City Planner Brent Toderian was on a panel in San Francisco this week, along with other American city planners – covered here – as they engaged in a little mea culpa.
“Because of the failure of the planning profession in the past, we’ve gotten quiet, we’ve gotten a little too meek,” said Brent Toderian, Vancouver’s planning director. “We serve at the will of politicians, and are often unwilling to speak truth to power loudly and persuasively and in public. I think that’s really been
an absolving of our leadership responsibilities in the profession.”
In Vancouver, planning directors do not serve at the will of the mayor, and are appointed through a selection committee process and approved by the city council. As a result, said Toderian, the discussion about planning is much more vigorous and productive.
“In the absence of that willingness to have those kinds of tough, tense conversations, sometimes the best answers, the best options, are never put on the table,” he said. “If Planning’s not putting those options and issues on the table, then it’s our fault that politicians aren’t making better decisions.”
“While the directors didn’t lack for bold visions, some lamented the planning field’s fixation on avoiding undesirable consequences. ‘I’d have to say, especially in California, unfortunately, the field has evolved into focusing on preventing bad things from happening instead of making good things happen,’ said Bill Anderson, San Diego’s planning head.”
