Is Planning A Dying Profession?

A “debriefing” of the 2011 Camp Sequoia Planner’s Retreat Study Session
by Robert L. Borchard.

I think not! A “morphing” profession, perhaps. That is not to say that the planning profession is not under stress, particularly in these times of our new found “fiscal limits” at all levels of Government. We are, of course, are talking about local government (city and county) planning. At higher levels of government (federal and state) “Planning” seem to be thriving! There always seems to be enough money to fund State and Federal “planning” efforts. At the local level, however, things have been pretty tough these past few years. On the horizon, it looks like things are going to get a lot tougher!

At the San Joaquin Valley Division of Cal. Chapter APA Planner’s Retreat at Camp Sequoia, Planning as a Dying Profession was focus topic for a Saturday morning discussion group. I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to lead this discussion at this beautiful retreat located at the gateway to Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park in Central California.

The work session was inspired by a Web link with the headline “Is Planning a Dying Profession”? It was written by a Planning Professor from Chapel Hill. In this paper, Thomas J. Campanella, traced the decline of planning back to Jane Jacobs and her 1961 “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” linked at (http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&srchtype=discussedNews&gid=128742&item=52158934&type=member&trk=eml-anet_dig-b_pd-ttl-cn&ut=0-wFXuKPZRtkU1 )

He claims that the “Jacobson movement” has lead to our “profession’s” decline:
• It diminished the disciplinary identity of planning.
• The seeming paucity among American planners today of the speculative courage and vision that once distinguished this profession.
• Privileging the grassroots over plannerly authority and expertise meant a loss of professional agency.

How did we become a profession of Permit Processors? Who ARE the real planners? One of Mr. Campanella’s statements hit home with me and was the spark that inspired Planner’s Retreat discussion session; when local planners were questioned about “why major innovative planning directions were not initiated in the local planning Department”, the answer was that “they were too busy ‘planning’ to come up with any big plans”!

The discussion was far ranging and I could sense the frustration of most my peers. Budget cuts had decimated staff resources in every local government planning agency. The only planners who seemed to be untouched by this new governmental austerity were the “planners” from “above”.

I attempted to “narrow” the discussion to a couple key topics that I felt fairly well defined the issue. They were:
• Where Do YOU think the planning profession is headed?
• What do you think distinguishes YOU, as a “planner” from other municipal employees?
• What do YOU tell your children that YOU do for a living as a planner?
• The proper role of a City Planning Director; Planner or Administrator?
• From Permit Processor to Planner, how can we evolve?
• The proper role/value of “citizen planners” in the planning “process”?
• The role that our State laws and local codes play in degrading the value “planning”?

I asked the participants to rank the suggested topics so that we could limit the range of the discussion to fit the limits of our time for this subject. The group’s choice was to discuss the role of “citizen planners” (mandated public participation laws) and the impact of State Laws and mandates on local planning. These two topics seemed to go to the heart of my peers concerns and frustrations.

Perhaps the greatest frustration was with our State Rule makers. Their frustration was with the State’s apparent disconnect with the local planning process. Folks staffing State and Regional planning agencies seemed to be going on their merry way issuing new rules and edicts. that were, for the most part, unenforceable. The simple fact is that there are few planners left in the “local” planning trenches to carry out these marching orders issued from above!

Another source of frustration was with “mandated” public participation standards that did not promote good planning but rather promoted “nimbyism” or allowed local planning decision processes to be “hijacked” by politically inspired agendas that bore little or no relationship to local problem solving. For over an hour, the group vented their frustration with the dysfunctional local government “ planning system” that local public agency planners were forced to work with.

We talked a little about the changing world that we live and work in and how that impacts our role as local government planning professionals. The concept of paradigm shift on such a massive scale (global warming, economic, demographic, change, political extremism, etc.) and how that comes to roost in our local communities. The idea that “all planning is local” evolved for me that Saturday morning as I’m sure it did with many other study session participants.

During the Session Wrap-Up, I asked the attendees to describe their most important “planning” project that they were presently working on and what they brought to the table in the name of “planning”? There was a wide range of projects; important projects. All of these projects had a unique and significant impact on local cities or counties within which these planning professionals worked.

Interestingly enough, none of these “local” planning projects had anything to do with the large number of “planning” mandates that had been issued by the State of California or the edicts of any of the “regional” planning agencies in the state. Further more, the role of these “local” planners played in these important “local” planning projects was typically an “administrative”, “collaborative” or “coordinating” role. As the discussion progressed, it became apparent that local planners were the “getter done” players in their respective local governmental agencies.

