Once again I’m having huge troubles remembering what I did prior to Friday, so I guess we’ll start there. My office was closed on Friday, so my mom got me a flight home for the weekend. It was so great to go home and celebrate Easter and my cousin’s 21st with my family. I got to reunite with a lot of friends from high school, go shopping, hang out with my dog, go to church… it was a crazy busy weekend, but I really enjoyed it.
Then came Monday—my first business trip! What an experience; I absolutely loved it. We flew down to Long Beach, MS on Monday morning. I met my bosses at the airport around 9:30, and then when we got to Gulfport we met up with another woman who is working with us on the project. When we got to Long Beach, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. But what I found was a city destroyed by and never rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina. What I found was a group of people, welcoming us with open arms, desperate to get their city back the way it was. And unfortunately, the Long Beach, MS these people know isn’t going to come back. Their houses, their apartments, their small businesses are not going to exist in the way they knew ever again. But what we can do is try and give them something close—something better maybe, with a prospect of a lively downtown, a beautiful beachfront, a centralized business district, and properly organized neighborhoods and street networks. And that is why planning fascinates me as a profession—because we have the capability to create and reinvent places for people to live, work, and play all at once. And without places, without community, without anywhere to go, we exist solely unto ourselves, floating, not prospering, and unhappy.
Our meeting was constructive. We talked with citizens, the city council, and the mayor. We answered questions and helped calm fears and I learned SmartCode! No joke—last night I was dreaming about transect zones. I’m not kidding. It was sick. The woman from outside ASG that we are working with was extremely helpful. I was sitting next to her during the meeting and she answered every single question I had (and I had a lot of questions). By the end of the meeting I actually felt like I could participate in the project—like I could make suggestions and contribute. That was a great feeling—for once I didn’t feel completely lost. Afterwards we went to a casino and had a nice dinner. It was the place open at ten p.m. in the whole city. Unfortunately, I practically fell asleep at dinner because I was so tired. But it was really nice to get to know my bosses better and to have an opportunity to talk about things besides work. I had a lot of fun and I can’t wait till I go to Texas next week for the CNU conference!
Lessons of the week:
1) Zoning is totally more complicated than you think it is.
2) People in MS have awesome accents.
3) No matter how far from your friends and your home you may be, when you go back it’s like nothing ever changed. And that is more comforting than anything.
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