Infuriating? Hilarious? Not a single bit of Strong Town's "Urban Planner's Oath" applies to what Jeff Gahan and his minions are doing in New Albany.

The Urban Planner's Oath? Like kryptonite, dude.  

It has been Jane Jacobs week at Strong Towns.

JANE JACOBS IS A POWERFUL SYMBOL FOR PRESENT-DAY URBANIST MOVEMENTS, BUT HER WORK IS ABOUT FAR MORE THAN JUST BUILDING WALKABLE PLACES.

From May 2-6, in honor of the 100th anniversary of her birth, Strong Towns will explore the hard-hitting realities of Jane Jacobs’ activism: the need for financial solvency in American towns, her insistence on local decision-making instead of top-down proclamations and her “chaotic but smart” approach to improving cities."

For me, the culmination of Jane Jacobs week is this Urban Planner's Oath.

In honor of Jane Jacobs week, we are seeking to fill an intellectual void by providing an oath for urban planners. While the American Institute of Certified Planners has a code of ethics with some statements of aspiration, they are not well aligned with a Jane Jacobs way of thinking. It is precisely that -- a way of thinking and not a set of outcomes -- that we are seeking to inspire. Please share this oath (created with input from Strong Towns members) and discuss it with the planners in your community.

Of the nine urban planner's bullet points, none apply to New Albany, where in reality, Jeff Gahan is the city's chief (sub)urban planner.

In fact, none of these points come even close to describing the way we do things here. Perhaps that's because Strong Towns openly uses a five-syllable word that sends local officials fleeing in all directions: Intellectual.

Talk about the kiss of death. Consider these three examples.

• I will not impose my vision but will seek to use my expertise to co-create the vision of those I serve,
• I will advocate for approaches that are within our grasp and will not assume that future generations will be able to bear burdens which we cannot bear today,
• If a monument is to be built in honor of the things we have accomplished today, I will insist that it be built by a subsequent generation as only they are capable of fully discerning our worthiness of such an honor.

Amazing, isn't it? You can't even imagine a New Albany mayor or city planner embracing these ideas, can you?

Jane Jacobs, 1958: "Downtown is for People."

Photo credit

It's an essay by Jane Jacobs written in 1958, and worth revisiting at regular intervals. First, for those just tuning in

Jacobs is credited, along with Lewis Mumford, with inspiring the New Urbanist movement. She has been characterized as a major influence on decentralist and radical centrist thought.

Jacobs wrote a seminal book.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities is a 1961 book by writer and activist Jane Jacobs. The book is a critique of 1950s urban planning policy, which it holds responsible for the decline of many city neighborhoods in the United States. Going against the modernist planning dogma of the era, it proposes a newfound appreciation for organic urban vibrancy in the United States.

Here's the magazine article preceding the book.

Downtown is for People (Fortune Classic, 1958), by Nin-Hai Tseng (Fortune)

... There are, certainly, ample reasons for redoing downtown–falling retail sales, tax bases in jeopardy, stagnant real-estate values, impossible traffic and parking conditions, failing mass transit, encirclement by slums. But with no intent to minimize these serious matters, it is more to the point to consider what makes a city center magnetic, what can inject the gaiety, the wonder, the cheerful hurly-burly that make people want to come into the city and to linger there. For magnetism is the crux of the problem. All downtown’s values are its byproducts. To create in it an atmosphere of urbanity and exuberance is not a frivolous aim.

Jane Jacobs and Seth Godin

In yesterday's thread, mention was made of Jane Jacobs and Seth Godin. For the uninitiated, here are links:

Healthy Cities, Urban Theory, and Design: The Power of Jane Jacobs

Seth Godin: Author, Agent of Change

Apart from John Gonder ... eh, never mind.