Tag Archives: planning

Development Professional Available

Friends, I am currently seeking a new opportunity in community and economic development, policy analysis or public administration, particularly in the Rocky Mountain or Great Plains states.  I do my best work with a small team of professionals dedicated to excellence … Continue reading

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Meet Some New Friends Doing Interesting Things In Community Development

Spring is in the air.  Local citizens are coming out of their winter’s cocoons and are eager to do something.  You’re right on top of that, coaxing your friends and neighbors to stop pushing buttons (between planning and doing) and starting … Continue reading

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Strategic Doing

So you’ve got a problem. Or your community has a problem, and despite yourself you’ve found yourself on a committee to do something about it.  What do you do?  Gather the usual suspects, pour some weak coffee and bring in … Continue reading

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Know Thyself and Your Community

“Know Thyself” urges the inscription on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, repeated throughout the Platonic dialogues of ancient Greece.  In 1651, Thomas Hobbes opens Leviathan by urging his readers nosce te ipsum—only by study can we understand our world. In building community, no … Continue reading

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Implementation is the Watchword

Most people have a hard-wired bias for action — they may place more or less value on collaboration, or risk-taking, but they want to get things done.  Others of us are more concerned with taking our time to understand what were doing, … Continue reading

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Planetizen Benchmarks How Tech Savy Your City Planners Might Be

Remember when the Internet was going to make our lives easier?  Everything was going to be available anytime, anywhere.  Sometimes it feels like the web has just made everything more difficult, more complicated.  Yet sometimes, when we look up from … Continue reading

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Small Victories: A Public Participation Save in South Cheyenne

“You can’t save everybody / Everybody don’t want to be saved” –Kieran Kane Everybody agreed the unincorporated community needed attention. The County Comprehensive Plan had highlighted concerns with increasing density in the area just outside city limits. The City Comp … Continue reading

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Diary of Orrin Brown—Oct 8, 1864

Diary of Orrin Brown, Kalamazoo, Michigan Oct. 8th Arrived at Kalamazoo at about 4:30AM, rained the most of the time yesterday and last night. Took Breakfast and dinner at the Burdick House, got some tintypes taken, found out that the … Continue reading

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What Makes a Great Planner?

The Planning Institute of Australia—counterpart to our American Planning Association—is asking its members a simple question:  What Makes a Great Planner?  Kristy Kelly, PIA’s CEO, shared their inquiry on the LinkedIn APA discussion group recently.  As I’ve worked through my … Continue reading

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The Best of the New? Or the Worst of Both Worlds? A Walk in a Hybrid Power Center

New Urbanism and neotraditional planning offers to bring the best of traditional town planning to new development.  I generally like the idea, in large part because the “new” that I’ve lived out in the suburban sprawl hasn’t stood up well. … Continue reading

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