“What do Planners do?”

The Zoning Guru has been asked variations of this same question many times.

Urban Designer… Developer… Zoning Officer… Master Planner… Planning Commissioner… Elected Official… Grant Administrator… Advocate the public interest… Department Manager… Consultant… Teacher… Coordinator… Downtown Redevelopment Specialist… etc., etc.

Planners wear many hats, and specialize in many areas of community building. Here is The Zoning Guru’s first attempt at…

…identifying the ABC’s of community planning.  Feel free to post your own versions or alternatives for various letters in the “Comments” box below!

The ABC’s of Planning

Advocate

Balance

Champion

Design

Establish

Fight for

Guide

Harmonize

Interpret

Justify

Kibitz

Lead

Map

Negotiate

Outline

Promote

Quantify

Recommend

Survey

Teach

Unify

Vindicate

Write

Xerox

Yawn (Late Night Meetings)

Zone


UPDATE:

Click here for another urban planner’s perspective on “What do Planners Do?”

4 Responses to “The ABC’s of Planning”

  1. 10:15 am, 2 November, 2009 р.
    Tweets that mention The ABC’s of Planning - Building Place -- Topsy.com says:

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Alex and George Berger, David Gingras. David Gingras said: The last thing urban planners do is Zone. ABCs of Urban Planning. (RT @gosner) http://j.mp/4DvJ9D [...]

  2. 11:33 am, 2 November, 2009 р.
    uberVU - social comments says:

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by Pazzler: RT @gosner What do Urban Planners actually DO? Here it is from A to Z - http://j.mp/4DvJ9D...

  3. 5:01 pm, 3 November, 2009 р.
    rodneynanney says:

    I’ve already received “offline” suggestions that either “A” should be “Administrate” or “M” should be “Manage.” What do you think?

  4. 5:56 pm, 3 November, 2009 р.
    Wayne Senville says:

    For a “planning history” take on the alphabet, see our Planning ABCs: http://plannersweb.com/abc.html

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