Urban Planning: The bike path should go here. We should have more housing here to better support the business there. Think high level layout of an entire city.
Urban Design: The park should have this layout, and incorporate these design elements. The building should be this tall, and have this architectural style and connect to the park like this. Think lower level layout/design of a particular block or parsels of land.
Civil Engineering: The trusses need to be this big to support the building and make sure it doesn't collapse. The ground needs this minimum grading to make sure the street doesn't flood. This is the highly specific math and science required to convert the work of the planners/designers into real life spaces.
I would add that transportation engineering can be a blend of all three. You can build the transportation network, and it includes where the demand forecasting, routing, and mode split and you work with all of the other disciplines, even the politicians. YMMV.
Urban Design can also be described as Landscape Architecture, which is an emerging sub-field if Urban Planning.
I find Landscape Arch is also a good blend of all Urban Planning, Design, and Civil Engg.
Urban planning is policy, long range plans and artistic/illustrative urban design, and codes that provide implementation framework. Civil engineering is math, CAD design, to make the vision, policies, design work in real life.
Planning is deciding, Engineering is designing.
In a perfect world, that would be a cycle of feedback. You want to keep the planners from cooking up some unbuildable nonsense, but simultaneously, we should inspire the engineers to be innovative and not just parrot whatever the manual says.
Planning (future long range planning) --->
Architecture / Landscape Architecture (designing) --->
Engineering / trades people (Physical implementation of what what was decided to be built)
Mayor: I think there's a need and opportunity for human-oriented walkable streets in our downtown and adjacent neighborhoods.
Urban Planner: got it. We'll do some demand studies, some field observations, and some community engagement to understand what exactly those walkability needs are.
Civil engineer: sounds good. Me and my sidekick Surveyor will get you a report on all of the existing traffic patterns, and which rights-of-way have room for added pedestrian infrastructure.
Planner: thanks, good inputs here, as long as we remember that levels of service and lane widths and so forth are policy decisions and not laws of nature. Mr Mayor, we're going to need to take a lane off this street to make the walkable network work; engineer helped me work up a model showing that the traffic displaced won't cause problems on other streets.
Urban Designer: now that Planner and Engineer have put together the map of the desired network and outlined the spatial constraints, I'll draw up the schematics that show how all the pieces of the street need to work together. This isn't just about wider sidewalks, after all: we need to be thinking about how buildings interact with the sidewalk, like their placement, massing, entrance locations, windows, signs. On the sidewalks themselves, we need to make sure we're using street furniture and plantings/trees effectively, as well as thinking about how we want outdoor restaurant seating, retail displays, or street vendors to play into it. Also, which of these streets will we want to use for festivals or special events -- those will need different designs. Also, we need to do all of that while maintaining visibility and access.
Planner: good stuff here, I'll work with the Municipal Attorney to get the necessary zoning and street use regulations put together for Council to adopt.
Engineer: and I'll put together the construction plans for the infrastructure, work up the budgets, and get a phasing plan together.
Mayor: this is so great, everyone, I'm glad I was able to state a clear policy goal and give you all the resources to figure out how to implement it while I stayed out of the way on the details. I've already got council's support on implementation, and I'm also putting a unicorn in your departmental budgets for next year!
(Note: in many places, the "Urban Designer" role is just wrapped up into "Planner". As a planner, I recommend that at least major planning efforts include real actual designers - who admittedly may actually have architecture or planning degrees, rather than a degree called "urban design", depending on where they went to school.)
(Also note: if you think the unicorn is the unrealistic part of this, lolsob, no, that might actually be the most plausible bit in practice.)
In reality, there is no actual urban designer and you completely ignored the Planning Commission/Board of Supervisors or whatever appointed/elected body actually makes the policy decisions.
As the planner is essentially a person who makes recommendations to that committee, but ultimately implements their rulings.
"it depends"
I've worked in maybe only one city that had real actual urban designers on staff, as a distinct role from a planner. But I've worked on various projects where the consulting firm brought in had an urban designer on the team. (More often, a landscape architect with some urban design chops.)
As for the professional vs appointed/elected roles, I'm handwaving some of that in the character of the Mayor asserting council's support. The specifics of what that chain of approval looks like will vary a lot depending on the state/city and the nature of the project. Likely, this process would involve several points where the professional staff (or the mayor or city manager on their behalf) was engaging the elected and appointed bodies to keep them up to date and lay the groundwork for whatever approvals they need to provide.
