On the way back from the dog park yesterday, I drove down Niagara Falls Boulevard, a busy commercial strip north of Buffalo that is the dividing line between the power suburb of Amherst and the more proletarian community of Tonawanda. Outside of a short, tree-lined and brick-paved stretch in Buffalo, Niagara Falls Boulevard was never an attractive street. However, as the sun faded, Niagara Falls Boulevard seemed even uglier than ever. Both the Amherst and Tonawanda sides of the street were lined with freestanding signs bearing electronic message centers. Many were in full animated mode, with constant chasing lights, transitions, cartoons, and the like. Storefront windows were filled with "open" signs with chasing letters and blinking frames, neon beer and lottery signs that flashed on and off, and electronic displays scrolled away in their storefronts. On the Tonawanda side, an abundance of Canadian-style portable signs, with multi-colored fluorescent letters on black backgrounds, only exacerbated the visual blight. The scene resembled Las Vegas Boulevard more so than Niagara Falls Boulevard.

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The economy is beginning a slow climb out of the abyss, but the construction sector is in the gutter and will be for quite some time. Even when it starts to grow again, it won't be like it was during the boom years. Municipal budgets are eviscerated and are projected to only get worse for the next couple of years, as if there was such a thing as 'worse' than didn't involve cuts to essential government services. New grads can no longer break into the field and existing planners cannot advance in their careers. The urban planning job market has become a machine whose gears no longer turn, having become locked and fused together.

I wanted to start a thread to discuss the various options available to us. What avenues of success have people found? I know a couple of Cyburbians have found new planning gigs as of late. If there are any lurkers who have left the profession temporarily or for good, what fields are you in now, and how did you make the transition? For those of you weathering the storm in your planning gigs, what kind of projects are you working on at your office to keep planning relevant in the community, stave off stagnation, and keep yourself above water?

I know this'll generates some good discussion.

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I am curious if planners are interested in ending sprawl based planning. Or do they really think it is a good thing? Are they being led by the Civil engineers into accepting and promoting sprawl based planning? Is it the developers? the politicians? Or is sprawl planning kept on its pedestal by inertia? Is it the responsibility of planners to lead the fight against the insanity?

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I work for a private planning firm in California that has partnered in the past with large, well-known firms who are prominent in the New Urbanism movement. (One of our former principals was a founding member of the Congress of New Urbanism and an FAICP.) One of these firms has produced dozens of New Urbanist plans for communities all over the state, at least one dozen of which we've been privy to how things have played out because we "were there."

In almost all the cases we've been a part of, the plans have essentially disintegrated despite initial community support, political momentum, and at least some financial interest from the development community. And this has happened not just since the market meltdown... but in each case it occurred after a certain amount of time had passed, usually shortly after or during environmental review. just a couple of days ago, I got a seemingly innocuous email from one of our clients, letting us know in a gentle fashion that the City Council is going "back to the drawing board" now that we're only a couple months away from EIR certification for an 800-acre New Urbanist development. The reason? Developers and financiers don't think it's viable, and the community just doesn't like it anymore.

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William Howard Kunstler is the peek oil, doom and gloom, anti sprawl guru. He is not at all fond of the way our country is currently planned meaning he hates most of what the planning profession is doing.

I love his weekly KunstlerCast (http://kunstlercast.com/) and very much agree with most of what he says though sometimes he is a bit out there and possibly a bit self absorbed.

So what do planners think of what he is saying?

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A few years ago, while looking through old subdivision files, I came across a proposed rural subdivision that incorporated conservation subdivision design principles. This plat was in the mid-seventies. The plat covered about 300 acres of varied land features including woods, wetlands, streams, and steep ravines. There was also a map that identified ideal locations for community gardens, which seemed to incorporate aspects of the permaculture idea. The map went so far as to identify what would best grow in these areas. I think that there were about 30 small home-sites that would have been located on their own lots with the rest of the land being owned communally.

The strange thing about this proposal was that it was days away from getting final approval and at the least minute it was pulled with no reason given. It also got some media coverage as a new way of living and while the media did not come out and call it an intentional community or ecovillage—it was really that in concept. The initial covenants were very clear to this effect.

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