A while back I was reminded of the time when I was a child and a teacher gave each student a piece of paper and asked us to draw what we wanted to be “when we grow up.” The teacher specified that we were only supposed to draw one profession, because after all each of us only had one piece of paper. Being confident that I knew my professional destiny, I wasn’t going to let the limits of one piece of paper get in my way. So, I folded the paper into three sections and drew a picture for each panel – an artist, musician, and inventor. I was reminded of this as I walked by a children’s art day camp and out of the corner of my eye I saw children building a city with cardboard, construction paper, legos, and recycled materials. I entered the fenced area and just stood there with a smile looking at the children collaborating with one another building their city.
I spoke with a few of the children about their masterpiece and a few of them expressed that they would like to be artists when they “grow up.” Later that day I reflected, am I what I wanted to be “when I grew up?” Yes, people’s desires and dreams do change overtime, but I think I can say that I am pursuing what I wanted to be. But as a child, I just didn’t know what they were called or where they worked. But now I do – planner. A planner has the opportunity to reinvent the city through zoning, ordinances, comprehensive planning, or informally through reclaiming space through community-build projects. A city is bricolage art, as shown in the movie Koyaanisqatsi, with its many patterns and tapestries composed of streets, paths, trees, patches of grass and asphalt, buildings, houses, and people flowing in between these spaces. The rhythms’ of the city is music. Every city has its own rhythms as heard in a radiolab podcast describing how each city, because of its built form, has its own unique beat which people walk to.
As a child, I didn’t know what a planner was or could do. So, I drew an inventor, artist, and a musician instead. I really didn’t know until my mid-20s. At the age of 24, I just graduated with a master’s degree in political science and began working on air quality policy issues. I found myself frequently at the city and county planning departments to get the information I needed regarding land use plans that could potentially impact air quality. This was the first time I was introduced to the planning department. Often times I felt like community engagement was not welcomed because the information provided to me seemed like it was in another language and it was sometimes difficult to attain because I was unfamiliar with how to navigate the process. After four years of work, I started to understand the planning process a little better, but found myself longing for a better encounter at the planning counter. This experience inspired me to go back to graduate school and study planning because I wanted to be the person at the city, county, private firm, or nonprofit someday to help inform and empower community members to reinvent the city into the masterpiece they envision. My quest is to continually seek projects where I can be what I've always wanted to be "when I grew up" – an inventor, an artist, and a musician.