Rollin Stanley, planning director in Montgomery County

I went to a training session (a "planners bootcamp" at Catholic U, sponsored by the local chapter of the Am. Planning Association), and he spoke, ostensibly about how to do spellbinding graphic presentations, featuring presentations on the current Montgomery County Growth Strategy update process (the strategy is up for a vote on Tuesday before the Montgomery County Council, even though the County Executive has issues with it) and on his award winning presentation on the City of St. Louis and developing and executing an inner city revitalizaion strategy in the face of relatively overwhelming obstacles (he won't give this presentation out, but it is on page 127 of this document, The future of shrinking cities: problems, patterns, and strategies of urban transformations in a global context, just not in Powerpoint).

(The 12 point strategy, although he admits that they produced the "strategy" afterwards, figuring out what they had been doing from a meta-perspective after they had already been doing stuff, is a brilliant framework for inner city revitalization.)

Given the difficulty and challenge of the work in St. Louis, I am a bit shocked now that I have heard him speak, about his taking the planning director job in Montgomery County as it is a much different environment from Toronto (very urban) and St. Louis (very desperate).

He's very direct. Think Warren Beatty in the movie Bullworth, or the Jim Carrey movie where he can only tell the truth ("Liar, Liar").

That doesn't mean that Mr. Stanley only tells the truth, but he definitely tells the truth as he sees it. For many people, it means he is abrasive, if not cocky.

I can understand why he is the way he is though. Most people don't really understand the depth of difficulties of urban revitalization in weak real estate markets. It's almost unsurmountable. I had a taste of it, but only a taste, workng on revitalization issues in DC before 2004.

After 2003, it became much easier--and it was always relatively easier in DC because of the relative stability of the economy because of the federal government, and the strength, then anyway, of the historic preservation movement, which stabilized many inner city neighborhoods--because of the change in investor perception after Marion Barry was no longer Mayor, and with changes in housing trends beginning to favor living in the inner city.

Before then it had been very tough, and you learn a lot, very quickly about how real estate development works, how retail attraction works, the importance of transit, the difficulties of ensuring municipal government performance, etc.

It makes you, maybe not bitter, but a lot less willing to endure b.s., and misdirection because your resources are so limited, that you can't afford to make many mistakes.

Generally though, when you interact with people in this way it is counter-productive for career management...