While the line up initially included six, Barbara Sporlein, Planning Director for the city of Minneapolis was included last minute. Held within the North Light Court room of San Francisco’s City Hall, the event managed to fill seats with many standing shortly after starting.
As questions were asked with each director providing excellent responses, I couldn’t help but sit there and think “wow, these’s guys are like the fucking rock stars of the planning industry”. I turned around only to be surprised every seat was filled, and people standing in the back. Fellow planners, interns, architects, citizens, urban geeks alike where all there like a cult following of fans here to listen to these superheros of urbanism. It was inspiring to see that, and to know there was some respect for our line of work, and believe in our mission.
The directors were asking various questions and moderated by SPUR’s Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf, ranging from the challenges faced in their cities to the their views on the profession itself. Most offered insightful responses, others I felt could have given us just a little more, and one in particular would have been better not saying anything at all. But hey, every group rock group needs the eccentric crazy outspoken bass player, right? Each discussed the deficients in their cities, who they sought to model their city after, and boasted their cities mentioning examples of great achievements. Overall the group was well received and knowledgeable in their responses, on the average.
The biggest take away from the night was the responses when asked their views on where the profession is heading. Many expressed that planning has become more reactionary in the wake of things gone wrong in the past, which sometimes hinder the ability to be bold, progressive while being proactive. A few mentioned the political hurdles that is all too common in the industry. But to me, the most profound comments came from Vancouver’s Planning Director Brent Toderian. Passion, is what lacked in the profession, and the planners of the present and future need not to hold that in. It needs to come out regardless of what box they may be restricted to.
“Because of the failure of the planning profession in the past, we’ve gotten quiet, we’ve gotten a little too meek. We serve at the will of politicians, and are often unwilling to speak truth to power loudly and persuasively and in public. I think that’s really been an absolving of our leadership responsibilities in the profession. In the absence of that willingness to have those kinds of tough, tense conversations, sometimes the best answers, the best options, are never put on the table.”
Of course, this coming from the Canadian who department doesn’t serve at the will of the mayor in the city of Vancouver. But this alone spoke volumes to me. There are moments in my young career where I question what I got myself into, thinking I’m in a profession that virtually is impossible to do the things we need to do to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public in a planned manner. After a long day of being beaten up at the office, I can not tell you how many times I stare out the window at the developed landscape on my the train commute home and think to myself “what’s the point?” It’s not hard to come to that, but there are moments where the hidden passion for the art and science of planning is found again, and without a question remember why I’m doing this. Like the band playing the last ballad of the night, I rose my lighter into the sky as Mr. Toderian sang the lyrics to an emotional sonnet every planner needed to hear. What I needed to hear.
In the political frame work in many municipalities and regional agencies across the United States, a planner working on the line processing permits can easily loose focus and drive of such admirations of serving the better good of the developed world. Sometimes the passion is dulled away by the mundane tasks of processing permits, striping a planner’s skill to evaluate in favor of what you’re being told could be written. It’s not uncommon at times to feel like my job is more of a creative writer than it a planner. My abilities to assess, evaluate and recommend a course of action is trumped by precedence and political clout. It shouldn’t be this way. A planner needs to feel like he’s charged with saving the world, even if its by one fence height exception or variance at a time. It’s important to have that drive, to know that you will do your utmost to determined how one tiny miniscule detail will have an affect on six billion related details and possible consequences. Sounds like it can be overwhelming? That’s because it is, and a planner expects no less to exhaust solutions for wicked problems that in the end will still lack a 100% evaluation. But aside from such an exhaustive evaluation of even the simplest proposal, where we shine is the determination of the “best” solution. There is pride to be taken from that, and that’s hard to do when you’re already told how a project will be decide upon. It’s even harder to not feel like you’re efforts are pointless towards saving the world, and sometimes it takes a rock star to remind you that is not the truth.
What should have been a follow up question to Mr. Toderian’s responses is what his thoughts are on capturing said passion he speaks of, and how us poor saps down here can execute that passion without looking for another job. I’m sure he doesn’t have answer, but I’m not sure who would. I think the only person who could is the individual planner, and for myself, I still search for that. How can I be an advocate where I am now, and how can I be advocate on a much larger stage? How can I invigorate my fellow downtrodden planners as agents of change and superheros the world requires? How do I convince our constituents I’m not here to take away your god damn property rights or build freeway in your backyard? But I think the most important question I need ask myself is “how can I be a planning rock star someday?”
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