It was clear that the “planners” role had evolved or morphed into something a little different than envisioned by Mr. Campanella and the other folks who commented on his Essay. It became clear to all of us that “planning was not a dying profession” it had simply changed to fit our changing social, economic and political world. We were part of a New Planning Profession and we were adapting to a changing world as best we could!

One aspect of this “new” planning professional was the “multi-disciplinary” skills that made these “planners” valuable players in the “local” planning game. They were, in a very true sense of the word, “Renaissance” men and women. Unlike their State and Regional Agency peers, these new age planners could not afford to be narrow specialists in any given field or discipline.

The new age local government planner had to have knowledge of traffic and transportation engineering techniques but were not engineers. They had to know how sewer, water and storm drain systems were designed but did not design these necessary infrastructure systems. Air quality, biological/riparian habitats, agricultural and urban economic system, they had a good working knowledge of how these disciplines worked and played a critical role in coordinating these different “schools” of thought to accomplish a “project” goal.

I came out of this Session with a new understanding and appreciation of what we, as planners, have become. I’ve read many of various “rants” about how the “planning” profession had “drifted” from its “design” based “roots” and become a “diluted” profession without a “place based focus”. This, I’ve come to understand, comes from folks, mostly in academia, who have lost (or perhaps never had) any real world involvement with “practitioners” in local planning.

This, in large measure, explains the failure of many of the “one-size fits all” regulatory schemas that have come “down” from our State agencies here in California. Of course, the failure of California’s Housing Element Law is just now beginning to be understood by many but that has not stopped the flow of “formula” types of regulatory laws and standards. Most of these programs have come from State Agencies staffed by individuals schooled in the theories that “planning” is not multi-disciplinary “art form” of civic place. Though these “planners” have been taught theories of “public participation” and understand its techniques, few understand the strengths and weaknesses of the role of “citizen planners”.

As I listened to my peers, over the course of this morning Session, I came to realize how (and why) planning, as a profession, has lost respect among many. The entire organizational “top-down” structure of our State directed” planning system has set US up to fail. The misguided Housing Element law is only one example of “failed” State planning. The decline of our State’s economy to perform competitively may be the direct result of the centralization of power and administrative “authority” in Sacramento. It has killed the “local” innovative spirit that is typically dismissed as “local politics” by academics and State level administrators.

This is not to say that we have problems of “regional” or “statewide” scope; we do! But rather than provide local governments, cities, counties, special districts, with a broad set of guidelines within which to devise solutions to OUR problems, the “one-size fits all” solutions flow down from on high killing “local” oriented solutions and adaptations. This arrogance that assumes that the same solutions, to our problems, apply equally to a jurisdiction of millions of people and a jurisdiction with under 10,000 has destroyed our States economy and undermined our local governments effectiveness to govern. It is killing our creative problem solving instincts as planners and stifled innovation that once was the hallmark of California government.

This arrogance exists at both the legislative and administrative levels of our State Government. The vulnerability of our state elected legislators to the influence of well funded lobbying groups has resulted in many of the misguided laws that have spawned expensive and misguided regulatory systems. At the same time, our state’s bureaucratic system has become completely insulated from direct accountability to any elected Governor or Legislator. It has, in a very real sense, become our “third” governmental estate.

So here we are, a small group of professional “local” government planners, discussing our “dying profession” on a beautiful sunny morning overlooking Sequoia Lake. Maybe it was the thin air at the 5,000 foot elevation, maybe it was the company. At any rate, for me, it was a “watershed” moment. At countless small discussions that occurred throughout the day after our working session was over, I came away from the Retreat with the impression that these feelings were generally shared by my peers. We are not part of a “dying” profession!

One thought that came out of Session that seemed to tie it all together was the phrase “doing things right is not necessarily doing the right thing”. Yes, we are mandated by “State Law” and regulation to do “things” right but that does not relieve us, as Planners from interjecting our voice into the process; do the “right” thing. That “planning” voice is typically heard at our city council or board of supervisor meetings; before the local elected officials whom we serve. Our voice, also, needs to be heard at the State level. We, as local government planners, need to try and educate our peers at the state level. We, through our professional bodies such as APA, the League of Cities, CSAC, etc., need to try and get OUR message through to our State elected officials.

