Snapped at a recent ULI book reading: ULI Northwest executive director Kelly Mann, attorney Chuck Wolfe, GGLO managing principal Jeff Foster, and Legacy Partners senior managing director Kerry Nicholson. The book was Chucks Urbanism Without Effort, which describes how city dwellers themselves often create the fabric of a city which urban planners call urbanism and hold in high esteem these days without government intervention. And often without a thought about the theories of urban planners. (Take that, Sir Ebenezer Howard!)

We focus too literally on prepackaged approaches first, Chuck tells us, and all their complexities: economic and population specifics, transit modes, building appearance. Its critical to first isolate spontaneous and historic examples of successful urban land usewith peoplein mind, he says. Oddly enoughat least from the standard perspective of plannersthat comes before applying any plans or governmental initiative. Find out whats on the ground before going in, in other words.