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Originally Posted by Keith P.
Interesting post and I thank you for the comments. I have commented on the planning dogma issue here numerous times and it does seem to be a real (and self-perpetuating) problem in the profession. The issue is of course that young people take a degree in planning and are largely empty vessels on the subject, so their heads are filled by professors and "experts" with whatever the current dogma happens to be. But unlike the sciences, this is more of an art and therefore highly subjective. Data is used selectively to support the dogma while other data is ignored. And so it goes.
I also think that the very nature of the subject and the profession at large results in a degree of sensitivity to questioning of proposed positions given that they are supposed to be the arbiters of what is good and what is bad in terms of design and land use. Again this is subjective to a greater or lesser extent but given their training and subsequent employment in the profession they tend to believe they are right in their stated views while everyone else is at best an interested observer not at their level with opinions that are less worthy of consideration than their own.
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Again massive generalization, as someone who has studied planning and works in the private sector, without examples this opinion of yours, it's far from the truth of things. While studying planning, I observed the students ranged from a data driven approach, while some focused on the theory side. As someone who was more data driven, I did find myself at odds with the idealists from time to time but compromise was found when working on a project. Your arguments are not incorrect that some planners can get stuck on an ideal, but as a whole there is mix of people like any other workplace.
To Antigonish's point that peoples willingness to go to authoritarian extents really shows that people are on a spectrum in politics on every issue. People that are "woke" about identity politics can be downright authoritarian when discussing civic land use or environmental issues. It's a mixed bag really as in most segments of human life.
I could go on a rant about the evil corporate agenda put forward by conservative parties which habitually help the rich, privatize public services and echo the low tax - low service equation of neo-liberal policies. How when you cut funding to safety and regulation enforcement, companies will habitually abuse society for corporate gain. But I don't, every time a decision is made to enrich them by any level of government because it'd be exhausting and I'm sure this wouldn't help drive healthy discussion on this forum.
This city needs to continue investing more into infrastructure, bicycles are part of the multi-pronged approach. Do I agree with the strategy wholly, no. I feel larger investments in the rail system would pay dividends for the province as a whole but I don't start a crusade against people that are at least trying to fix the problems this city faces. This is the type of stuff that made me decide to go the private sector route because working in the public sector is a very thankless job now that we've been told repeatedly by corporate media and people parroting it, that there's so much government largess and misuse of public funds that politicians should justify repeated cuts to programs and corporate taxes.