The latest insidious project of area planners is to indoctrinate more than 260 civic and business elites from the 15 county region by letting them use Lego bricks to plan future development patterns. That?s right, the N&O reported here that business and civic leaders got to use Legos to play make-believe planners. They got a taste of the telling other people where and how they can live and what mode of transportation they can use, just like real planners.
The purpose of this play with Legos is to build political support for regional plans that dictate lifestyles by imposing ?smart growth? policies, high density housing, light rail transit projects. Planners used this technique with school children in Jackson County last year and I am sure we will see more examples of this successful political tactic around the state.
Here is my post on the N&O comment section:
While on the surface this exercise seems open ended, it is constrained by the planning mentality. Planners assume that planning is necessary to prevent ?uncontrolled growth.? This translates into carefully orchestrated activities, such as this one, designed to build political support for plans that are consistent with current planning fads.
The ?Reality Check? participants should have been given the opportunity to hear alternatives to the planning mentality. For example, participants should have heard that the founders wrote a Constitution that envisioned a society in which individuals were free to plan their lives free from plans imposed by planners. They should have learned about planning failures in United States and the Soviet Union. They should have been provided with data that indicates most individuals want a lifestyle that is radically different from the one that most planners want to impose on them.
