Dwight Eisenhower once remarked, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything” (1957). Indeed, plans that change nothing are worthless. There are a small number of plans however, that helped to change daily life for the better. The 1909 Plan of Chicago, for example, led to the widening of more than 100 miles of arterial streets and to the conversion of the shore of Lake Michigan into a nearly continuous twenty-four-mile strip of parkland. Plans can be useful, but as Eisenhower understood very well, anyone who wants to change anything must do more than publish a document—they must engage in a process that leads to actual changes to a neighborhood, city, suburb, or region. Sadly, today very few people who call themselves city planners engage in this sort of change-oriented activity and thus cannot be said to engage in planning
