Planners Without Borders ( 9. September 2007, 14:05 by Derek Young) ~ Who's Going?
Here at Exit133 there are lots of posts about Tacoma’s waterfront, redevelopment of urban centers, and working with government. All of these topics will be coming up in the joint conference of the Washington and Oregon Chapters of the American Planning Association when it comes to Tacoma next month.
This will be a great opportunity to have face-to-face discussions with others from Tacoma and beyond as well as learn about what is going on with planning on a regional basis. Or you could just take their “mobile workshop” of downtown Tacoma titled “Museum and Theater City.”
A detailed schedule and registration information can be found at http://www.washington-apa.org/2007conf/.
(The pdf schedule is the easiest to browse.)
We’re exicited to hear more about Taming the Strip [Mall] and Form-Based Zoning. Save $50 registering by 9/12. Even if you can’t go, what sessions sound interesting to you?
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We’re exicited to hear more about Taming the Strip [Mall] and Form-Based Zoning. Save $50 registering by 9/12. Even if you can’t go, what sessions sound interesting to you?
I might go. The City of Tacoma is certainly trying to make progress on urban design. The Congress for Urbanism is trying to start a chapter in Washington as well.
Perhaps at the conference, they will have a Q&A session where they can discuss the best way to place larger stores in urban centers, such as the proposed expansion of Safeway in Proctor.
in regards to urban design, i would say tacoma is lacking. take tollefson plaza or the ‘mixed-use’ townhome developments going on near the tacoma mall for example. the former could have been a great opportunity for tacoma to showcase its abiliy to design a functional and aesthetically pleasing public space. the later shows that tacoma has some of the weakest design regulations in the region.
i would hope that tacoma gets serious about design, especially its ‘urban planners’ & planning commissioners, the majority of which lack a formal design education.
2 | Posted by snoopy | Sep 9, 06:17 PM
I plan to attend for at least a day. My employer is paying for it, after all…
90% of the conference program appears to be pretty routine stuff for planning conferences. Every now and then there will be a new and exciting session. What would be quite beneficial however, would be to organize a mass outing of locals that corresponds with the tours of downtown. Downtown often seems deserted, even during the middle of a business day. How cool would it be to all of sudden have bustling sidewalks when people from all over the Northwest are here?
Thanks for the heads up. There are a number of sessions at the conference that seem decent enough to go.
Now to come up with the funds before the 12th.
4 | Posted by Chris Karnes | Sep 10, 12:19 AM
Ahem, $75 for students for the full three days. Is it too late to enroll at TCC for a cooking class?
5 | Posted by DavidS | Sep 10, 09:59 AM
Ahem, $75 for students for the full three days. Is it too late to enroll at TCC for a cooking class?
Why not a planning class?
There’s certainly enough armchair planners on this blog—some of you ought to take a class or two!
Seriously, though, I’d not recommend avocational community members spend the cash for a full registration without a broader foundation.
6 | Posted by Lewis Mumford | Sep 10, 02:04 PM
I know what you mean, DavidS. I wanted to go, but it’s definitely cost prohibitive for one outside the field.
Hey Lewis, have any recommendations for how to acquire some of that foundational knowledge without having go all out for a third degree? I’m still paying off the first two, but I’m truly interested in the field of study.
7 | Posted by Michael Bottorff | Sep 12, 11:07 AM
Hey Lewis, have any recommendations for how to acquire some of that foundational knowledge without having go all out for a third degree?
This could be its own thread! Planners: what do you suggest?
I think reading is one way to get there. Especially anything by yours truly. Erik B. consistently cites examples of current thinking and modern classics (Kunstler, Jacobs, etc).
If you want to get really arcane, I suggest the “bible,” AKA the green book, “The Practice of Local Government Planning” published by the International City/County Management Association. A lot of it you can skip over, but it has a good cover of the basics (who plans, what do planners do, transportation, housing, environmental, community development planning, urban design, and so on. Also, read and become familiar with your local comprehensive plan and development regulations (on a basic level), and get on the mailing list for planning amendments.
Also learn about the Growth Management Act — CTED’s website at the state has a couple of primers, etc.
Also, sometimes you can audit for little or no cost classes that are very useful at UW or other local colleges.
8 | Posted by Lewis Mumford | Sep 12, 11:44 AM
Thanks Lewis.
I’ll try to work some of that into my weekly reading.
Unfortunately, it appears that UWT charges full tuition for auditing classes. Hopefully, that’s not accurate, or at least there’s a different and small fee for alumni. I’ll look into it directly.
9 | Posted by Michael Bottorff | Sep 12, 06:48 PM
Wasn’t there a book club post on Exit133 a while ago? It sounded like a possible way to read some of the classics (new or old) and discuss them. Though I think these discussions are more effective over coffee in person than whenever people happen to stop by the boards.
(If I plan from my armchair, does that automatically make me an armchair planner? Or is that someone who plans armchairs? j/k)
10 | Posted by DavidS | Sep 13, 08:31 AM
Frank Gehry plans armchairs, so maybe it makes you an architect.
11 | Posted by Lewis Mumford | Sep 13, 09:50 AM
Yes, for summer reading, Exit 133 recommended Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Jacobs is great, but an eminent, but not-so-oft mentioned urban observer is John Brinckerhoff Jackson, founder of and editor of the journal Landscape.
I just finished the excellent anthology: “Landscape in Sight: Looking At America”. His view is that cities, neighborhoods, and houses are a reflection of our culture, and he paid a bit more attention to the vernacular than most of his contemporaries. He even (gently) criticizes Jane Jacobs in a book review.
If you want the short course, I’d recommend “The Stranger’s Path”, “The Domestication of the Garage”, “The Westward Moving House”, and “How to Study the Landscape”
13 | Posted by Robert | Sep 13, 05:52 PM
I’ll second the JB Jackson recommendation. Cultural landscapes and what they say about us rather than here’s what you should/must do.
14 | Posted by DavidS | Sep 14, 01:04 PM
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