For those unfamiliar with Strong Towns, here’s a best-effort summary of what they do:<p>Strong Towns is a non-partisan non-profit that advocates for cities and towns to build financially solvent places. Many cities are perpetually broke because they owe more money in maintenance burden (fixing roads, pipes, etc) than they bring in in tax revenue.<p>This happens primarily because towns in North America tend to build out large neighborhoods all at once (think: suburbia). At the start, the developers pay for all the infrastructure, and then “give” it to the city to maintain.<p>At first, everything seems fine. The city gets plenty of new tax revenue! But come 20 or 30 years later, it turns out that the tax revenue is not enough to replace the roads, fix the pipes, and so on.<p>And so to pay for the repairs, the city then builds yet another neighborhood in the same strategy to collect the initial tax revenue. It’s effectively a Ponzi scheme.<p>When it crashes, you get Detroit.<p>The gist is that many low-density spread-out suburban neighborhood with large, expensive infrastructure are a huge cost center for a city. And since most North American cities build this way, we have a lot of cities that are “functionally bankrupt” or will be soon.<p>If you're a systems thinker who lives in a town that can't seem to fix it's potholes, you may want to check out the book they've published: "Strong Towns" by Charles L. Marohn Jr.
Is the Swedish engineer trying to fix how traffic lights work a relevant case? His fine for doing math was deemed a violation of his free speech.<p><a href="https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-light-timing-lawsuit/" rel="nofollow">https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-li...</a>
<i>This September, Wiley & Sons will publish Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: A Strong Towns Approach to Transportation, a book written by Charles Marohn that is deeply critical of the standard approach to transportation used by many American engineers.</i><p>The complaint here is literally that the strongtowns founder has criticized other engineers. That's it (edit: the complaint also involves a technicality motivated by this criticism, see below).<p>The thing about this situation is that, in the US, a large number decisions that are effectively "policy", questions of how we live, wind-up buried inside supposedly technical/professional regulations - zoning, codes and other standards.<p>This situation means that attacks for "violations of technicalities" easily wind-up the means by which special interests maintain their position.
You're an engineer if you do engineering, regardless of your credentials. You aren't an "<insert-credential-here> Engineer", but the mere noun doesn't assert that. The Minnesota Board of Engineering Licensure is a bully that should be leashed by the first amendment.
One thing we seem to be overlooking is the difference between representing yourself as X versus engaging in the professional rendering of X services to the public.<p>This is a significant distinction. While I'm generally opposed to the majority of occupational licensing requirements but I can understand the function of regulating professional offerings.<p>So in both this case and the referenced Oregon case from another comment, the "charge" by the licensure body is that the individuals are using the term engineer while doing things that aren't "rendering the service of engineering for payment."<p>I am a reasonably decent electrician and feel confident fiddling with my own outlets. The electrician's body does not have the right to regulate that activity. Nor can it regulate my saying I'm a decent electrician.<p>It does, however, have the right to regulate my rendering those services to the public for payment (with some legal gray area around rendering it for free).<p>This is what makes this a first amendment case that seems justified.<p>EDIT: I do understand by using electrician as an example, I invite comments about how I might be breaking fire code or my home insurance covenants. That's correct but it's a different externalities problem.
<i>disclosure: I am not a licensed professional engineer (PE), but I do research that intersects frequently and extensively with the boundary negotiation between engineering training, licensure, the profession, and calling oneself an engineer.</i><p>My immediate take is two groups that dislike each other mutually acting like children in hopes of scoring cheap points and feeling superior.<p>I assume/expect that the professional speech doctrine will come heavily into play here [0]. This doctrine is grounded in either a 1985 or a 1945 supreme court case depending on who you ask. It has come into play in weird ways in engineering before because the term 'engineer' vs. 'professional engineer' vs. 'licensed professional engineer' may or may not be confusing to lay people...or at least confusing enough that people are willing to spend money on lawyers related to bicker about it [1].<p>Basically, if one is speaking using the auspices of a regulated and licensed profession, than commentary and comments related to that profession are bound by the responsibilities, ethics, laws, etc. governing it. If one was speaking as a member of the public - does not apply - but the boundaries are fuzzier than I think a lot of people would like. That being said, generally the red line has been the use of professional knowledge and expertise with a specified client. In those cases, it has been deemed in the public interest for the state to regulate speech...because the person is speaking in part with the backing of an assertion of qualification from the state. I suspect this is one of those cases where someone on the board took whatever strong towns has been doing (never heard of them before) a little personally...and is willing to cause problems by investigating whether this engineer stepped over the line.<p>Examples of its application include:<p>* preventing doctors from advocating for sexual orientation conversion therapy (CA)<p>* compelling doctors to make certain statements about abortion (e.g., PA)<p>[0] <a href="https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1551/professional-speech-doctrine" rel="nofollow">https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1551/professional-s...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2018/12/federal-judge-finds-state-law-governing-who-is-an-engineer-violates-free-speech.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2018/12/federal-judge-finds-...</a>
This feeds into a bigger issue that Freakonomics rails against often: Restrictive licensing.<p>In a lot of states you need special qualifications or licenses to do all sorts of jobs. You can't cut hair without spending thousands on a hair cutting course and passing an exam and paying a registration fee.<p>Sure, that makes sense for (say) doctors. Maybe engineers too? But barbers? Why bar-people? Interior decorators?
I legitimately think we should consider replacing all licenses with certifications and just require anyone who practices a profession without a certificate to be totally upfront with their clients about that
The board’s concern is pretty well precedented. Holding one’s self out as a professional engineer when unlicensed is bog standard violation for licensed AEC professions.<p>Neither is there anything unusual about the circumstances of the board’s concern.
Investigations are almost always complaint driven...boards don’t have the resources to conduct dragnet operations.<p>Finally, inattention to details is a piss poor defense in the context of professional engineering. The whole idea is that professional engineers are aware of and beholden to compliance with all things legal and regulatory.<p>This is just StrongTowns making drama. At worst there is a small fine, some administrative costs, and maybe some educational requirements.<p>Or to put it another way, the response to the issue is unprofessional.
>"A licensee shall avoid any act which may diminish public confidence in the profession…."<p>putting critique into this category does seem to be such an act on its own. On the other side aggressively squashing any heresy - even if it is just a minor deviation from the Party line - has been working great for the Church for 2000 years already.
The actual quote behind Plank's "Science progresses, one funeral at a time" is: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
It's as true for rock and roll as it is for science. Metallica never recorded a NuMetal album.<p>The problem is many times worse when it's instituted in the form of an... erm.. institution. It's as prevalent (in many forms) in companies as it is in professional bodies, government bodies, etc. IDK what the solution is, but institutions don't die, so Max's approach won't work on them.
I'm getting so sick of entrenched institutions and organizations acting like this. I know history and I know that is has always been like this to some degree but it seems that the level of centralization brought about our ability to rapidly communicate is causing us to revert more and more to entrenched powerful interests, and whereas before you could run away to somewhere new, a new town, a new country, a new frontier now you can't escape it.<p>The powerful multi-billionaires and oligarchs are the new fueduel Lords who are wheeling and dealing and playing their own little games not caring about the millions of people effected by their decisions.<p>We now see the guild is making a come back to ensure only those that toe the party line are allowed to profit from a business.<p>What can we do to fight it?