City Planners Who Hate Cities
In late 2006, when – in defense of compact, walkable urban design -- I pointed out to my fellow planning staff colleagues at a staff meeting that tourists throughout the world visit Italian rather than American cities, one of my colleagues disagreed and pointed to Las Vegas.
I'd be curious to know what they consider a model city. Houston? Atlanta?
Similar thoughts are expressed by many other friends and neighbors I speak with.
At this city planning staff meeting, I learned that the planning manager and a senior planner both hate Italian cities and believe they are ugly.
Quite illuminating.
When you corner these urban design philistines who happen to be town planners, what you learn is that they really don't like cities. One wonders why on earth they became city planners.
Perhaps to destroy cities that hire them?
And yes, when I hear people on my staff (nearly all of them) bitterly attack (or laugh at) Andres Duany and New Urbanism, one has to wonder who they would hold up as their example of an admirable contemporary planner/designer. Best guess: It doesn’t matter to them.
They are planners only because it provides a job and an income.