Planners love data.

We measure everything.
Counts. Ratios. Levels of service.
Trip generation rates. Parking demand. Housing units per acre.
Charts. Tables. Heat maps. Dashboards.

If we were a football team, Count Dracula would be our mascot...seriously.

We are trained to defend ideas with numbers.
To justify decisions with studies.
To translate human experience into something quantifiable.

And to be fair, data matters.
It protects us.
It gives credibility in rooms where feelings are dismissed as “soft” or “emotional.”
It helps us explain why something works, or doesn’t.

But somewhere along the way, many planners lost sight of the point.

Planning was never about spreadsheets.

It was about people.

At its core, planning exists to help people live better lives.
Safer lives.
Healthier lives.
More connected lives.

Not optimized lives.
Not maximized lives.
But better ones.

Yet if you sit through enough planning meetings, you’ll notice something strange. We talk endlessly about inputs and outputs, but rarely about how a place feels.

We debate density numbers without talking about loneliness.
We analyze traffic volumes without asking why everyone is exhausted.
We argue over setbacks and buffers without ever describing joy, comfort, or belonging.

Ask a resident what they want from their neighborhood and they won’t say “an FAR of 2.5.”

But, they may say things like:
“I want to feel safe walking at night.”
“I want my kids to be able to bike without me panicking.”
“I want a place to sit outside.”
“I want to know my neighbors...maybe"

Those aren’t data points.
They’re human needs.

But because they’re hard to quantify, they often get sidelined.

Planning education reinforces this. We’re taught to be objective. Neutral. Evidence-based. That sounds noble, but it can quietly strip the soul out of the work. Over time, planners become technicians instead of stewards. Process managers instead of place shapers. Policy gate keepers instead of creative problem solvers.

The result is a profession that sometimes forgets to ask the most important question:

Does this actually make life better?

A project can “pencil out” and still feel miserable.
A street can meet standards and still feel hostile.
A neighborhood can check every policy box and still feel empty.

We lose sight of the fact that people don’t experience cities as data sets, map overlays or future land uses.

People experience cities through their bodies, their senses, their minds...heck you could even argue their souls.

Stress shows up in shoulders gripping a steering wheel.
Health shows up in how often someone walks without thinking about it.
Belonging shows up in whether someone lingers or rushes home.

The signs are subtle and don’t show up cleanly in a staff report.

And yet, they become the outcome.

The danger of over-relying on data isn’t that data is wrong.
It’s that data is incomplete.

Most planning metrics measure efficiency, not wellbeing.

But quality of life lives in the margins.

In the pause.
In the shade.
In the choice to walk instead of drive.
In the feeling that you’re allowed to exist without performing.

When planners forget that, we end up defending places that technically work but emotionally fail.

You see it in car-dominated corridors designed solely for vehicle flow.
You see it in housing projects approved without any thought to daily life.
You see it in public spaces that look great in renderings but feel sterile in reality.

This is how we end up with places that are efficient but exhausting...sadly, there are too many of these.

Residents feel it, even if they can’t articulate it in planning language.

They’ll say things like:
“This place feels soulless.”
“There’s nothing to do here.”
“It doesn’t feel human.”

What they’re really saying is that the planning forgot about them.

The irony is that planners often care deeply about quality of life. Most didn’t enter the profession because they love zoning tables. They came because they care about communities, equity, environment, beauty, and justice.

But the system rewards defensibility, not humanity.

A planner who argues from data is seen as professional.
A planner who argues from lived experience is seen as biased.

So we hide the heart behind the numbers.

We say “walkability index” instead of “freedom.”
We say “mode choice” instead of “less stress.”
We say “public realm activation” instead of “people want to be here.”

The language becomes a shield.

And over time, that shield becomes a wall.

And planners have mastered the art of building walls.

This isn’t a call to abandon data.
It’s a call to rebalance.

Good planning uses data as a tool, not a compass.

The compass should always point toward human experience.

Always.

Does this place invite people outside?
Does it support different ages and abilities?
Does it allow rest, joy, and connection?
Does it reduce stress or quietly add to it?

Those questions deserve just as much weight as traffic counts.

Some of the best planning decisions don’t come from a model. They come from observation. From walking a street. From sitting in a park. From listening to how people talk about their neighborhood when they’re not at a microphone.

They come from empathy.

Planning needs to reclaim its moral center.
Not in a preachy way.
In a grounded, human way.

Because at the end of the day, no one lives inside a spreadsheet.
They live inside places.

And places shape lives whether we acknowledge it or not.

If planners lose sight of that, we risk becoming very good at building environments that function, but forget how to let people flourish.

Quality of life is not just a “nice to have.”
It's the job.

Everything else is just methodology.

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