CITYPLANNER.CA - Planning with the big picture in mind

BIG PICTURE PLANNING

“Let us make no small plans.” – Daniel Burnham
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” – John Muir

Big picture planning demands a perspective taken across urban planning specializations; across areas of professional practice; across cultural and religious traditions; and across municipal, regional, national and even international boundaries.

Big picture planning embraces technological, environmental, economic, and social advances across all of these artificial boundaries. It is a philosophy which recognizes that our cities have so much in common - and as individuals, so do we.

We all want to live in places which are beautiful, safe, clean and friendly, which support our health and well-being, and which enable and encourage us to contribute in a meaningful way to our communities and to society.

We also want to live in neighborhoods which make it easy for us to build and maintain friendships, and allow us to quickly and easily access the goods and services we need without getting stuck in traffic.

Big picture planning requires an appreciation of history, and recognizes that so many of the issues being discussed and debated in our cities today were also discussed and debated 50 and 100 years ago: including health, pollution, traffic, crime, advertising, mass transit, parking, walkability, livability, housing, poverty, etc.

Although every city is unique, big picture planning acknowledges that precious resources (human, economic, environmental, and time) are wasted when each city, state and country sets up its own coalitions, committees and task forces to solve each of these same problems over and over again, by perpetually reinventing the wheel with varying degrees of success.

Every city can improve. Every city can be better than it is today.

Our research, practical experience, and knowledge of best practices can help you fix your city, community, or neighborhood.

Send us an email today to get the ball rolling: myron@cityplanner.ca.

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