During my struggle against the Guthrie, I often found myself searching for the words to capture the upside-down feeling baked into our local development process. The trespass came not just from the project itself, but from a city commission that, in a vacuum, could make technocratic decisions brutal enough to pummel the delicate nature of our community ecosystem into disarray. The aggression embedded in the fast-tracked creation and slapdash deployment of the Affordable Housing Ordinance (AHO) mirrors the hubris of those in power—people who mistake urgency for wisdom. It takes the real pain of change and repackages it as a policy cudgel, exacting a pound of flesh like a hot potato passed down the line—this time landing squarely on the backs of the working-class, historic Dutch neighborhood known for generations as Dutch Row, now rebranded without consent or context into “Midtown.”

The tension I’m describing is the friction between cities shaped by the people who live in them and cities imposed by those who plan them from above. I could never get over the strange idea that someone outside my neighborhood—someone with no stake in our block, our memories, our mournings—could wield more power over my lived experience than the decades we’ve poured into shaping it ourselves. And all the while, our constitutional right to participate is reduced to “read” but unanswered letters and a meager three minutes in front of a podium raised like a judge’s bench.

When the commission and staff sit elevated above everyone, it’s called a hierarchical layout—the raised bench a literal expression of authority, judgment, and control. It reinforces the idea of top-down power. Contrast that with a tiered lecture hall, where students sit above the instructor—a democratic or participatory arrangement that elevates the learner and humbles the teacher. But here in Bozeman, the public is quite literally spoken down to. The room itself enforces the hierarchy: you look up, they look down. Power, in architecture as in policy, speaks from above.

For generations, we were the solutions to our own problems. We bought and built our way out of them—day by day, year by year. Our neighborhoods are living examples of Organic Urbanism: places shaped slowly, like nature itself, through the small, daily decisions of ordinary people. And, like a war on dandelions, we were uprooted and torn from the ground—held hostage and sprayed by policy decisions designed not to serve us, but to empower and enrich rationalist design. A design driven by governments and corporations, using the zoning beneath our feet and neo-liberal pro-housing slogans to quake the ground and shake us from our land.

All in the name of the new, the better, the bigger—under banners like “progress” or “affordability.” These are not solutions, they are slogans: nameless monikers, never clearly defined nor tied to any one constituency, used to stun the sympathetic denizen into silence so that the takers can move in—for the robbing, the mugging, the quiet dismantling of what we built.

I’ll never see government the same way again. I’ll always be wary of those too comfortable making decisions for others. And I can’t call America a true democracy—because casting a vote for someone to rule over you isn’t democracy; it’s the outsourcing of personal responsibility, a convenient abandonment of the duty to be an active, engaged citizen.

So what is the real friction between the planners pushing top-down urbanism and the people whose daily, sovereign acts have shaped the soul of this community? It’s the sweat of our brows—not blueprints or slogans—that has built the beauty and functionality of this place. We solve problems through lived experience, not abstraction. And that stands in stark contrast to the dopamine-driven performance of power—the compulsion to dominate in order to feel exceptional.

Democracy isn’t just a system—it’s a relationship, inherently collaborative. It starts with recognizing that we’re each part of a greater whole. It begins to function when we listen beyond ourselves and our constituents, tuning in to the broader hum of our national colony—the sound of people working together to shape a shared, meaningful life.

And as such, our local planning works when it honors the people who live the reality it claims to shape. Houses become homes when they’re built with pride and care. And leaders become legends when they abandon the theatrics of power and serve with humility.
As Bozeman revisits its Unified Development Code, we need to put the human back at the center—not spreadsheets, not abstractions. That means recognizing neighborhood sovereignty not as a bureaucratic hurdle, but as the foundation of any place worth living in. Codes should serve people, not erase them.

• Neighborhood consent before big changes

• Form-based rules that shape beauty, not just density

• Right to remain protections so locals aren’t pushed out

• Micro-mixed use (think corner stores, backyard workshops)

• Ecological design as infrastructure, not decoration

• Resident design councils with real authority

• Reciprocity — if developers want more, they must give more

• Growth throttles to let neighborhoods breathe

• No chain stores in walkable zones — keep money cycling locally

• Builders must live here or partner with locals — no more profit and vanish

• Design review by citizens, not hired consultants

• Pause growth when schools, water, or roads are strained — livability first

• No more “affordable” scams — only housing that stays affordable forever

A good city grows with its people, not over them. Let’s build something worthy of the place we love.

Noah ten Broek is a neighbor, a community member, and a longtime Bozeman resident, who cares deeply about the people and places that make this city feel like home.