My Sainted Mother would have made a great city manager: How many times, during a public meeting, have I heard an elected body vote to do some stupid thing because other cities were doing it? My mother would have shaken her finger at them and, well you know what she would have said. It would have included the admonition about other kids jumping off cliffs and such.

 Throughout my career as an urban planner, the profession has held up two cities in particular as examples of doing planning right. They deserved emulation, imitation, and adulation. They received it in bushels. Today, portions of those cities lie in smoldering ruins while the rest of the urban area avoids taking a deep breath for fear of setting off more explosions. Could it be that over the years, they were applying the right solutions to the wrong problem?

 As I grow closer to the inevitable termination of my “use module,” I wonder if proactive planning is a “'a consummation devoutly to be wished” as much as reactive planning. The overarching dynamic of a city rests more on the vagaries of fortune than upon the foresightedness of humankind. The modernization of farming technique resulted in the loss of population in our state’s delta areas. Transportation decisions left some cities isolated and abandoned and other cities bisected, dissected, and infected. Long festering racial bigotry, made so despairingly evident with the election of Barack Obama, ballooned sleepy, all-white villages into throbbing metropolitan areas.

One may say, with accuracy, that the bigotry existed long before the Obamas and that other events had stirred the sleeping monster. True that. When a gentle appearing politician announced his candidacy for president in the racially iconic city of Philadelphia, Mississippi, the “dog whistles” were loud and clear. The demon must have stirred and smiled, perhaps never to sleep again. Later politicians would sharpen his mendacity and unleash it hard against Americans, particularly the "least of those among us."

Not all white-flight cities prospered equally. Some managed growth better than others. Some cities on the other end of the success spectrum managed hardships better than others. Some cities, like well-ballasted transports, lumbered through the storms. Some simply died. In most cases, however, results depended more on reaction than conscious visioning.

 How to proceed? Hell, I’m not sure. Maybe we understand that beautiful streetscapes, long considered a proper move for downtown areas, may not work in places where the level of crime prevents downtown merchants from unlocking the doors to their businesses during peak hours.

 Maybe finding the right problem is, after all, more important than finding the right solution.