Business and corporate planning jobs are a little different from town planning jobs. They revolve more around event planning for corporate and business activities. Event planners may be known by different job titles. They may be involved in such things as planning a reception for a client or planning a corporate party to celebrate a success. There are many reasons to become a business planner. A job working as a planner usually pays well and can actually be fun. It gets you away from the grind of doing typical office work and gets you more involved in the social aspects of managing a company. Wise executives realize that keeping employee morale high is even more important than pay in retaining their best employees and improving productivity. Event planners play an important role in that aspect. But planning jobs are not just for parties. They may play an important role in setting up a presentation or sales pitch to attract a new client.
Town planning jobs often center more on street design and building codes and specifications. Many older towns had no design or planning when the town was first settled in the days of horse and buggies. Trails became streets, and then as the town grew up and became a city and entered the modern world of automobiles, the lack of planning became a difficult problem to solve. When Salt Lake City was settled by Mormon pioneers in 1847, their leader, Brigham Young wisely foresaw the future development of the city, and planned for it. People less visionary probably thought he was nuts when he insisted all the streets be 120 feet wide. They were in the middle of an uninhabited desolate valley strewn with weeds and sage brush. Brigham Young said he wanted a wagon team to be able to turn around anywhere in the town.
Now if you go to down town Salt Lake City, you will find the same streets, still 120 feet wide, and still laid out exactly as Brigham Young ordered, over 150 years ago. Each street has three lanes in each direction, filled with automobiles, and with room for turning lanes. There are wide sidewalks in front of downtown high-rise office buildings and mall fronts, giving plenty of room for pedestrians, shoppers, and workers. On most streets there is still even room for parking on the side, providing the city additional income from parking meters. The town was also laid out in a square-grid pattern. Each city block is ten acres. Each street runs either straight north and south or straight east and west. Each ten-acre block is an eighth-of-a-mile long and divided into one-hundredths of that distance for address purposes. You can picture the town laid out as if on graph paper.
Most cities without this good fortune have had to tear down buildings, dig up roads and have required a much-more difficult process for finding your way around. Of course other cities have had some foresight in their planning, too. New York City benefits from the good fortune of some visionaries setting aside Central Park as an area free from development. It is a treasure for the whole city to enjoy, having a small taste of wilderness right in the middle of one of the largest and busiest cities in the whole world. Imagine New York City without Central Park. It is a good example of how planning for the future is essential for any city or town.
Urban planning jobs are available for those who would be involved in this planning process. Town planning jobs are also available in smaller towns where they help in planning and allowing space for such things as parks and ball fields, irrigation canals and ditches, and zoning for residential and commercial areas.
Business and corporate planning jobs are also available for urban planners, because some cities contract with private engineering forms to provide this service for them rather than directly hiring individuals to fill these jobs as city employees. Whether your planning job is for a city or for a private corporation, you may find it to be a rewarding career path for you. You may need an engineering degree to go to work for a contractor providing urban planning for a major city, or maybe you will have less education than that and go to work for a large business as an event planner, planning corporate parties and social events. There is a wide range of possibilities, and field is wide open to you. The important thing is that you have a satisfying and rewarding career. It is important to figure out what your talents, abilities, and interests are and decide what you want to be. Then go about seeking the education and training you will need to become that. After that, the sky is the limit and you can go out get job you like to get.