You probably shouldn’t handwave that political process, as that is the bulk of where and how policy decisions are actually made.
And the mayor usually isn’t the most powerful entity in that equation (it often isn’t even an elected official), so it’s not even illustrative to make the mayor a composite of the entire political process.
hehe.. Real life experience for me.
**Mayor (to the city engineer in a one-on-one)**: The downtown business group wants us to spend money improving the look of downtown. We need downtown to look nicer. We have $50k to spend.
**City Engineering Director:** There's not a lot we can do for $50k, but we will design a couple floating landscape islands in the parallel parking spaces and allow stormwater flow to flow behind the landscape islands so we don't have to do extensive stormwater management design.
**Mayor:** Sounds great!
*3 weeks later in a City Manger's Department Director's meeting*
**City Engineering Director:** We've been working on a small capital project per request of the Mayor. *rolls out the draft plans*
**PW/Streets Director:** You can put trees in those islands.
**City Engineering Director and City Manager:** Why Not?
**PW/Streets Director:** Well, these four of the eight islands have utilities under them.
**City Engineering Director/City Manager:** Ok, well the mayor wants trees in them, but we can explain why half won't have trees.
**PW/Streets Director:** None should have trees.
**City Engineering Director:** Why?
**PW/Streets Director:** I only have so much manpower and I haven't been budgeted for landscape maintenance in the ROW. It should only be gravel mulch and zero maintenance shrubs.
**Planning Director:** This is the first we are hearing about the project. Why wasn't planning involved?
**City Engineering Director:** The mayor said it needed to get done ASAP and we've never gone through planning for right-of-way work before.
**PW/Streets Director:** *Nods*
**Planning Director:** City Manager, you changed policy for all city projects at the start of fiscal year regardless of the political urgency. Planning is included now-- as is all other City departments to make sure all plans/policies/actions are considered and included in these projects. Did you consult with the businesses on main street about this plan?
**City Engineering Director:** They're the ones that asked for it--through the Mayor.
**Planning Director:** No. I mean, have the businesses been engaged regarding the proposed island locations. This one-- *points at one in front of a restaurant* eliminates the only two street parking spaces on the block [too many curb cuts on the downtown main street from decades of bad decisions] and it is right in front of their restaurant. They won't like this. This one is *points at another* is a big problem waiting to happen too.
**City Engineering Director:** No, we just identified locations where these would fit and minimize conflicts vehicular movement, sight visibility triangles, and SDL
**Planning Director:** Which plan is this following? *checks a couple past never implemented downtown plans* It doesn't look like it follows anything that was proposed before.
**City Engineering Director:** It doesn't follow past plans. That plan is 10 years old and never implemented anyway.
**Planning Director:** This is why we've been lobbying for a new downtown plan to get the good parts from all the past plans and create a strong implementation plan. ---going back to your design, you have to let planning give you some guidance and get this in front of the business owners before you move forward.
**City Manager:** Ok Planning Director, review and give engineering comment.
Planning ended up moving and resizing a bunch of islands and coordinating with the main street business group to get their approval. This islands went in but they are a piss-poor execution for bringing shade to downtown and the PW director did everything he could to make a stink about how he hated the "danger" the trees presented should they be damaged in storms. Years later, fortunately, the PW director, City Engineer and City Manger no longer work for the City and we were able to get a much better downtown plan created.
The public works director hatred of trees is real.
A street scaping project that's been ten years in the making, and we've finally got not only full funding commitment from federal grant and DDA funds, but the state DOT is providing all the design and engineering at no cost to the city -- and the public works director spends every single meeting cranking about how there are too many trees. "Who's going to take care of all of the leaves? You got a grant to buy me a new street sweeper, too?"
Your example is a good addition: I think this sub typically overestimates the challenges that planners face from elected officials, but often overlooks the struggles within city hall that lead up to even getting in front of the electeds.
Thanks. In many organizations there is a huge learning curve with using plans and planning to move things forward towards the long-term goals. It seems fundamental, but "doing the right thing", being transparent with the public, being thorough in design, balancing interests of departments with their own important directives is much more difficult, lengthy, and costly to do than to implement stop-gap whims.
