Bravo, this comes right after our leadership team for grassroots Activate Selma NC has been brainstorming how to involve new, more diverse thinkers — to help them recognize they are shareholders in our community, and for us originators to step aside so they can be the ones taking the lead. Your words are like blazes on a trail - confirming we're on the right path, but not making the next uphill climb any easier. Reality and encouragement! And Chris Arnade's keynote and conversation at the national gathering was outstanding. Thanks for livestreaming it for Strong Towns members who couldn't be there.
'Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized. Make big plans, aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever growing insistency.'
Planners have embraced this message from Daniel Burnham (I remember it being a ? on the AICP exam). The plan becomes the end goal rather than simply a tool to figure out what to do then actually do those things.
I completely agree that trying to solve everything, everywhere, all at once leads to paralysis and inaction, or years doing one big thing that doesn't work out. Too much money gets spent on plans and studies rather than action. I appreciate the focus on doing the small things and building and we need to teach that to planners from the beginning...
Bravo, this comes right after our leadership team for grassroots Activate Selma NC has been brainstorming how to involve new, more diverse thinkers — to help them recognize they are shareholders in our community, and for us originators to step aside so they can be the ones taking the lead. Your words are like blazes on a trail - confirming we're on the right path, but not making the next uphill climb any easier. Reality and encouragement! And Chris Arnade's keynote and conversation at the national gathering was outstanding. Thanks for livestreaming it for Strong Towns members who couldn't be there.
Virtue ethics for living in settlements.
'Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized. Make big plans, aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever growing insistency.'
Planners have embraced this message from Daniel Burnham (I remember it being a ? on the AICP exam). The plan becomes the end goal rather than simply a tool to figure out what to do then actually do those things.
I completely agree that trying to solve everything, everywhere, all at once leads to paralysis and inaction, or years doing one big thing that doesn't work out. Too much money gets spent on plans and studies rather than action. I appreciate the focus on doing the small things and building and we need to teach that to planners from the beginning...
I did a TEDx talk once where I riffed off the Burnham quote: https://youtu.be/JPbfdcvv0to?si=xT9c6wbfugry9Lr0