Planning for the Possible

Visionary Planning in Québec and New England

Visionary thinking was, in many ways, the foundation of the modern city planning profession. Early planners like Burnham, Olmsted, Tugwell, MacKaye, and others used an emerging suite of analytical tools, reasoning, and design to paint exquisite pictures of what the future could hold: plans that the American Planning Association today celebrates as “landmark”. As the profession has evolved and grown, however, planning has become increasingly ensconced within the routine administrative functions of local government. Somewhere in the middle of the 20th century a concern for predictability, risk avoidance, and conservatism impacted the very heart and soul of planning; we went from planning for the possible to planning for the probable. This conference seeks to redirect the momentum of contemporary city planning back toward a creative exploration of what places could be instead of what they are likely to become.

Hosted by the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University with funding provided by the Government of Québec and the Government of Canada, the Planning for the Possible Conference will be held at Asean Auditorium at Tufts University on Friday, March 28th, 2014. Free tickets are available here, and are on a RSVP basis.

Click here to learn more and register.