planning and preserving the post-industrial city

I've recently joined a couple of community organizations involved in 1) historic preservation; and 2) local planning. Of course, this responds to the third leg of the academic footstool (teaching, research, service) but is also, on a personal level, a way to give back to the community I've been so invested in for so many years. I have strong technical skills in these arenas and quite a bit of experience with organizational dynamics so I am hopeful of being able to make meaningful contributions after a brief start-up, "new kid" phase.

It feels weird to come back into the civic arena after 7 years away. Many of the players are still the same, and as I gather, the game is still the same. (I noticed in the Midwest, at a Planning Commission meeting, that the game was the same out there too - so there may be regional differences in exactly HOW things get done, but the basic tasks, the personal inclinations, and the personal and ideological conflicts remain essentially the same. This was a bummer for me, but partly because I was so soured on the provincialism and narrow thinking of the Northeast at the time.)

Some features of that game:

1. A constant tension between individual rights and community ideals about a greater good that trumps individual freedoms. In planning, these freedoms mostly center around rights of property, and when I teach my segment on planning law, I speak of the boundary between the rights of the individual and the rights of the community and how that boundary is always shifting in current case law. Both of my organizations are pretty sensitive to the right of the individual to do what she will with her property, and they are relatively transparent about the thinking process that produces that sensitivity, which is interesting to observe.

2. (Relatedly) A very pragmatic understanding of the limits of power of the particular organization, and a great unwillingness to come anywhere near the line of unconstitutionality. (As an advocate for community ideals over the individual right to, say, trash the environment, I do hope, eventually, for greater risk-taking here.)

3. (Sadly) An entrenchment in "The System" that tends to reproduce the same sorts of thinking and decision-making again and again. In part this is a familiarity with process and a comfort with the same old faces that tends to favor a go-along, get-along approach. No one wants to be the obnoxious one who makes the process come to a grinding halt. I'm told that the organization members are mostly long-time members; and that newer (and younger) members have served a short time and then moved on. That hints at frustration or simple recognition that change is not immediately possible.

4. Relatively transparent debate about competition for scarce resources. This isn't new, but the economic downturn makes it more salient than ever. People really have to think about what is worthwhile and what is MOST IMPORTANT.

Despite all this, I am optimistic that there are ways to use the skills I have to make a difference, in ways that were not really clear to me in my previous engagements with these organizations. Time will tell.