[brudgers]

At the professional level, urban planners meet confidentially with developers and figure out how to make projects happen. What you see is what money wants to do. The professional urban planner's job is to generate economic development. Theories live in the academy.

[sk1459]

A planner at my firm recently told me, with complete confidence, that on-street parking increases safety. Then I was told that research from AASHTO was just not something this person agreed with, and haven’t I heard of Strong Towns? Here’s a lovely YouTube video.

I wanted to rip my own eyes out.

[brudgers]

The planners at the firm are paid to do what paying clients want. That’s what everyone there is supposed to do. What matters is that checks don’t bounce.

[sk1459]

I’m actually trying to say that it is an industry dominated by snake-oil, charlatans and coffee-table “science”. There is no standard or obvious measure of performance, and liability is usually of little concern. The planners I know are hardly puppets of the real estate cabal and much more victims of naïveté and wiz-bang marketing. Like, I’m assuming rails-devs a decade ago and, maybe, rust devs today.