Michael Bayer - Becoming an Urban Planner: A Guide to Careers in Planning and Urban Design

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This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Bayer, Michael.

Becoming an urban planner : a guide to careers in planning and urban design / by Michael Bayer, Nancy Frank and Jason Valerius.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-27863-5 (pbk.)

1. City planning--Vocational guidance. I. Frank, Nancy (Nancy K.), 1954- II. Valerius, Jason. III. Title.

NA9013.B39 2010

307.1'216023--dc22

2009018435

Bayer: To Michelle, Adam, and Clark

Valerius: To Amy and Rhys

Frank: To Bill

About the Authors

Michael Bayer, AICP , is a senior planner with Environmental Resources Management in Annapolis, Maryland, where he develops comprehensive plans for local governments. He has a master's degree in urban planning from the University of WisconsinMilwaukee. As a planner and journalist, he has researched and written extensively about land use, transportation, urban redevelopment, and environmental policy.

Nancy Frank, AICP and Associate Professor, is chair of the urban planning program at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee, where she teaches planning theory and environmental planning. She holds a Ph.D. from the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy at the State University of New York at Albany. In addition to her teaching and research, Dr. Frank is the founder of a charter high school in Milwaukee, the School for Urban Planning and Architecture.

Jason Valerius, AICP , is a senior planner with MSA Professional Services, Inc. in Madison, Wisconsin, where he leads a team of planners and urban designers engaged in a wide range of planning for local government and private development clients. He has master's degrees in architecture and urban planning from the University of WisconsinMilwaukee and has made planning and design for sustainable communities a focus of his practice.

Preface

WHAT DO I WANT TO DO IN MY CAREER? This question is universal and is one urban planners ask themselves even years after they've entered the profession. For most people, there is no simple answer, because the choices we have are limited only by our imaginations, our experiences, our knowledge, and the opportunities that surround us and that we are able to create for ourselves and for others.

Deciding to enter the planning profession is a key point in a person's life. While many resources exist to guide a person through the process of choosing a school or introducing particular fields of planning, to date there has been no one guide that provided this information with real-life examples to demonstrate planning as it is lived. Becoming an Urban Planner seeks to serve an important functionto provide a portrait of urban planning through the eyes of its practitioners.

Although planners touch everybody's lives in many ways, from the moment we open the door to the time we park our car or bicycle at the end of the work day, very few people outside of the profession understand what planning is and what planners do.

Segments of the public have become more informed about planning as smart growth and New Urbanism have become prominent public issues and we as a nation grapple with growth, sprawl, traffic congestion, infrastructure, land use, and revitalization at scales from the street to the megaregion.

The challenges provided by these issues have inspired countless people to become urban planners. What many have quickly found is that these problems are complex and must be addressed across disciplines, both within planning and by collaborating with allied professions.

At its core, urban planning is about problem solving: identifying problems, analyzing these problems to create a basis for decision making, working with communities and stakeholders to develop alternatives, and, ultimately, to implement solutions that address the problems and result in tangible benefits. This problem solving happens in many contexts: in governments and the private sector, in small towns and large cities, on site-specific issues with a few key players, and on global problems that involve thousands of people. The input on these issues spans the gamut as well: from small public meetings and focus groups to large interactive gatherings featuring web-based involvement tools where people provide input using the latest advances in technology.

Even planners who commit early to a particular specialization within planning and become expert in specific planning tools and contexts cannot anticipate how their careers will evolve and what issues they will confront in the future.

Becoming an Urban Planner addresses this complexity through the eyes of more than 80 planners working across the United States and Canada in a variety of situations. Through this book, we try to put a face to this complexity, inspire potential planners to explore planning as a career, and provide all of the information you need to make a decision to pursue planning and chart a course for your career.