I recently had the pleasure of sitting on a panel convened by the
Lincoln Instititute of Land Policy to discuss the Tea Party and its effects on local planning. At one point, the moderator asked if there were any successful techniques that planners could use to effectively deal with Tea Party activists. This was an intriguing question, but also one that I thought was a bit odd. Controversy and conflict are not new to planning; they are built into the very process of American planning because of its inherent openness and inclusiveness. The development approval process is inherently political, and planners are required to address a wide range of issues from participants, sometimes informed, often times not, during the process. Conflict and tension are inevitable, and often planners are the ones that are responsible for resolving them. In fact, I believe professional planners are often the best equiped to deal with these public controversies. So, the question really is: Are Tea Party activists that much different from others participating in the public approval process? Is a Tea Partier different in a fundamental way from a NIMBY? Or a bicycle activist opposing a new road? Or a road warrior opposing a bicycle lane? I think not, and I think planners too often give too much credence to the Tea Party as an independent political force on the local level. In reality, Tea Party activists are ordinary citizens, and the vast majority were activized by
national policy issues, not local (or regional) planning. Some are informed. Some are not. Some have real concerns, others simply don't understand the process or the project at hand. Planners serve a crucial role in bringing different sides to the table to help identify common ground (or sometimes more importantly areas of irreconcileable differences), in order to move public decisionmaking forward.
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