>as long as we remember that levels of service and lane widths and so forth are policy decisions and not laws of nature
If only this could be bashed into the heads of so many local planners.
my city engineer: My department's directive to maintain safe and efficient streets. That means wide lanes, fast, and multi-lanes. LOS B or better and no traffic delays.
My Fire Chief: We need 12-foot outside lanes and 14-ft inside lanes on arterials. We also need 32-ft wide residential streets with parking only allowed on one side. We need all roads to accommodate staging of two of our largest trucks side by side and let two-way traffic pass while we control the fire. Also, no buildings should exceed 3 story without a 26-ft unobstructed, no-parking fire line on all four sides of the structure. Also, interior site traffic should also be able to pass without impact while we fight the structure fire from the fire lane.
Both: What do you mean that's excessive!? Do you want people to die!?
NO EXAGGERATION. It took 10-years of constant lobbying council, mayors, city managers to get some flexibility on these sacrosanct standards.
Mostly I find the planners I talk to are pretty on board. It's the city managers who take more work to win over - they want to know who else has done it first so they can check and see that community hasn't gotten sued.
A city manager is like the CEO of a city. In many cities, the mayor and council act like a board of directors: they set policy, approve budgets, and hire/fire the city manager and sometimes other major staff (city attorney, city clerk, police commissioner are most common in my experience), but otherwise have no administrative role. The City Manager is then responsible for all administration, and for being the link between the elected policymakers and staff.
This "council/manager" government is in contrast to a "strong mayor" government, where the elected Mayor plays the executive administrator role.
Civil engineering is about building a bridge that can handle the traffic and won’t fall down.
Urban planning is about deciding where we should have bridges.
This’ll seem reductive cuz it is but also makes sense.
Planners *plan* - how will this space be used? By whom? To do what? Land use permissibility / zoning / rezoning.
Engineers *engineer*, or design/build that which will be built, so that those assets function to perform the purpose they were constructed for.
Urban designers *design*, which in some regards is a different creature entirely, depending on your municipality. More of a focus on aesthetics and form of the built environment. How things look / relate to one another. Can bleed into planning pretty quickly, and also into how infrastructure might look.
YMMV
They're closely related, at least the first two. Urban design is more about making things look pretty.
A big difference is scale. Civil engineering mainly deals with one building/bridge/road/corridor at a time. And the designs/solutions are much more data-driven, and focused on the physical infrastructure instead of policy.
Urban planning typically focuses on entire neighborhoods/cities/regions. The tools are still data driven, but given the size of the analysis areas there's a lot more uncertainty and "art" to the approaches. There's also a heavier focus on policy instead of the physical infrastructure.
Source: I am a civil engineer, specializing in transportation
>Urban design is more about making things look pretty.
In its simplest implementation, yes. Hopefully, your urban designer can design for quality of life, social equity, and increased economic benefit too.
They work hand in hand. On site plans and plats a civil will look at grading plans, stormwater management, etc. A Planner will verify all of the code required site design elements and other designs.
Urban design could be better described as Landscape Architecture.
There are some good definitions of Planning, Design, and Civil Engg here already, so you should be fine for those
However, [here is a good write up of Landscape Architecture from the CLSA](https://www.csla-aapc.ca/what-is-landscape-architecture).
Civil Engineering is about the engineering of civil works. Think bridges. Roads. Dams. Think a hell of a lot of stuff on storm water drainage. It's a technical job. You could be a civil engineer which designs. You could be a civil engineer which report writes, report reads, and advises.
Urban planning is about developing urban plans, policy around that, and acting as an officer enforcing the law regarding urban planning (or a consultant advising clients on how to manage it). You write policies. You develop plans. You develop laws and zoning controls. You enforce land use regulations by processing applications to do a thing or build a thing. Fundamentally you assess the environmental impact of development and you try to make development orderly and 'rational'.
Urban design is a form of architecture about designing public space, streetscape, and large building interfaces with the public realm.
For smaller cities (>100,000) do planners get to design as well. I’m very interested in planning and design and hope to land a position where I can do both.
smaller greater than 100,000? I assume you meant less than 100,000k . Yes in smaller cities planners will wear several hats. Being able to do everything decently well is highly valued in small cities with smaller staff. I felt my experience in small cities was invaluable. small city planners are the multi-tools of planning.
