By: Diane Benjamin
Ever heard “Best Practices”? Who decides what a “Best Practice” is? Somebody in New York or California?
Isn’t a “Best Practice” what works best for you, your family, your friends, or even your community? What works in Los Angeles probably isn’t going to work in small town fly over country. That is Bloomington-Normal, regardless of what our “leaders” think.
Locally we have the McLean County Regional Planning Commission and both cities have “planners”. This is why we have bike lanes, a bike trail from Chenoa south that few use, Connect Transit, and lots of other things we are forced to fund because “planners” are so much smarter than we are. Ha Ha Ha
A reader sent me this story: https://www.newgeography.com/Coronavirus and Future Living and Working America
Much of the article pertains to California and working from home. Millenials don’t see the purpose of driving to work just to be on an office computer when they already have one at home. This is allowing them to live in cheaper areas instead of large cities.
The story does make it easy to see the “planners” all take the same class.
Excepts:
Heard Bloomington talk about “in-fill”? New construction is mostly dead, but Bloomington has a policy against new subdivisions. They want the pack-em-an’-stack-em buildings currently allowing COVID-19 to ravage New York.
Gee, who knew mass transit isn’t popular or appealing? Everybody except City leaders? Connect Transit has the huge fancy buses because both towns thought they could force you to ride. They thought you would willingly give up your freedom to travel when and where you want for the “luxury” of a bus.
That doesn’t work in California and it won’t work here.
We need to abolish planners. Ideology has little to do with reality. Everything we don’t need or want they plan for us to get. If a grant is available nothing else matters. Of course, other “planners” are handing out the grants. See why?
Let me TRY and wrap this around my brain! If something finally WORKS, shouldn’t you stick with it and stop there?? therefore you give up “practicing” it, so If something is the BEST practice, does that mean THEY work on it until it’s so absurd, that THEY have job security working out a better solution to something that wasn’t broken?
EXACTLY!
All my life I have planned as NEEDED to meet a goal. If a need seemed to be coming in the future than I started looking for an answer. Planners are a as needed position. When a need arises put a committee together and get it done. If you hire a planner with a salary, I guarantee you they will make sure they are needed by setting an agenda to spend OUR money to maintain there financial position.
Do we need planners yes but they need to respond to the need of a community not create plans for the fulfillment their position.
A majority of those in the planning field are hardcore leftists who are taught by other hardcore leftists. They are actually trained social engineers whose main purpose is to influence how a population lives, works and recreates. They cannot separate their jobs from their political ideologies. Anyone who got into the field to do true community service is quickly ostracized and minimized in a respective operation. Most planners are not nice people in their professional or private lives.
Yeah I don’t need a bunch of politically connected hacks planning to take away my freedoms and liberty.
Uptown Normal is the perfect example (or set of examples) to illustrate the failure of central planning. $100+ million in debt and climbing to finance 3 or 4 blocks of bars, restaurants, nicknack shops, and hotels. Low skill jobs, no scalability or growth potential, and largely dependent upon ISU. Great job, Town of Normal!
MOEABODY. You described Normal’s planner to a T. Spendthrift with no concern for where the money comes from…dictating a plan culminating in an Uptown utopia locals despise. Thank her for the $80,000 a year we keep giving Zagster so they’ll rent bikes in uptown. Her apparent mission is to fleece locals for the benefit of ISU and students.
uptown just has SO MANY dipshit ideals, that it’s a PLANNERS dream, and a citizens nightmare. NO NEED TO GO THERE!
IF one thing GOOD comes out of the COVID!( thing, I HOPE it’s that uptown, just gets flushed down the tubes. Gosh, I even have to wait for my new Rivian now too..
koos-YOU were suckered!