I really have not kept up with this effort very well, and I do apologize. I just haven’t had all that much to say in the past six months, and my health has been uncooperative…which brings me to my major news: I am phasing into retirement over the next few years. I am going to do a few service things I think people are owed, and I have some students to support yet, but after that I am laying down my pen and going to go sit in a boat–assuming my health holds out.

I have a bunch of written materials that I don’t really have the energy to publish through normal channels, so I may throw that up here, with the full assent that it is not particularly well-vetted and you are getting what you pay for. I may just toss it. We will see.

My reflection today is short and in gratitude. This summer I was ask to join the editorial boards of both Planning Theory and Planning Theory and Practice, two leading English planning theory journals. It’s wonderful and I’m very happy, but it’s also funny because I was one of those students who grumbled and whined and complained (endlessly) about planning theory.

When I was young, I had all this ambition, and now that I’ve done the things I meant to, including a bunch of things I hadn’t ever thought I would ever do (planning theory contributor)…all I can think now is how much I wish Ed Soja were still here with us so I could tell him and he would laugh at me, after the rough time I gave him, with his big laugh, big smile, and big, adventurous mind.