Time just seems to slip away. I’ve been meaning to write this article all year, but here it is December and I haven’t. I suppose I should have planned better, especially since … drum roll please … the year 2009 is the 100th anniversary of professional planning in the United States. (The previous verbiage was voted the third-best introductory paragraph of this issue by Conifer staff.)
Now, you might be asking yourself, “What on earth could the words ‘professional’ and ‘planning’ possibly have to do with St. Tammany Parish?” Actually, issues related to planning have been at the center of contentious public debate over the past two generations as rapid development has come to the area. Despite this, and the fact that a major portion of most people’s wealth – their homes and other real estate holdings – can be dramatically impacted by planning and zoning, very few citizens really understand the governmental processes involved.
We learned in high school civics about the division of responsibilities and powers at the federal, state and local levels of government, and about legislative, executive and judiciary branches that further subdivided these responsibilities and powers. No one ever mentioned a planning and zoning branch, or a board of adjustments, variances, or appeals branch, but boards and commissions with these names are out there messing with your life every day. Moreover, at times they seem to have combinations of legislative, executive and judicial powers that surpass those of elected officials. How did these strange creatures come to be?
Here’s a brief history lesson condensed from material used by the Louisiana Chapter of the American Planning Association to train newly appointed members of bodies involved in the planning process. Louisiana law requires that this, or similar training, be given within one year of the initial appointment of such individuals.
Briefly, the process we have today is the latest chapter of a uniquely American story that began in Europe before our War of Independence. Areas were ruled by autocrats with almost total power over everyday life and planning. The king, or prince, or baron … or more likely their military engineers … would decree, “Put the castle here, the huts there, streets this way, avenues that way, the well hither, the fields thither, and the stinky things yonder.” And lo, it would be! Racks and thumbscrews were apparently much better enforcement tools than citations and subpoenas.
This actually produced some very picturesque and workable cities and towns, although the ACLU would probably have problems with the process today. Plus, with plagues, famines, wars, inquisitions, and whatever, these early planners did not have to deal with explosive population growth, nor with the automobile infestation we now suffer.
This same planning tradition came to European colonies in America, and again resulted in some lovely British-planned cities like Charleston, Savannah and Philadelphia. Engineers planned the Vieux Carré in New Orleans during the French and Spanish colonial periods, and some individuals with large private land holdings also centrally planned communities. Faubourg Marigny and Mandeville’s old town were planned by Bernard de Marigny. The key point here is that all planning still occurred at the local level. There was no national or regional planning for communities.
Then came a Revolution, and the U.S. Constitution divided all powers between the Federal Government and the states. Nowhere were local governments mentioned. Thus, planning problems, which occurred at the local level, were far removed from the power needed to address them. A notable exception to this was one of our most beautiful cities, Washington D.C., which was developed under a master plan created by Pierre L’Enfant in 1791 at the direction of George Washington.
Elsewhere things got ugly. Municipal authorities were able to sensibly plan parks, buildings and other public projects, but there was no control over private property. As a result, cities grew willy-nilly according to the whims of individual land owners. Slaughterhouses were built next to hospitals; match factories next to gunpowder plants; bars next to elementary schools. This pattern of no local power and control, and general state and federal indifference continued through most of the 19th Century.
Following the Civil War, the great waves of European immigrants and former slaves moving northward created massive overcrowding in our cities and exacerbated the traffic, sanitation and public health problems created by previous poor planning. There was insufficient open space, no minimum standards for housing, nothing to keep our food supply safe. Muckraking authors like Upton Sinclair and Jacob Riis exposed the horrendous problems in the meat packing industry and in slums, and America began to tune in. It became clear that something had to be done, and that something probably meant some government regulation of private property.
This growing awareness of the critical condition of our cities was one of three factors that ultimately resulted in our current planning process. The second was the rampant government corruption occurring under politicians like Boss Tweed. This involved exploitation of immigrants, graft, election fixing, patronage and worse. Politicians received kickbacks from contractors for massive public projects that were not needed or never completed. This, rather than public need, was the basis for their infrastructure planning. The public began to think that maybe planning authority should be taken away from politicians who could too easily abuse and profit from it.
The third factor was an event that offered hope for a solution to the above problems. This was the Chicago World’s Fair and Columbian Exposition of 1893. It was planned for 1892 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ “discovery” of America, but was delayed for a year. This was about the only misstep, because it was a smash hit in just about every other way.
In about two years, architect and urban planner Daniel Burnham, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead and a team of engineers, architects and the very best of their professions from throughout the country, designed and built a city of about one square mile with gorgeous buildings, gardens, water features, public art, streetlights, entertainment, new technology, etc. It was clean and fun; everything worked; it was an absolute marvel to the roughly one in six Americans who visited it and contrasted it to the sorry state of other cities of the time. The fact that it was accomplished by gifted professional citizens, not elected officials, was also not lost on visitors as they returned to their often dismal home towns. For readers interested in learning more about this incredible event, I recommend The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. This couples a very detailed history of the Fair with the search for a serial murderer at large in Chicago at the same time.
As the 20th Century dawned, America was truly ready for change. This period was called the Rise of Progressivism, and great strides were made in child labor laws, workers safety, women’s rights, civil service, a city manager form of government, the city beautiful movement, reining in the robber barons, and the formation of planning commissions. The first planning commission was formed in Hartford, Connecticut in 1907, but the first national conference on city planning and the first planning course was offered by Harvard in 1909, so this is considered the official birth year of the profession.
The seeds for citizen control of the planning process had been sowed, and it took root nationally. In 1926, a commission chaired by then Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover developed model standard zoning enabling legislation that was generally adopted throughout the country. Under our federalism, planning responsibility falls to the states, which through the enabling legislation passes it down to local government. Planning, incidentally, also includes “zoning,” which is just a planning tool. Planning Commissions also act as Zoning Commissions under Louisiana law. 1926 was a big year for zoning, as it was then that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Town of Euclid, Ohio vs. Ambler Realty Co. case that zoning was legal and that in fact, the government could tell you what to do with your private land … within limits. Most planning and zoning law since then has involved determining exactly where those limits are.