An Italian View of U.S. Planning

"For all the American architects and planners who travel to Europe to study how the Old World built cities, Claudia Trillo did the reverse.

A Fulbright scholar, city planner and assistant professor at the University of Naples, Trillo spent the last six months in San Diego to see how a Southern California city battles sprawl with smart-growth principles."

“In the last few years, sprawl has been plaguing Europe,” she said, and San Diego has the reputation in worldwide planning circles for planning smart – even if locals here don't believe it.

"She also said NIMBYism – “not in my backyard” objections to development – is so common in land-use issues that Italians have adopted the term without translation into an Italian equivalent.

Of particular interest to her once she arrived in November was the intertwining of local and regional interests and priorities, as evidenced by work at the San Diego Association of Governments and in the many local and state agencies that affect land-use decisions.

“I realized that the level of democratic discussion is much higher,” she added."