Jane Jacobs and the Death and Life of American Planning

Jane Jacobs and the Death and Life of American Planning

Provocative comments from a professor of urban planning, but some of the best ideas are rebuttals in the comments: "...what does it say about our profession when a group of citizens -- most with no training in architecture, planning or design -- comes up with a very good idea that the planners should have had? When I asked about this, the response was: 'We're too busy planning to come up with big plans.' Too busy planning. Too busy slogging through the bureaucratic maze, issuing permits and enforcing zoning codes, hosting community get-togethers, making sure developers get their submittals in on time and pay their fees. This is what passes for planning today. We have become a caretaker profession -- reactive rather than proactive, corrective instead of preemptive, rule bound and hamstrung and anything but visionary. "