Planners Across America

Planners Across America By Josh Stephens Planners Across America provides an in-depth look at U.S. cities in the historical moment between two great crises—the Great Recession of 2008 and the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. Collecting interviews with current and former planning directors all over the country—from Albuquerque to Memphis to Washington, D.C.—Planners Across America gives a new, unprecedented platform to a group of public servants laboring in relative obscurity but with immense influence on the shape and direction of U.S. communities. The planners of the early decades of the 20th century are working toward a new version for the future. This work requires undoing many of the mistakes of the profession in the previous century, but the result, if the effort proves successful, would be communities resilient to environmental and economic shocks while offering economic prosperity to an inclusive cross section of the United States and world. With interview topics ranging from long-t