Last week the Massachusetts chapter of the American Planning Association awarded Urban Compass its 2006 Outstanding Planning Media Award. In the photo at left, I am receiving a framed certificate from chapter president Peter Lowitt. The certificate charmingly cites my "daily web blog."
At the awards function, which was also the chapter’s annual holiday luncheon, awards committee chair Thomas Bott indicated that giving the media award to a blogger raised the chapter’s hipness profile considerably. For me, a lowly and underpaid blogger (not that there’s anything wrong with that), an award of this high esteem considerably raises my geek profile. A win all around.
A group from the UMass Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning master’s degree program was there to receive the chapter’s student work award, for their commendable accomplishments with Holyoke’s CanalWalk project. It was great to have company from western Massachusetts at the event, but as I looked at the group, I wondered if any of them had ever been to Springfield.
Ah, I realized, this is how the neglected-city-dweller resentment begins to set in, and really makes its roost. There I was, receiving an award for my work, and I had the nerve to look askance and feel a sense of envy for budding, intellectual planners who looked well-off and artistically-minded. More than that, I told myself, they have each other to turn to for advice and support, in the safety of a classroom, and typically, the comfort of the hypothetical realm. Their distinct advantage: the explicit freedom to imagine, to dream. I want that for Springfield, but in practical applications, and with diverse, invested stakeholders.
I have a long way to go as a blogger personally, but this award is for underdog Springfield, a place of passionate people that deserves recognition for its many strides and accomplishments in the here and now. On that count, it was an honor to represent my city, and to be there next to Holyoke, in a sense.
The upcoming newsletter of APA-MA, Lowitt said, will have photos and profiles of all the award winners.
