Interesting that the two actual loci of planning power—transportation planning and land-use planning—have largely been ceded to engineers and attorneys. The planning profession essentially involves administering what they hand down.

I think this explains the planner preoccupation with the comprehensive plan. Besides the fact that it remains their domain, without it—and a legal mandate to respect it—there's basically nothing coordinating the engineers and the attorneys with broader objectives.

And frankly, there's real value add in civil servants who track local development and demographic trends, oversee the line agencies in ensuring the provision of well-designed infrastructure and public-spaces in advance of growth, and head off obvious conflicts.

I frequently encounter planners who'll aggressively defend local zoning or (to a much lesser extent) transportation institutions which no one alive had hand in developing and which counteract planning objectives in obvious ways. These are not your institutions to defend, friend!

I think this explains the anger and cynicism that characterizes a lot of planning culture: we're mostly reactively administering rules written by long-dead people, in open defiance of contemporary planning goals, on behalf of special interests. And we all kind of know it.

So cast off your chains. Those aren't your institutions to defend; you have an obligation to be frank about them! You don't need to come up with a story for why e.g. parking requirements are necessary, and doing so when you know better will slowly destroy your soul.