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Planning: general 🌇 Random Planning Thoughts (and Photos) Deserving No Thread Of Their Own

As posted on Twitter
fiannafact@fiannafact · Dec 4
One thing I really enjoyed doing was coming up with an imaginary profession for the kind of work I think I am doing or hope to be doing in future, and eventually growing into it. It is a simple way to legitimise yourself.Civic Cartographer felt like a role that should exist, so I am making it real.
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JNA said:
imaginary profession
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Urban Palimpsest Investigator should be a real profession, though I believe if there ever were a non-academic anthropologist on staff, with a dollop of archeology a la mode, they would be the first one.
 
jumbach said:
Vernon, California. (Population 112)

ONE block of SFR's, surrounded by nothing but several square miles of industrial.

Sometime, drive around the "city" on Google Maps. Fascinating, and apocalyptic.

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I suppose every city has spots where the residential and industrial sectors rub against each other. Take for instance this modest Fort Worth duplex.... click the Google Maps link and swing around to see what the view is like out their front windows.

Or closer to my neighborhood (I live a bit south of the bottom of the picture), there's an outcropping of heavy industrial, mostly steel fabricators and plastics molders and one rodent factory, entirely surrounded by residential.

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I think the industrial pre-dates the residential, located as it was to make use of the rail transportation that goes through the area... there are a couple of (now abandoned) spur lines into the industrial area.

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And then I think the housing was built right up to the limits of the industrial area.
 
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In my jurisdiction, planning staff is among those allowed to cross police lines. Says so right on my badge.

Thing is, I can't think of a single situation in which they would need a planner at a crime/accident scene.
 
bureaucrat#3 said:
Just call it workforce housing and move on. I had Korean company that really wanted to build dorms for their employees. They typically tried to bring over unmarried workers or married males without their families for 2-3 years and wanted them to live in a single unit. The said it built comradery. It didn't sit right with me or the Planning Commission for numerous reasons and it eventually went away.
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Had something similar happen with a Junior ADU in California - a wealthy resident made a minimum sized 150-square foot ADU in their garage for a maid they brought over from Korea 🫣 the unit was very dystopian and mit literally the very bare minimum for codes for building, fire, etc.
 
jumbach said:
In my jurisdiction, planning staff is among those allowed to cross police lines. Says so right on my badge.

Thing is, I can't think of a single situation in which they would need a planner at a crime/accident scene.
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In the movies planners come in with those building plans that show the top secret tunnel that police use to sneak in to rescue the hostages. I'm sure that happens.

We occasionally get called in for property maintenance issues after the police are done.
 
Faust_Motel said:
I always liked that the dad (of the FBI agent and his math-whiz brother) on the show Numb3rs was a retired city planner.
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I had forgotten that tidbit. (For that matter, had forgotten all about that show . . . been off the air for what, twenty years now?)
 
bureaucrat#3 said:
In the movies planners come in with those building plans that show the top secret tunnel that police use to sneak in to rescue the hostages. I'm sure that happens.

We occasionally get called in for property maintenance issues after the police are done.
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I just can't wait for the day a cop lifts the yellow tape for me, I step over a covered dead body, manuever around all those metal numbered triangles, and hand the investigator a plat map and zoning information letter.
 
Gawd, not another downtown revitalization app for an LED sign for a bar...

(My kingdom for a decent sign code...)
 
zman said:
Gawd, not another downtown revitalization app for an LED sign for a bar...

(My kingdom for a decent sign code...)
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We're too old to care anymore. The community gets what it 'wants' and we get paid to review and recommend and/or approve the request.

Meditation Self Care GIF by MOODMAN


;) :cool: :brofist:
 
mendelman said:
We're too old to care anymore. The community gets what it 'wants' and we get paid to review and recommend and/or approve the request.

Meditation Self Care GIF by MOODMAN


;) :cool: :brofist:
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Very true... and I dont live here permanently. When I leave work, I will be able to see what discounts they have on wings and Coors Light I guess... (conform!)
 
Taking a deep dive into some tasks and finding out that a replat for our golf course shop was started in 2022 and then the previously city team ghosted the engineers on the project. As well, a prominent homebuilder is ready to begin the next phase of housing developments... the pre=-con meeting with public works has occurred and there are letters approving utility placements in the rights of way from the "PW Director" (actually written be my predecessor on the PW director's behalf...)... only to find out said lots and ROWs have not ever been platted.
 
Here's my golf course fun.

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Built the main clubhouse over the right-of-way. Said they had resurveyed everything and recorded the plat. I was told by the mayor (who was a member of said club) to go ahead and approve the permit since "these are private roads and you know they'll record it" - 25 years ago. The orange lines show the road now.
 
(In my best Derek Smalls from Spinal Tap voice)
"Can I raise a practical question at this point?
Shouldn't we have the subdivision plat in place before we begin horizon public utility and street improvements?"
 
Dan said:
Site planning for the fairer sex. (Buffalo Evening News, 1959-08-01)

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I'm surprised the article doesn't mention covering the sidewalks with a continuous awning. We had about half downtown with ugly mansard style shingle awnings in the late 1960s and 1970s using Urban Renewal funds. The last individual piece was redone two years ago. I joked that it had obtained historical significance in the district.
 
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