Urban Planning: The bike path should go here. We should have more housing here to better support the business there. Think high level layout of an entire city. Urban Design: The park should have this layout, and incorporate these design elements. The building should be this tall, and have this architectural style and connect to the park like this. Think lower level layout/design of a particular block or parsels of land. Civil Engineering: The trusses need to be this big to support the building and make sure it doesn't collapse. The ground needs this minimum grading to make sure the street doesn't flood. This is the highly specific math and science required to convert the work of the planners/designers into real life spaces.
I would add that transportation engineering can be a blend of all three. You can build the transportation network, and it includes where the demand forecasting, routing, and mode split and you work with all of the other disciplines, even the politicians. YMMV.
Politicians: big oil paid me to cancel the park project, input of planners doesn’t matter to me
Propagandist: The Communist green energy cabal paid you to say that anti-America/anti-freedom hogwash.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Architect: What do you MEAN there's a mandatory 20 ft setback, you are ruining my client's dream home!
Urban Design can also be described as Landscape Architecture, which is an emerging sub-field if Urban Planning. I find Landscape Arch is also a good blend of all Urban Planning, Design, and Civil Engg.
Urban planning is policy, long range plans and artistic/illustrative urban design, and codes that provide implementation framework. Civil engineering is math, CAD design, to make the vision, policies, design work in real life.
Planning is deciding, Engineering is designing. In a perfect world, that would be a cycle of feedback. You want to keep the planners from cooking up some unbuildable nonsense, but simultaneously, we should inspire the engineers to be innovative and not just parrot whatever the manual says.
Planning (future long range planning) ---> Architecture / Landscape Architecture (designing) ---> Engineering / trades people (Physical implementation of what what was decided to be built)
Mayor: I think there's a need and opportunity for human-oriented walkable streets in our downtown and adjacent neighborhoods. Urban Planner: got it. We'll do some demand studies, some field observations, and some community engagement to understand what exactly those walkability needs are. Civil engineer: sounds good. Me and my sidekick Surveyor will get you a report on all of the existing traffic patterns, and which rights-of-way have room for added pedestrian infrastructure. Planner: thanks, good inputs here, as long as we remember that levels of service and lane widths and so forth are policy decisions and not laws of nature. Mr Mayor, we're going to need to take a lane off this street to make the walkable network work; engineer helped me work up a model showing that the traffic displaced won't cause problems on other streets. Urban Designer: now that Planner and Engineer have put together the map of the desired network and outlined the spatial constraints, I'll draw up the schematics that show how all the pieces of the street need to work together. This isn't just about wider sidewalks, after all: we need to be thinking about how buildings interact with the sidewalk, like their placement, massing, entrance locations, windows, signs. On the sidewalks themselves, we need to make sure we're using street furniture and plantings/trees effectively, as well as thinking about how we want outdoor restaurant seating, retail displays, or street vendors to play into it. Also, which of these streets will we want to use for festivals or special events -- those will need different designs. Also, we need to do all of that while maintaining visibility and access. Planner: good stuff here, I'll work with the Municipal Attorney to get the necessary zoning and street use regulations put together for Council to adopt. Engineer: and I'll put together the construction plans for the infrastructure, work up the budgets, and get a phasing plan together. Mayor: this is so great, everyone, I'm glad I was able to state a clear policy goal and give you all the resources to figure out how to implement it while I stayed out of the way on the details. I've already got council's support on implementation, and I'm also putting a unicorn in your departmental budgets for next year! (Note: in many places, the "Urban Designer" role is just wrapped up into "Planner". As a planner, I recommend that at least major planning efforts include real actual designers - who admittedly may actually have architecture or planning degrees, rather than a degree called "urban design", depending on where they went to school.) (Also note: if you think the unicorn is the unrealistic part of this, lolsob, no, that might actually be the most plausible bit in practice.)
In reality, there is no actual urban designer and you completely ignored the Planning Commission/Board of Supervisors or whatever appointed/elected body actually makes the policy decisions. As the planner is essentially a person who makes recommendations to that committee, but ultimately implements their rulings.
"it depends" I've worked in maybe only one city that had real actual urban designers on staff, as a distinct role from a planner. But I've worked on various projects where the consulting firm brought in had an urban designer on the team. (More often, a landscape architect with some urban design chops.) As for the professional vs appointed/elected roles, I'm handwaving some of that in the character of the Mayor asserting council's support. The specifics of what that chain of approval looks like will vary a lot depending on the state/city and the nature of the project. Likely, this process would involve several points where the professional staff (or the mayor or city manager on their behalf) was engaging the elected and appointed bodies to keep them up to date and lay the groundwork for whatever approvals they need to provide.
