Ten Key 2016 Conferences for Urban Design Professionals

Trade conferences are an opportunity to learn, get out of the office and out of town, visit a new city or country, meet old and new colleagues, and come back inspired and refreshed. For a select few, they are an opportunity to hone public speaking and presentation skills and promote ideas. In this article, Los Angeles County planner Clement Lau, presents his wish list of ten key 2016 conferences for planners, architects and other urban design professionals. Moreover, he summarizes and previews each one. The conferences summarized do not constitute an all-inclusive list, nor is the article meant to imply that omitted conferences are less worthy of your consideration. Nevertheless, Lau picked a diverse combination of conferences to summarize...worth printing out or bookmarking, or better yet, booking tickets and a flight. Summarized in the article are the following: 

UCLA Extension Land Use Law & Planning Conference (January 22; Los Angeles, CA)

Active Living Research Conference (January 31 – February 3; Clearwater, FL)

Association of Environmental Professionals (AEP) California State Conference (April 3-6; San Diego, CA)

APA National Planning Conference (April 2-5; Phoenix, AZ)

River Management Symposium and National Outdoor Recreation Conference (May 16-20; Boise, ID)

AIA National Convention (May 19-21; Philadelphia, PA)

Cal APA Planning Conference (October 22-25; Pasadena, CA)

ULI Fall Meeting (October 24-27; Dallas, TX)

ASLA Annual Meeting and Expo (October 21-24; New Orleans, LA)

ACSP Annual Conference (November 3-6; Portland, OR)