Which is why we, in our stodgy, pragmatic way, favor incumbent Christensen over challenger Benns in Tuesday's election for the 1st District seat on the Salt Lake City Council.

Christensen, 39, seeking his third term on the council, has been its chairman, its vice chairman, its representative to the Utah League of Cities and Towns, as well as a voice for local government on the Utah Quality Growth Commission and the state's Solid and Hazardous Waste Control Board.

He's also served on the Rose Park Community Council, the Planning Commission and the United Way. In his spare time, he works for Zions Bank as a business analyst.

Benns, 64, is an interesting person, brimming with enthusiasm. She has a ton of education in endeavors as varied as mathematics, education, counseling and theology, and a sincere desire to help the district in the northwest part of the city.

Refreshingly, Benns is downright eager to mention the elephant in the room of city politics, the ethnic and class tensions that trouble the Rose Park area. She's already started, as a private citizen, efforts through neighborhood churches to improve relations among various groups.

Such civic activism is welcome, and Benns is to be commended for her devotion to it. But Christensen's experience, realism and demonstrated willingness to plod through it all are qualities that are just too important for the voters of the 1st District to throw away.

Besides, there is something that Christensen has been dying to do for eight years now, and he deserves the chance to do it.

Some 6,000 acres of land west of Salt Lake International Airport are the next - maybe the last - growth area for the city. The need to make a master development plan for that area has been kept in the pending tray for years, as the city dealt with the development of The Gateway, the 2002 Olympics and other weighty matters.

While Benns strangely argues that such a plan should wait until after a redevelopment of west North Temple (a goal Christensen also favors), Christensen knows that getting ahead of the development of an area that could be home to upwards of 25,000 people will mean the difference between showcase development and unholy sprawl.

That work needs to be done and Carlton Christensen is in the best position to shepherd it through.