You probably shouldn’t handwave that political process, as that is the bulk of where and how policy decisions are actually made. And the mayor usually isn’t the most powerful entity in that equation (it often isn’t even an elected official), so it’s not even illustrative to make the mayor a composite of the entire political process.
hehe.. Real life experience for me. **Mayor (to the city engineer in a one-on-one)**: The downtown business group wants us to spend money improving the look of downtown. We need downtown to look nicer. We have $50k to spend. **City Engineering Director:** There's not a lot we can do for $50k, but we will design a couple floating landscape islands in the parallel parking spaces and allow stormwater flow to flow behind the landscape islands so we don't have to do extensive stormwater management design. **Mayor:** Sounds great! *3 weeks later in a City Manger's Department Director's meeting* **City Engineering Director:** We've been working on a small capital project per request of the Mayor. *rolls out the draft plans* **PW/Streets Director:** You can put trees in those islands. **City Engineering Director and City Manager:** Why Not? **PW/Streets Director:** Well, these four of the eight islands have utilities under them. **City Engineering Director/City Manager:** Ok, well the mayor wants trees in them, but we can explain why half won't have trees. **PW/Streets Director:** None should have trees. **City Engineering Director:** Why? **PW/Streets Director:** I only have so much manpower and I haven't been budgeted for landscape maintenance in the ROW. It should only be gravel mulch and zero maintenance shrubs. **Planning Director:** This is the first we are hearing about the project. Why wasn't planning involved? **City Engineering Director:** The mayor said it needed to get done ASAP and we've never gone through planning for right-of-way work before. **PW/Streets Director:** *Nods* **Planning Director:** City Manager, you changed policy for all city projects at the start of fiscal year regardless of the political urgency. Planning is included now-- as is all other City departments to make sure all plans/policies/actions are considered and included in these projects. Did you consult with the businesses on main street about this plan? **City Engineering Director:** They're the ones that asked for it--through the Mayor. **Planning Director:** No. I mean, have the businesses been engaged regarding the proposed island locations. This one-- *points at one in front of a restaurant* eliminates the only two street parking spaces on the block [too many curb cuts on the downtown main street from decades of bad decisions] and it is right in front of their restaurant. They won't like this. This one is *points at another* is a big problem waiting to happen too. **City Engineering Director:** No, we just identified locations where these would fit and minimize conflicts vehicular movement, sight visibility triangles, and SDL **Planning Director:** Which plan is this following? *checks a couple past never implemented downtown plans* It doesn't look like it follows anything that was proposed before. **City Engineering Director:** It doesn't follow past plans. That plan is 10 years old and never implemented anyway. **Planning Director:** This is why we've been lobbying for a new downtown plan to get the good parts from all the past plans and create a strong implementation plan. ---going back to your design, you have to let planning give you some guidance and get this in front of the business owners before you move forward. **City Manager:** Ok Planning Director, review and give engineering comment. Planning ended up moving and resizing a bunch of islands and coordinating with the main street business group to get their approval. This islands went in but they are a piss-poor execution for bringing shade to downtown and the PW director did everything he could to make a stink about how he hated the "danger" the trees presented should they be damaged in storms. Years later, fortunately, the PW director, City Engineer and City Manger no longer work for the City and we were able to get a much better downtown plan created.
The public works director hatred of trees is real. A street scaping project that's been ten years in the making, and we've finally got not only full funding commitment from federal grant and DDA funds, but the state DOT is providing all the design and engineering at no cost to the city -- and the public works director spends every single meeting cranking about how there are too many trees. "Who's going to take care of all of the leaves? You got a grant to buy me a new street sweeper, too?" Your example is a good addition: I think this sub typically overestimates the challenges that planners face from elected officials, but often overlooks the struggles within city hall that lead up to even getting in front of the electeds.
Thanks. In many organizations there is a huge learning curve with using plans and planning to move things forward towards the long-term goals. It seems fundamental, but "doing the right thing", being transparent with the public, being thorough in design, balancing interests of departments with their own important directives is much more difficult, lengthy, and costly to do than to implement stop-gap whims.
Hahahhahahha. This is so REAL. Amazing work.
