Members of the Ely Chapter of Lambda Alpha gathered Friday at the Drake Hotel for a panel on the 100th anniversary of the Burnham Plan. Here?s NYC regional planner Bob Yaro, Heitman's Mary Ludgin, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Duke Reiter. Bob noted that Burnham's original plan focused on the city as an industrial center with office as a peripheral business, while the next plan will have to focus more on getting and keeping creative professionals near downtown.

Washington DC Architect and planner Howard Decker, Createhere's Helen Davis Johnson,  and the Chicago Sun-Times' David Roeder talked about how civic and cultural infrastructure, like public art and parks, are as integral to the central plan as buildings. They also warned against failures of political will in planning, like Boston's Big Dig and post-Katrina planning in New Orleans.