Planning

During my fifteen-year consulting career I have worked for dozens of clients in numerous countries on every continent except Antarctica (I’m still waiting for a penguin transport management contract). One of this year’s clients was the government of Dubai. It has been interesting, challenging and often frustrating. Colleagues frequently ask about it, since many are considering similar work. Let me describe my experiences there.

The United States has been reborn. The election of Barack Obama has put – or reintroduced – the United States to the world stage as a beacon of hope for all people. We have proven that we believe and embody the ideals of equality and equal opportunity and that these ideals are the right of every citizen and not just a few. More importantly, this election is a ray of hope for our nation. We advanced the fight against racism to elect the first black president of the United States. Barack Obama’s election also gives hope to Americans as we witness and feel the stinging affects of the economic and housing crises, the energy crisis and two wars.

A PLANNER’S PRAYER

Next week, Jews around the world (including myself) will spend the day in synagogue for Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement.  On that day, we will pray for forgiveness for our sins.  One Yom Kippur prayer, the Al Chet (Hebrew for “for the sin”) lists a variety of sins, requesting Divine forgiveness for each. (One English translation can be found at www.chabad.org/holidays/JewishNewYear/template_cdo/aid/6577/jewish/Text-of-Al-Chet.htm )

The newest Drew Carey video at Reason.tv—Mexicans and Machines: Why Its Time to Lay Off NAFTA—is (IMHO) brilliant, and triggered more than a couple of thoughts about how technology and progress creates practical challenges for planning.

I was reading the New York Times Magazine special architecture issue a few weeks ago when something jumped out at me. On the intro page to the issue of the “Mega-Megalopolis” one of the by-line says “How does an architect plan for a city with no history? Or a city that just keeps growing?” Interesting questions particularly given the fact that to charge architects with the task of planning our cities is affording too much power to a profession that simply doesn’t have it.

My graduate school education left me with a lot of general ideas and a handful of specific ones. One that stuck with me is a concept from landscape architecture: the desire path. Technically, the term means a path where there isn't supposed to be one, a trail of wear and tear that wasn't planned.

We’ve all been subject to them – the endless powerpoint presentations that extol the worst aspects of animated text and mind-numbing bullet points. While Edward Tufte has written about the horrors of powerpoint, I see it as just a tool and like any tool it can be used wisely or poorly. After all, David Byrne, the former Talking Heads front man, makes art with powerpoint so it can’t be all bad. But one thing struck me at the American Planning Association’s (APA) conference two weeks ago: some sessions would have been much better if the powerpoint presentation (or abuse thereof) didn’t get in the way. In actuality, some of the best presentations I attended didn’t use powerpoint at all.