CITIES FORUMCITIES FORUM91,822 followers91,822 followers
3 days ago • Visible to anyone on or off LinkedIn
3 days ago • Visible to anyone on or off LinkedIn
𝟱 𝗪𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 hashtag#𝗨𝗿𝗯𝗮𝗻 hashtag#𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀
In our opinion one of the biggest barriers to growth in our profession aren’t lack of data, funding, or political will. They’re the mental loops many planners keep playing on repeat. Here are five that need to be erased permanently.
🔹1. “Urban planning is a technical discipline.”
Wrong. It’s political, social, economic, and cultural before it’s technical. GIS layers, mobility models, or zoning codes are tools, not the craft. If you believe your job ends at data visualization, you’ve already lost relevance.
🔹2. “Good plans speak for themselves.”
They don’t. Plans don’t speak people do. If you can’t defend your proposal in front of politicians, citizens, and investors, it doesn’t matter how sustainable, resilient, or smart it is. Communication is as essential as design.
🔹3. “The public doesn’t understand planning.”
They do they just don’t understand our jargon. If your work can’t be explained in two minutes to a local shop owner or a journalist, the problem isn’t public ignorance, it’s professional arrogance.
🔹4. “Innovation comes from big cities or international firms.”
False. Real innovation happens in constraints in small municipalities experimenting with tactical urbanism, in informal settlements adapting faster than our bureaucracies, in communities co-designing their own futures. Scale doesn’t equal creativity.
🔹5. “My job is to plan for others.”
No. Your job is to plan with others. The age of top-down masterplans is over. If you’re still sketching from your desk instead of walking the street, talking to residents, and co-producing with interdisciplinary teams, you’re designing nostalgia, not cities.
👉Urban planning is stuck not because we lack vision but because some planners are still defending obsolete mental models. The next generation of planners won’t be measured by how much they know, but by how much they unlearn.
In our opinion one of the biggest barriers to growth in our profession aren’t lack of data, funding, or political will. They’re the mental loops many planners keep playing on repeat. Here are five that need to be erased permanently.
🔹1. “Urban planning is a technical discipline.”
Wrong. It’s political, social, economic, and cultural before it’s technical. GIS layers, mobility models, or zoning codes are tools, not the craft. If you believe your job ends at data visualization, you’ve already lost relevance.
🔹2. “Good plans speak for themselves.”
They don’t. Plans don’t speak people do. If you can’t defend your proposal in front of politicians, citizens, and investors, it doesn’t matter how sustainable, resilient, or smart it is. Communication is as essential as design.
🔹3. “The public doesn’t understand planning.”
They do they just don’t understand our jargon. If your work can’t be explained in two minutes to a local shop owner or a journalist, the problem isn’t public ignorance, it’s professional arrogance.
🔹4. “Innovation comes from big cities or international firms.”
False. Real innovation happens in constraints in small municipalities experimenting with tactical urbanism, in informal settlements adapting faster than our bureaucracies, in communities co-designing their own futures. Scale doesn’t equal creativity.
🔹5. “My job is to plan for others.”
No. Your job is to plan with others. The age of top-down masterplans is over. If you’re still sketching from your desk instead of walking the street, talking to residents, and co-producing with interdisciplinary teams, you’re designing nostalgia, not cities.
👉Urban planning is stuck not because we lack vision but because some planners are still defending obsolete mental models. The next generation of planners won’t be measured by how much they know, but by how much they unlearn.
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