Assignment 1: Planner Spheres and Hierarchies

Early in the semester, we were asked to define Planner Spheres and Hierarchies. What's that, you ask? We, too, raised our collective grad student eyebrows. Professor Mark provided this bit of guidance:

"Plan to turn in a schematic, thematic, diagrammatic representation of planners' spheres and hierarchies, i.e. your visual representation of planners' key knowledge, skills, and values (what planners need and/or ought to know, to be able to do, and to evaluate?)"

I'm a visual thinker, and I enjoy putting pen to paper. Once home, I listed out my initial thoughts:

My strategy was to consider the best planners I know. What skills do they embody? What traits or skills make them successful? Two planning peers that I think of the most during my workday are former colleagues. They are partners of a planning consulting firm I worked for in Seattle, WA - the founding partner and a "rising star" partner. The founder had this innate ability to cull through a project's input and nail down appropriate strategic solutions that seemed.... right. The rising star is a professional powerhouse who has a knack for connecting to (and winning over) the public. They taught me a ton about the planning world, and about being a consultant. The list above is my best attempt at laying out their qualities.

This sketch led me to type up key points:

A key question about the planning profession that I've rolled around for years now, is this - Is a planning degree necessary to be a great planner? Of the two people whose planning philosophies I keep in my back pocket, one of them does not have a planning degree, and the other has an architecture background. Throughout our semester in Planning History & Theory, we discussed notable planning folk throughout history, some of whom have professional training in the field, and others who arrived at planning from community activism, sociology, art history, and beyond.

To me, knowledge can be gleaned in a classroom or in the field, by doing. Is one better than the other? In many ways, no formal training is a great way to challenge the widely-accepted norms, to evolve the practice for better. Therefore, I feel attributes (aka values) and skills slightly outweigh knowledge. They are inherent qualities - such as analytic, inclusive, and flexible - while knowledge can be more readily acquired.

My graphic representation of Planners' Knowledge, Skills, and Attributes

I wanted to illustrate knowledge as a solid foundation; good to have but less intertwined than skills and attributes. Mark's feedback indicated that my schematic successfully demonstrates the relationships between the entities, though a bit static. Below is the same content, with a grid or gradient that flows between for more dynamic interchanges.

Same graphic, with a more dynamic framework