City Planning may be a minor league profession, but if it has major league expectations, that's because it's been carrying the ball for a major league idea--the idea of planning. Planning is a major human practice, on the par with science or art, indispensable and ever expanding in modern society. Public sector planners in the U.S. are still slow to recognize this and ambivalent about planning's role and value. Serving in a society that has made a fetish of the old myth of laissez-faire, it is not surprising that, paraphrasing Wilbur: