Members' 25-Year Reminiscences

Carl Almblad, AICP

Cary, North Carolina

It was in 1949, when I was studying architecture at the University of Illinois, that Harlan Bartholomew came as a visiting lecturer to speak of city planning. It was something new to me, but I knew before he was finished that this was for me. That summer I worked as an intern at the Chicago Planning Commission and after graduation in 1950 I got a job there working under Charles Blessing.

When Charlie went to Detroit as Director of Planning I went, too. And it was there that I began to hear about AIP and ASPO. I became involved in the Michigan chapter of AIP, where I met other planners and heard about planning in other cities. During those years, I had the confidence of youth and knew that through planning, we would deal with Detroit's problems and it would become a really great city. AIP helped give me this confidence, and attending national conferences encouraged me even more as I saw planning results around the country. And it was at the AIP conference in Detroit — don't remember the year — that I recall we developed the first AIP mobile workshops. We had much to showcase in Detroit and I enjoyed helping organize and lead some of the workshops.

I'm not sure when, but somewhere along the way I began to realize that as we were solving some problems, times were changing and new issues needed attention. Eventually, I saw how city planning methods would be needed for some time to come!

In 1988, my wife and I retired and moved to North Carolina. I read Planning and the North Carolina chapter newsletter, and sometimes hanker to be involved. But I know I couldn't keep up. What I do enjoy now is using watercolors to paint urban street scenes I am familiar with — something I learned to do making architectural renderings back at the University of Illinois!