• Cyburbia is a friendly big tent, where we share our experiences and thoughts about urban planning practice, the built environment, planning adjacent topics, and anything else that comes to mind. No ads, no spam, and it's free. It's easy to join!

Planners encounter with public

R

RANDMAN

Cyburbian
Messages
39
Points
2
Do planners usually encounter confrontation or verbal/physical abuse from the public? Is the planning profession for people with thin skin?
 
RANDMAN said:
Do planners usually encounter confrontation or verbal/physical abuse from the public? Is the planning profession for people with thin skin?
Click to expand...
Yes and No. Can't say I've ever encountered physical abuse but certainly the threat of things getting physical. Verbal abuse for sure. At least a couple of times a year. You have to have thick skin- you must value yourself for something other than what other people think of you.
 
For me, on social media, but not directed specifically at me. General comments on how the "city planners" could allow this XYZ development which may or may not even be in my city.
 
RANDMAN said:
Do planners usually encounter confrontation or verbal/physical abuse from the public? Is the planning profession for people with thin skin?
Click to expand...

Good Planners have a thick skin and a warm heart. It is important to listen to the public, even when they are angry, and try to decipher past the emotion to logical things that we might be able to act upon. But it is important to acknowledge, but not react to their emotion.

@SlaveToTheGrind is 100% right that social media takes it to a new level.
 
mendelman said:
Absolutely yes. Absolutely no.
Click to expand...
So absolutely yes to the first question and absolutely no to the second question?

Faust_Motel said:
Yes and No. Can't say I've ever encountered physical abuse but certainly the threat of things getting physical. Verbal abuse for sure. At least a couple of times a year. You have to have thick skin- you must value yourself for something other than what other people think of you.
Click to expand...
So you mean yes to the first question and no to the second question?
 
RANDMAN said:
Do planners usually encounter confrontation or verbal/physical abuse from the public? Is the planning profession for people with thin skin?
Click to expand...

No, not usually, but yes to the first question it's just not the usual experience here.
No to the second question.
 
RANDMAN said:
So absolutely yes to the first question and absolutely no to the second question?


So you mean yes to the first question and no to the second question?
Click to expand...
Planners encounter confrontation and planning is not a good field for the thin-skinned. These experiences vary widely by municipality and workplace, but are pretty common in the field.
 
RANDMAN said:
What do you mean by individual mileage?
Click to expand...
My 'absolutely' statements are broad generalizations, but the individual experience of any one person may vary enough....just like the replies to this thread so far.

Sorry for using that idiom.
 
RANDMAN said:
Do planners usually encounter confrontation or verbal/physical abuse from the public? Is the planning profession for people with thin skin?
Click to expand...

Had a 10+ year period as a private sector planner providing consulting services directly to Planning Commissions in a portion of the rural Rust Belt that was a magnet for controversial land use development requests. Due to the rural character of these small communities, I became the public face, for better or worse, for these controversial requests, and for various reasons, the public found it useful to put pins in me, if you can appreciate the voodoo doll reference. I thought I functioned as the sane person in the room, providing instant clarification and acting as an educational resource when questions arose regarding confusing parts of the zoning ordinance. The public hearings for these requests were wild, attended by multitudes of low information seeking citizens. I was often accused of working for the developer, that the planning services company that I worked for was in the back pocket of these international companies, all of us were secretly getting our piece of that sweet private equity investment coin. Oh, the conspiracy that was! Public hearing after public hearing, I was portrayed as a corporate stooge that intentionally obfuscated the truth and was hell-bent on ruining rural life in America as we know it.

Of course, it was all kayfabe. Certain groups incited the low information seeking citizens to bring the outrage en masse! An outrage intended to intimidate well-intentioned, law-abiding local citizen volunteers in the lead-up to their eventual decisions and votes. As a planner, you will encounter the outrage. Be ready for it.
 
RANDMAN said:
Do planners usually encounter confrontation or verbal/physical abuse from the public? Is the planning profession for people with thin skin?
Click to expand...
Usually? No. Occasionally? Sure. My favorite was some dipsh*t in a small town a couple of states over getting in my face to yell at me while I was doing some fieldwork, then poking me in the chest (assault), and then calling the police on me (the same police department I'd briefed earlier that day on where I would be and what I'd be doing). I just sat on the trunk of the car until a cop showed up to tell hm to shut up, get back inside his house, and leave me alone.

You have to be able to shrug stuff off in general in this profession (saying that with experience as a state and fed planner and as a long time dark-sider with local/state/fed/private/non-profit experience). I have to resist the urge to tell my junior staff that they haven't really done fieldwork until they've been shot at, so...
 
My first PC meeting 20+ years ago was interrupted so the dogs could go through the building due to a called in bomb threat. Our meetings were in the police department so no one took it very seriously. For a while we in one jurisdiction, we had an officer sit in back during meetings. A few times we've had police escort people out for being unruly or had to have police escort staff and commissioners to their vehicle because people got too worked up.

