As you enter Winnipeg, you cannot miss the signs proclaiming it is"One Great City". However, Mayor Sam Katz and a local newspaperrecently invited city residents to come up with a new slogan for thecity. Some popular suggestions include: "City of Opportunity," "Heartof the Continent" and "Muddy Waters, Clear Skies."

Vancouverplanner Jay Wallenberg supports none of the above. He thinks it is amistake for a city to have a competition for a new tagline. "If a cityhas to create a slogan for itself, something is very wrong," saysWallenberg. "After all, does Paris need a slogan? Does Vancouver need aslogan? Of course not."

Wallenberg and I were recently inWinnipeg, along with Vancouver`s director of planning, Brent Toderian,and 700 delegates attending the Canadian Institute of Planners` annualconference. The theme was Planning by Design in Community: Making GreatPlaces, and the gathering included Canada`s best known planners, aswell as two thought-provoking keynote speakers from the U.S. and GreatBritain, Jeff Speck and Charles Landry. Speck is one of the leaders inthe New Urbanist movement and author of Suburban Nation. He told theaudience that planners once had much greater status in the communitythan they do today. The original purpose of zoning was to improvehealth and increase longevity by separating noxious and residentialuses. As a result of their zoning bylaws, planners were hailed asheroes; sadly, however, the resulting bylaws and separation of useshave had negative impacts in subsequent years. In some cases, forinstance, residential neighbourhoods have been left without shops andcommercial services.