Town Planning Stuff, Ep. 1: The Benefit of Planning

We’ve now posted Episode 1 of Town Planning Stuff Everyone Needs to Know on the Dover-Kohl YouTube channel. Subscribe & watch the whole playlist; new episodes are being posted weekly.

The benefit of planning

Ever wonder whether city planning meetings and zoning hearings are a colossal waste of time? They aren’t, as long as your town isn’t just going through the motions. Ask: What do you want your neighborhood to be like? Every community should set out to create its ideal. That means not just talking about it, or writing policies, but making maps, designing the future.

Towns, like people, have to choose what they want to be when they grow up. Every place people love has resulted from some level of planning. Those places didn’t come from the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. If they’re nice places to be, they probably haven’t always been that way. People drew lines on maps, deciding what kind of neighborhood this should be.

All the little decisions matter. So give some of your time to help move planning along in your town.

Planning brings benefits. And that’s #1 on my list of Town Planning Stuff everyone needs to know.

—Victor