Not sure if you want to be a planner? Recently my colleagues and I have received a spate of emails from prospective students around the world wanting to know whether planning is a field they should pursue. Their extensive lists of questions show that this is a pressing issue for them. This entry answers some of the more common questions and aims to help prospective students come to programs with a shorter and more focused set of topics to explore.
Rankings
U.S. is 9th in List of Most Prosperous Countries
The Legatum Institute, a London think tank, has published a report ranking countries in terms of prosperity. The U.S. took a big hit for health care.
Foreign Policy
The Best Places to Live in America
CNN Money has released its ranking of the best places to live.
CNN Money
Top 10 Most Livable Cities
Monocle Magazine looks worldwide for the most livable cities.
Monocle Magazine
Zurich, Geneva and Vienna: Best Quality of Life?
Central European cities lead the world in this assessment of 'quality of living.' The survey is oriented towards companies who could locate workers in those countries and need to calculate 'hardship allowances.'
Citymayors.com
Fast Company Picks 'Fast Cities 2008'
Fast Company highlights Chicago and London, their picks for U.S. and Global Cities of the Year, respectively. Whatever you think of the way such lists come together, these are interesting profiles of two vibrant municipalities.
Fast Company
Best U.S. City to Raise a Family: Honolulu?
Let the controversy begin -- Best Life Magazine named Honolulu #1 on its list of "The 100 Best Places to Raise a Family", while Flint, Michigan scrapes the bottom. Where does your city rank?
Best Life Magazine
Planning Schools: To Rank, Or Not To Rank?
Wed, 12/05/2007 - 14:23
Professor Lance Freeman's recent post about Planetizen's rankings of graduate planning programs does an excellent job of summarizing some of the thorniest problems with school rankings. The editors of Planetizen certainly agree with Professor Freeman when he states that rankings cannot accurately predict whether a particular program will provide a particular student with the type of education he or she would deem best. There are far too many individual factors involved, and any student who makes their decision primarily on the basis of such rankings would be doing themselves a great disservice. This point is also the reason why most of the 142 pages of the 2007 Planetizen Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs consist of detailed profiles of programs -- not rankings.
However, we continue to believe, as Professor Freeman also acknowledges, that rankings do provide a useful measure of comparison for students who are evaluating a graduate program of study in planning -- something that is likely to be the largest single investment in their educational career. Therefore, we are planning to publish a new edition of the Planetizen Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs in the spring. In addition, we're working to improve our rankings process to help address some the concerns that Professor Freeman and others have raised.
