ABSTRACT
In August 1868, a committee of private citizens in Buffalo, New York invited Frederick Law Olmsted to visit the city Buffalo had prospered because of the Erie Canal and was an important meatpacking and iron-manufacturing center, as well as a grain-handling port. If there is a latter-day Olmsted, it might be argued that it is either Andres Duany or Peter Calthorpe, both founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism. Both are effective leaders, public spokesmen, and designers. These "town planners" were trained as architects, not city planners; indeed, professional city planners are curiously absent from the debate. The planning profession retreated in a different direction. Unlike architects, city planners are generally not licensed to practice; so there was no sheltered field of professional activity to fall back on. Planners did find work—as civil servants in various governmental planning departments, and as technical consultants to a variety of interest groups such as community development corporations, historical preservation societies, environmental organizations.
