Prepare the barricades, fellow planners; dig out a shelter at the bottom of your garden (if you are lucky enough to have a garden…); and stock up on tins of non-perishable food. There might be a culture war coming and a good planner always spots trouble before it arrives... Given broader cultural, media and political trends it was perhaps only a matter of time before the built environment was subject to the same us versus them, progressive versus regressive factionalism that mars other aspects of public policy and debate. Twitter, of course, is not representative of public opinion, but it can be representative of the cultural, media and political influencers that are shaping it and I spotted this image on there recently. As far as I could tell it was a Brit that posted it and so it is not one of those unseemly intellectual skirmishes breezily dismissed as something our crazy, madcap cousins on the other side of the Atlantic occupy themselves with. Stereotypes are sometimes funny and so...
Hello. My name is Sam, I am a Town Planner and I sometimes write about town planning-related things (in my own time and as an expression of my own opinions). I used to podcast, there is a link to that on this page somewhere, and I circulate a newsletter from time to time. There is a link to that somewhere as well. Should you be so inclined, I am on Bluesky (@samuelstafford.bsky.social) and Instagram (@samuel__stafford).