What the H*%L is an urban planner?!

Many of my friends have expressed their excitement and relief that I have finally obtained employment in the past week. However when they ask what my job is (General Planner for the City of Evanston), the first two questions I get are:

1. Where is Evanston?
2. What is a General Planner?


This might be a bit more boring blog than the past but I feel it's a great opportunity to help my friends and family understand what I do and why I have such great passion about. And a chance to learn something more about the Chicago Region!

To address Question 1.

Evanston, IL is a city of 75,000 people situated approximate 8 miles to the north of Chicago, Illinois. Evanston and Chicago share city boundaries and it is the first suburban city to the north of Chicago. Evanston has a great downtown with many new high rise condos and a new shopping district. The neighborhoods of Evanston are less dense than Chicago's but still are compact and urban in nature, what you would find in most small cities across the US. What I love about the city is that it is a suburban city in the truest sense but it still kept the urban grid and is continuing to develop itself as an alternate urban lifestyle than that of living in downtown Chicago which to many could seem overcrowded and too expensive.

Evanston is connected to the City of Chicago through Metra and the CTA El System's Purple Line. The Purple Line Express runs from Evanston to Belmont non-stop during rush hours affording residents of Evanston a quicker commute to the Loop. This affords ME the opportunity to commute to my new job via transit and I dont have to move closer to get there. I am a reverse commuter now. Emptier trains and seats aplenty I will get to travel in style compared to the cramped chaotic mess that is the southern trek to the Loop.

Evanston has some interesting aspects to it. It is the epicenter of the Prohibition Movement in the United States. This was thanks in part to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union that was founded in Evanston in 1874. Evanston is also the main home to Northwestern University.

In short, my new job working for the City of Evanston will be exciting. How does a city that is landlocked and mostly built up develop in new and exciting ways for the 21st Century? How can we increase tax base without compromising quality of life for its current citizens? Are there ways to improve transit in the city? All kinds of new possibilities are out there and Im looking forward to the future.

On to Question 2, What the H*&L is an Urban Planner?

Lets first start with what the H&*L is urban planning? Urban planning deals with the built environment from the smallest project and smallest town all the way up to an entire state or nation. Planners help guide development in hopes to help cities understand their infrastructure needs for the future and to physically layout how a city will develop over time. In the Chicago region the most famous plan is the 1909 Plan of Chicago, developed by Evanston resident Daniel Burnham. This plan still shapes the City of Chicago today and gave us places like the Mag Mile, the Lakefront Trail, Congress Parkway and Notherly Island. Planners are visionaries, not in the sense they see and know the future, but they help try to determine the future of development. We had our missteps, Urban Renewal and the Federal Interstate System and Euclidean Zoning, some would say these were successful projects and theories, but modern planners are now having to deal with their long term effects on the urban spaces they invade and control.

Transit Oriented Developments, Urban Regeneration, Form Based Zoning, Traditional Neighborhood Developments, Smart Growth Strategies and Sustainable Communities are new development trends for planners of the 21st Century. We are striving to reconnect American society with itself after decades of seperate land use and segregation of neighbors from one another. The societal desire for these changes has led to a dramatic shift in the profession in previous years. Increases in gas prices, more concern for the environment, even obesity are factors that play into my profession.

How does a house or a development or a city affect someone's health? How does a city with all its cars and people and waste become more of an advocate for Mother Nature? These are just some of the issues and questions I will be dealing with as a planner for the City of Evanston. We are not the final designers or engineers but we help guide the development into what should be the right direction. Part sociologist part scientist part designer part analyst, a planner is someone to guide the built environment.

thanks for reading today's post, I know it is long winded and geeky but this is what I love about my job. It lets my inner geek come out and play!

Enjoy the day today guys, the weather in chicago is sunny and mildly warm, only a couple more weeks of this before the humid and 90 degree weather sets in!

With you,

C