No, “Planning is NOT a Dying Profession”. That does not mean, however, that is can’t be killed if we do not develop a clear understanding of our new role and accept our new responsibilities. Planning, as a profession, has “evolved” from a simple “design” oriented profession into a profession of individuals who understand, and manage, the complex “city building” process. We, as professionals, have grown. Once we understand our new role in local government organization, we can regain the respect that has been lost; we can begin to play and effective role in the organization and direction of our built environments. We can lay claim to the title of “City Planner” in this new Millennium.

The "Devolution" of Planning

Where have all the “planners” gone now that we need them most?

Over the past few years I’ve watched the “frog come to a boil”; you know the story, right? If you throw a frog into hot water it will jump out but if you put the frog in cold water and slowly bring it to a boil, it will stay in the pot and boil to death. Somehow I feel like the planning “profession” is being boiled to death as a result of slow changes that are destroying what we have historically valued most as planners. Our capacity to Plan!

I guess what has brought all this into focus for me recently has been the “Valley Blueprint” planning process that has been underway in California’s central valley for the past few years. This was a well funded State program that has spent millions of dollars with Council’s of Government (COGs) to prepare a Valley-Wide Blueprint for Growth” for the Central Valley “Region”.

The program was billed as a “bottom up” effort to get the California Central Valley on track for a future of “growth” and “agricultural preservation”; historically, two mutually exclusive planning concepts. The program was anything but a “bottom up” effort. Consultant teams held countless “local” meetings and “workshops” in a vain effort to “engage” the public in “good planning practice”. Local city and county planners were “coordinated” with but had no real role in this planning consultant driven process. The new planning concept? “Increased Density”.

To get to this “solution” consultant planning teams, along with their COG “administrators” drafted up “Blueprints” that were to be adopted by local jurisdictions indirectly. Indirectly because a city council or board of supervisors never voted on any of this. They participated because THEY had a representative on a COG Board Director’s that had voted for it.

In reality, local City Councils, Planning Commissions and Boards of Supervisors were never really brought into the process in any meaningful way nor did they vote the “Blue Print” up or down. This was assumed to be “OK” because the individual cities and county agencies had “representatives” on each of the individual COGs. Remember, this is a “bottom up” process; the Blueprint consultants and COG staff met with “the people” in their workshops and public meetings. They were delivering the message to the “elected” folks about what the “people” want!

Millions have been spent, documents/plans have been published and now we are about to implement “the people’s plan” for the future of the Central San Joaquin Valley. The Blueprint Implementation Plan is now in circulation. This Implementation Plan has several key components but the most telling element, the place where the water comes to “boil” for the frog; 1) “regional” organization that will direct the implementation of this “plan” and the fact that the implantation plan will be financed with a combination of 2) local government “fee” revenue and “grant” funds from the bankrupt State of California.

This is where the fun begins. Presumably, local cities and counties would have to “vote” for these fee and tax increases! Would these increases have to go to a “vote” of the electorate? Could this be accomplished with a simple majority or require and super-majority (2/3 majority) vote?

The realization, by the Blueprint planners and consultants, that the implementation of the Blueprint was going to rest with local city and county governments was always there but the “light” never came on until we get to the point where the “rubber meets the road”; money? Who is going to pay for all this? Of course there was always the thought that state law could be changed transferring some of the local government “police” power to a “regional planning agency” along with some taxing or fee authority. There are several “regional” agencies already in existence (air and water) and, of course, there is the famous “Oregon” Regional Planning Model.

Throughout the process there has been another aspect of the Blueprint that was seldom talked about but was implied. There is a “hammer” in the process of “implementing” the Blueprint. Local funding for streets and roads. It is not by accident that the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is the key California State Agency directing the “blueprint” effort. Failure, by local governments to meet the “standards” of the Blueprint” can result in local cities and counties losing some, if not all, of their transportation improvement/maintenance funds.

This is a serious “hammer”. Local cities and counties have been “hammered” by the state “appropriating” locally originated funds (taxes) and “redistributing these funds with “conditions”. City and county governments took a major hit with the passage of Proposition 13 and the “hits” have just kept coming. Now the state is making a grab for local Redevelopment funds. As a result, cities and counties have struggled to improve and maintain infrastructure and must depend on the generosity of the State of California to provide services and infrastructure that residents demand.

As I read through this “Blueprint Implementation Plan” the idea began to sink in. The money to finance this “plan” would come from us in the “trenches” and go to a regional agency. That is the pattern that has characterized State-Local relationships for many years. Originally, “local county” governments were organized in California to raise revenue to support State Government. County governments were known as “creatures of the state”; ergo, we have “county” assessors’ offices that work under the general authority of the State Board of Equalization.

