How does it fit with my post? It is first a critique of planning’s lack of introspection and self-confidence about its failure to follow through on its stated goals (stopping sprawl, etc.), especially its use of the rationalizations, “It’s not my fault,” “It’s not that bad,” or “It’s what Americans want.” In the spirit of getting planners off their butts and back into the drivers seat of the visioning game, her call then has 4 parts. Namely, planners should:

1. Take stock. Evaluate and question their plans; that is, more self-appraisal of their actions and accomplishments.

2. Take note. Conduct comprehensive surveys to better grasp “the underlying complexity of preference”

3. Reform the code. “Overhaul the conventional zoning-by-use method of land differentiation, an approach that has been known for decades to produce sprawl and social exclusion”

4. Develop better participation methods. “Ones that ensure a more representative review of proposed changes.”

She closes with the statement that planners “can no longer be content to be classifiers and enforcers of bad rules. Although planning is a devalued and insecure profession that has not found a way to recover from the anti-planning assault launched by Jane Jacobs in the 1960s, planners can change. They have only to stop being insecure about the legitimacy of having a clear vision, of evaluating their failures head-on, and of committing themselves to leading the way.”

On one side, Talen overlaps with Kaliski in arguing that people know what they want but need planners help to put that in place. On the other, K sees planners as working out their differences in open negotiations while T seems to defer to a broad anti-sprawl program as the enlightened alternative. T thinks everyday people are shortchanged by most plans, while K’s citizens more or less make their own bed. I don’t know that their values are any different, but if K sees the decision-making process as one over which planners have limited authority, T says they should assert that authority.

In the language of the post, Talen’s planners are fingerposts first, entrepreneurs second. They should know where to go and do what it takes to get there. Kaliski’s are process/information managers. That may of course require entrepreneurial skills to do well, and creatively, but the burden is not on them to close the deal.