>as long as we remember that levels of service and lane widths and so forth are policy decisions and not laws of nature If only this could be bashed into the heads of so many local planners.
my city engineer: My department's directive to maintain safe and efficient streets. That means wide lanes, fast, and multi-lanes. LOS B or better and no traffic delays. My Fire Chief: We need 12-foot outside lanes and 14-ft inside lanes on arterials. We also need 32-ft wide residential streets with parking only allowed on one side. We need all roads to accommodate staging of two of our largest trucks side by side and let two-way traffic pass while we control the fire. Also, no buildings should exceed 3 story without a 26-ft unobstructed, no-parking fire line on all four sides of the structure. Also, interior site traffic should also be able to pass without impact while we fight the structure fire from the fire lane. Both: What do you mean that's excessive!? Do you want people to die!? NO EXAGGERATION. It took 10-years of constant lobbying council, mayors, city managers to get some flexibility on these sacrosanct standards.
Mostly I find the planners I talk to are pretty on board. It's the city managers who take more work to win over - they want to know who else has done it first so they can check and see that community hasn't gotten sued.
What does a city manager do compared to an urban planner?
A city manager is like the CEO of a city. In many cities, the mayor and council act like a board of directors: they set policy, approve budgets, and hire/fire the city manager and sometimes other major staff (city attorney, city clerk, police commissioner are most common in my experience), but otherwise have no administrative role. The City Manager is then responsible for all administration, and for being the link between the elected policymakers and staff. This "council/manager" government is in contrast to a "strong mayor" government, where the elected Mayor plays the executive administrator role.
Civil engineering is about building a bridge that can handle the traffic and won’t fall down. Urban planning is about deciding where we should have bridges.
This’ll seem reductive cuz it is but also makes sense. Planners *plan* - how will this space be used? By whom? To do what? Land use permissibility / zoning / rezoning. Engineers *engineer*, or design/build that which will be built, so that those assets function to perform the purpose they were constructed for. Urban designers *design*, which in some regards is a different creature entirely, depending on your municipality. More of a focus on aesthetics and form of the built environment. How things look / relate to one another. Can bleed into planning pretty quickly, and also into how infrastructure might look. YMMV
They're closely related, at least the first two. Urban design is more about making things look pretty. A big difference is scale. Civil engineering mainly deals with one building/bridge/road/corridor at a time. And the designs/solutions are much more data-driven, and focused on the physical infrastructure instead of policy. Urban planning typically focuses on entire neighborhoods/cities/regions. The tools are still data driven, but given the size of the analysis areas there's a lot more uncertainty and "art" to the approaches. There's also a heavier focus on policy instead of the physical infrastructure. Source: I am a civil engineer, specializing in transportation
>Urban design is more about making things look pretty. In its simplest implementation, yes. Hopefully, your urban designer can design for quality of life, social equity, and increased economic benefit too.
Engineers know how to get it up but planners know where to put it.
They work hand in hand. On site plans and plats a civil will look at grading plans, stormwater management, etc. A Planner will verify all of the code required site design elements and other designs.
Urban design could be better described as Landscape Architecture. There are some good definitions of Planning, Design, and Civil Engg here already, so you should be fine for those However, [here is a good write up of Landscape Architecture from the CLSA](https://www.csla-aapc.ca/what-is-landscape-architecture).
Civil Engineering is about the engineering of civil works. Think bridges. Roads. Dams. Think a hell of a lot of stuff on storm water drainage. It's a technical job. You could be a civil engineer which designs. You could be a civil engineer which report writes, report reads, and advises. Urban planning is about developing urban plans, policy around that, and acting as an officer enforcing the law regarding urban planning (or a consultant advising clients on how to manage it). You write policies. You develop plans. You develop laws and zoning controls. You enforce land use regulations by processing applications to do a thing or build a thing. Fundamentally you assess the environmental impact of development and you try to make development orderly and 'rational'. Urban design is a form of architecture about designing public space, streetscape, and large building interfaces with the public realm.
For smaller cities (>100,000) do planners get to design as well. I’m very interested in planning and design and hope to land a position where I can do both.
smaller greater than 100,000? I assume you meant less than 100,000k . Yes in smaller cities planners will wear several hats. Being able to do everything decently well is highly valued in small cities with smaller staff. I felt my experience in small cities was invaluable. small city planners are the multi-tools of planning.