The responsibility to implement the Blueprint would go back down to us folks in the “trenches” of planning; the local city and county “planning” agencies. Local “planners”, after all, know all about implantation, it’s planning skills that they lack. This is the beginning feel like the end for local government “planning” as we’ve known it in the past, the “frog” water is boiling. Is that a good thing?

Over the years I’ve watched my profession “devolve”. Local government planners have become a professional cadre of “permit processors” and “administrators” for the most part. While there are some notable exceptions, “Real” planning has been contracted out to planning consultants. Planning “leadership” has tended to gravitate to the professional “administrator” who had expertise in bidding and managing “planning” consultant contracts.

It is not by accident that we find “planning” administrators increasingly tapped to be City Managers or become Community Development Directors with broad responsibilities of planning, engineering, parks and recreation, etc. The role of the “planner” has been diluted, at least in some eyes, to the role of the “administrator” in the local government organization chart.

How did we get here? It was a slow process at first; the cold water part of boiling a frog. You contract for the services of scientist (historian, biologist, etc.) and engineer (traffic, water, sewer, etc.) they provide you with the “raw” information you need to formulate “your” plan. Then, we get so busy with the process of entitlement processing (CEQA, public hearings, staff reports, etc.) that there just is no time for “planning”. The next “devolutionary” step is the “planning consultant”. The “firm” that pulls the plan together, hires the technical staff and even “administers” and coordinates the public review process.

So, what is missing in this process? It is efficient, right? We get the plan we need and it always conforms to the requirements of state law. Perhaps “public” tends to be a “fluff” job that attempts to “educate” people to their “real” needs; the process seldom plays a significant part in the process because the “plans” tend to avoid issues of serious conflict. The “plans” are “general” abstract and typically fail to deal with the “hot button” issues that will energize a neighborhood in a public hearing. That comes later and is left to the local planners in the “trenches”.

So, what is missing in this system? Capacity!

Local city and county “planning” staff, the people who have the most knowledge about the planning-public interface are no longer engaged in the “real” process of “planning”.

How about “Uniqueness”? The unique quality of a community, the “something that makes OUR city “special” tends to get lost in this process. The “cost-effective” approach uses a formula that result, more often than not, in a “cookie cutter” or boiler plate document that “meets the requirement of state law. The out-of-town “planning team” has no identity with the local setting, it people and the political/economic and organizational history of the local planning agency.

The process does reduce the stress level for planning staff and even elected officials. Mistakes, miss-steps and bad calls can be blamed on the “out-of-town” guy/gal and we simply ask them to fix it. The overall result is that local planning staff don’t grow and learn from the process. Local public officials seldom “direct” this planning effort and the planning agency, itself, fails to develop the capacity to plan!

Another “devolving” aspect of this process is that as educated and dedicated “planners” we have a creative instinct and a need to actualize that instinct. We do it through implementation of the “planning” areas where we still do have some element of control; regulation!

As planners, we are constantly expanding and refining our “administrative” rules and codes to make the “permitting” process more effective and efficient. Of course, we have the legal system working closely with us to “force” us into new sets of rules and processes; this is what “local planning” has become or is becoming. We are “implementers” We write and administer the rules that implement the “plan”.

As a result, our local planning processes have become top-heavy, cumbersome and, in this economic climate, unsustainable. We can easily terminate “planning” staff because there are fewer permits to process and “planning” is done by those out-of-town guys anyway. The sad part of this “downward spiral” is that local government planners become less qualified for real planning jobs in an economically challenging time and gravitate to non-planning professions. Instead of building on our resource of local expertise, we have devalued it and diminished the value of the “profession” as a whole.

At the same time, the folks who are doing “planning” at the consultant or regional level, have lost contact with the context and constraints encountered by working in the “trenches”. This disconnect between the “planners” and the “implementers” has resulted in a Valley Blue Print document that comes lightly to the conclusion that a “regionally” focused agency can “coordinate” or direct the “local” planning effort and that “local” $$$s can be easily sent to the “agency” to pay for this program.

So here we are, ripe for the plucking! A Valley Blueprint that is regionally based and will direct how “local” planning will be “coordinated” in the future. It will be a “consultant” driven process that reflects the “regional” administrative organizational mindset of the COG’s and meet the “planning consultant” needs for a “market”. Planning and “local” will become an oxymoron. So, what is being lost in this process? I guess I will leave that question for the academics who promote this concept of “regionalism” as the BEST solution to our “planning problems”.