Tough times can bring golden opportunities. That's what Newsweek Senior Editor Jonathan Alter told the American Planners Association, which is meeting in Minneapolis.

Working for a news organization, he should know about tough times.

Finance and Commerce said Alter's keynote address to the planners described this as an exciting time for planning. He reminded them of White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel's quote that "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste."

Alter also compared President Obama's first 100 days with those of FDR. Both presidents spent their careers before the presidency -- and in their first 100 days -- combining long-range vision with compassion, which allowed them to offer people hope, he said.

And he said Obama is in some ways a better planner than FDR, who he described as “improvisational.”