To plan or not to plan, asked the headline of a recent Tyee story. Vancouver is the only municipality in the Metro Vancouver region that's allowed to march to the beat of its own drum when it comes to what to do with a city-wide plan (thank you, Vancouver Charter!). All other municipalities have a city-wide plan, known as an official community plan (OCP), reviewed once every five years.

For all of you out there who aren't urban nerds, OCPs dictate city priorities for growth and where money should go -- all the good stuff like transportation, utilities, land use, recreation and housing.

Vancouver's lack of an OCP doesn't mean it doesn't get that good stuff. It goes about it through local area plans, growth strategies and community amenity contributions from developers. These contributions are often controversial, and even prohibited in many parts of North America because the trades often lack transparency and make cities appear open to influence.

On the other hand, Vancouver is often touted as a city of neighbourhoods and villages with healthy diversity because of how it plans.

At the Urbanarium debate on the topic, an audience vote revealed that most of the crowd wanted Vancouver to have a city-wide OCP. Whether you're an urban nerd or not, we'd like to hear your word.