Members' 25-Year Reminiscences

Robert Tennenbaum, AICP

Columbia, Maryland

I welcome this opportunity to stop and think about my career in planning — neatly organized into decades — and review my involvement with AIP/APA/AICP.

1950s+

• Degree in Architecture from Pratt Institute, Masters in City Planning from Yale University.

1960s

• Urban Designer/Planner at the National Capital Planning Commission in Washington, D.C. where I worked on the Adams-Morgan Urban Renewal Plan, the first in the nation to involve residents and combine rehabilitation, conservation, and limited redevelopment.

• Urban Designer/Planner with Doxiadis Associates, international planning consultant in Washington, D.C.

• Chief Architect/Planner at The Rouse Company in Baltimore and Columbia for Columbia new town planning. This was the highlight of my career, described in a book I edited that was published in 1996, Creating a New City: Columbia, Maryland. After 36 years, my wife and I still live in the house I designed and built in the first village as Columbia "pioneers." As an architect/planner, there is nothing more satisfying than to live in a city you helped design and plan and experience its growth from scratch.

1970s

• Vice President for Urban Design and Planning at RBA, consultants for PUD developments and many HUD Title VII New Community projects, including three that succeeded.

• Founded Tennenbaum Associates, consultants for PUD developments and new towns, including Horley, a small new town south of London, England, and two new towns in Cali, Colombia. Also provided advice on new town site selection in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

• Director of the Graduate Community Planning Program, University of Maryland, Baltimore.

• Produced New Town seminars for the Urban Life Center in Columbia, Maryland.

• Visiting professor of Urban Planning and Design for the University of Northern Colorado in Washington, D.C., a "campus without walls."

1980s

• VP and President of Market Center Development Corporation, a quasi-public entity in Baltimore. We attracted market rate residents and new employment, improved public spaces, directed facade rehab, assembled development sites and expanded world-famous Lexington Market on the west side of downtown. This was the third most satisfying experience; we moved from concept deal-making to development an easy walk from the office.

• VP Center City-Inner Harbor Development Inc.; Co-manager of "A Twenty Year Strategy for Downtown Baltimore."

1990s - 2000+

• Director of University Center Planning and Real Estate Development for the University of Maryland health sciences and human services campus on the west side of downtown Baltimore. We greatly improved the campus public environment, acquired real estate for campus growth, provided liaison with city agencies, and formed public-private partnerships to develop student apartments and a proposed hotel. This has been the second most satisfying experience — planning has led directly to project implementation a short stroll from my office.

My involvement with AIP, now APA:

• Joined AIP in 1969; charter membership in AICP in 1978.
• Maryland Chapter Board Member and Vice President in the 1970s.
• President of Maryland Chapter 1978-1980. During my term, the 1979 National Convention was held in Baltimore and we published a book, A Guide To Planning In And Around Baltimore.
• Received "Outstanding Comprehensive Plan Award" from the Maryland Chapter in 1991.

I contributed to an article by Mort Hoppenfeld in the Planners Journal, "A Sketch of the Planning-Building Process for Columbia, Maryland," November 1967.

Planning magazine published three of my articles;

• "Try On A New Hat: It Might Suit You," August 1978.
• "Planners, The Developer is Not Your Enemy," March 1979.
• "Lessons From Columbia," May 1991.

I authored "A 20-Year Strategy for Downtown Baltimore" for AICP Planners Casebook #11, Summer 1994.