I've never been physically assaulted in my work. I can't count the times I've been cussed out or damned to the pits of hell. Most of the time its people in meetings or on social media saying the planner is an idiot.

My former philosophy was to just let them tire themselves out and let the yell. More often now I don't mind arguing with people. It very seldom bothers me.

My current community is very low key and doesn't get the citizens showing up to meetings like some of my previous employers.
 
Reading this thread has me humming this tune:


Yes, I have been threatened to the point where I checked the undercarriage of my car before getting in, definitely slandered, yelled at -

But, I have also been thanked, saw my work easily passed at town meeting or city council with no fanfare, and had my opinion asked for

It's not a job for the thin-skinned, but I still do believe in local government

As my first town manager said to me, which was very good advice: if you are looking for your self-worth, you won't find it here
 
RANDMAN said:
Tell me, is being a land surveyor any better or worse?
Click to expand...

Any job where you are exposed to the general public means that you are likely to experience them at their best and at their worst. Some jobs just might have the interactions skewed in one direction more than another.

Land Surveyors tend to be in the field marking for 1) new development, or 2) a property line dispute. Obviously, some of the responses they get will be associated with those actions.

Planners tend to get frustrated residents who think we are trying to change their way of life with new development, or are creating difficult rules on what they can do to their property. We also get armchair quarterbacks who wonder why we allowed X here, and why we didn't try to get Y instead, not recognizing that we often do not have the power to even make that call. A professor had said to me that City Planning recognition typically goes like "those who hate a project will blame a city planner, and those that love it will thank the Council."
 
dw914er said:
Any job where you are exposed to the general public means that you are likely to experience them at their best and at their worst. Some jobs just might have the interactions skewed in one direction more than another.

Land Surveyors tend to be in the field marking for 1) new development, or 2) a property line dispute. Obviously, some of the responses they get will be associated with those actions.

Planners tend to get frustrated residents who think we are trying to change their way of life with new development, or are creating difficult rules on what they can do to their property. We also get armchair quarterbacks who wonder why we allowed X here, and why we didn't try to get Y instead, not recognizing that we often do not have the power to even make that call. A professor had said to me that City Planning recognition typically goes like "those who hate a project will blame a city planner, and those that love it will thank the Council."
Click to expand...
There are days I dream of moving back to GIS and being a lowly tech in a dank windowless basement.
 
luckless pedestrian said:
I think surveyors have it a little better yes
Click to expand...
Having worked as a surveyor and a planner I will disagree with this from purely a safety standpoint. As a surveyor you can be in some pretty isolated areas so when you're spotted traipsing along a property line deep in the woods you can get a strong reaction. I've had a long gun pointed at me more than once.
 
MD Planner said:
Having worked as a surveyor and a planner I will disagree with this from purely a safety standpoint. As a surveyor you can be in some pretty isolated areas so when you're spotted traipsing along a property line deep in the woods you can get a strong reaction. I've had a long gun pointed at me more than once.
Click to expand...

holy crap - but it's a hilarious image, knowing you are okay, that is, lol
 
RANDMAN said:
Do you like being a planner?
Click to expand...
I love it. Best job ever. I get to see things go from ideas to reality. The times when really good projects work out makes up for all the times you have to approve subpar you have to approve. I hate historic preservation, but when we get a full remodel of a historic downtown building that will hopefully now last another 100 years, i can deal with approving my 12th dollar store.

The community makes a big difference. I think you have to keep perspective. You can't live and die on every project. You're probably not going to change the world, but you get to make a real noticeable impact on your community. Today I've gotten to work on a downtown streetscape redesign, a mixed recycling facility (transfer station), two very basic tract subdivisions, and rewritten some code. All of its important to someone. I like working on landscape design, the trash has to go somewhere, and hopefully we can influence the subdivision in a better way for the 200 families that will eventually live there.
 
MD Planner said:
Having worked as a surveyor and a planner I will disagree with this from purely a safety standpoint. As a surveyor you can be in some pretty isolated areas so when you're spotted traipsing along a property line deep in the woods you can get a strong reaction. I've had a long gun pointed at me more than once.
Click to expand...
When I did stormwater and we had to walk creeks, I always worried about walking the wrong property. Once had to stare down a gun and it wasn't as bad as the guys two dogs. He was nice after we started talking, but it's the closest I've ever had to need change my pants. The city surveyor is always worried about snakes in the field.
 
RANDMAN said:
Do planners usually encounter confrontation or verbal/physical abuse from the public? Is the planning profession for people with thin skin?
Click to expand...
I've never been in danger physically, but face a fair share of verbal drubbings. Some at the counter after denying a permit or asking for more information (the nerve!), but mostly online. According to Facebook, I've single-handedly destroyed the city by encouraging a little road diet project through our downtown. Also, the state-mandated Master Plan update we are currently working on is just part of a grand communist plot to force everyone to live in public housing and sell their cars to the government.

It's not for the thin-skinned, but after a while it becomes easier to laugh off the absurd accusations.
 
Back
Top