This overall recognition of the importance of planning should represent the triumph of the profession. However, as has happened with any number of governmental entities, this recognition of planning has led to the present crisis. The institutionalization of planning within the governmental structure has resulted in a bureaucratization of the profession. There are so many separate and oftentimes inflexible planning oriented bodies that it is amazing that anything gets done sometimes. Now instead of planning cities with some guiding vision as to their shape and content, we now plan cities a piece at a time or a road at a time.
Planning has in fact become tasking .
We now break down the planning of cities into minuscule tasks. Cities are built one parcel at a time, one street at a time. The vision of a better place that once guided us has been obscured. To be honest, I hold a tremendous amount of hope for the near future. Perhaps we will soon return to our forgotten roots of planning cities.