It won't be one of those blogs, I promise

I am not exactly sure the path this blog will take, but I am sure I don't want it to be packed with angry/emotional rants about the state of my community or the world in general. However, as I sat down to write today, I got the feeling this might be one of those emotional posts. The reason being is that as I type, my six week old son is sleeping on my chest.

I fell into into Planning. I started my higher education at USU in the Forestry program, I wanted to be a ranger/fuels specialist/wild fire incident commander. A series of events and handful of years later I found myself in Tasha Seegert's office signing up as an Environmental Studies major. Urban Planning dovetailed into my academic plan nicely, and I thought a double major couldn't hurt a resume. I didn't know anything about planning, but it seemed more interesting than my other option, Political Science. It turns out that was a fortuitous meeting because Planning is the career I never new I always wanted.

Which brings me back to sleeping Morgan. It is a tumultuous world. And it is only going to get worse. There are things this little guy will face in his life I couldn't have imagined. We are increasingly disconnected from human interaction, which has a host of detrimental side effects. Sometimes I picture the dystopian "The Machine Stops" in Morgan's future, but I hope not.

I can't stop most of the terrible things that will surely take place in Morgan's life. I can't eradicate disease or hunger. I can't stop wars. But what I can do is make the setting for his life one which embraces community, one that facilitates human interaction. The building heights, and parking requirements, and setbacks that seem so mundane help the built environment either foster community or hamper it.

I will teach this little one to love human contact. I will teach him to embrace humanity and all its imperfections. And I will do my part to make sure he lives in a world where people aren't separated by the built environment.

It won't happen overnight, but I'm a patient person.