American Planning Association
Trends from the APA 2014 Conference
Every year we analyze all of the tweets from the APA Conference and tell you about the trends in planning. With more than 1,000 people tweeting from the APA Conference, there is a lot of great ideas, links, and blogs that we can all learn from.
New Leadership Elected at the American Planning Association
The APA has announced the election of the next president of the national organization—Carol Rhea, FAICP.
So You Want To Be a Certified Planner?
While planning seems more intuitive than technical to many the layperson, Los Angeles planner Clement Lau describes what it takes to stay at the top of the profession.
APA Poll Calls for Major Shift in Planning Profession
This week the American Planning Association proudly released the results of a recent poll entitled Planning in America: Perceptions and Priorities, which it commissioned indicating that Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of community planning. Given the state of national politics, it's no wonder that Americans are reserving their passions for local issues. Boss Tweed and Mayor Quimby are looking like angels by comparison. Some of the results are beyond obvious -- such as the fact that 77% of Americans "agree that communities that plan for the future are stronger" -- while others could, if heeded, foretell profound changes for the profession.
Honoring Intuition at Today's Tea Party
How communication based on emotion and intuition, rather than reason, may be the key to peaceful coexistence with Tea Partiers and Agenda 21ers.
Organizing CicLAvia: An Experience of Public Space in Los Angeles
Days before the American Planning Association's national convention, CicLAvia's Aaron Paley describes the event's origins and evolution and explains how an open streets event in Los Angeles can transform one's sense of public space and the city.
National Conference Will Urge Planners To 'Think Big'
For the first time in a generation, the American Planning Association is hosting its National Conference in Los Angeles. Organizers view the event, April 14-17, as a chance to inspire planners to assert themselves and start dreaming big again.
Planning Suffers From Malaise, Stagnation
Veteran planner Bill Fulton looks back on a quarter-century of planning in California and finds distressingly little energy or spirit.
The New Normative Planning
The conference bags handed out to the attendees of the 2007 National Planning conference in Philadelphia had four words printed on one side: value, choice, engagement, community. The words echo the long mission statement of the American Planning Association, evidence of what I described last year as the pragmatic position of the profession that refrains from making a larger argument about the form of the city. Here's a taste: "Our collaborative efforts will continue to result in great success for APA and the vital communities we strive to support, and APA members will continue to help create communities of lasting value. We value choice and community engagement, diversity, inclusion and social equity."Since then, a new program from the organization and other evidence may suggest a subtle shift in professional values now underway.
The APA needs a Sustainability Division
Many planners and even American Planning Association (APA) members are unaware that the APA has special member bodies called Divisions. These are essentially issue-focused member committees within APA that contribute to policymaking, develop conference sessions, publish newsletters, and generally act as focal points for like-minded APA members.
Live From Vegas: Millennial Planners, Activist Planners, & The CE Soap Opera
I'm at the Paris Hotel on the Vegas strip for the 100th annual American Planning Association (APA) conference, which started Saturday, and runs through Thursday, May 1. The conference offers 300 sessions and 60 mobile workshops to the approximately 5,000 participants. And it's going to be a crowded week, if the 30-minute line for coffee this morning in the Paris boulangerie is any indication. Infrastructure matters; Planners should be politically active.
'Complete Streets' Movement Gaining Momentum
The new slogan for bicyclists and pedestrians across America is gaining attention, as well as weight, from a number of municipalities.
The AICP Certification Maintenance Program: Good Steps In The Wrong Direction
Though the program has good intentions, APA's proposal for mandatory continuing education could just encourage more planners to attend the National Planning Conference than to actually get more training.
'Mean Streets' Of America
Study concludes that walking remains the most dangerous mode of transportation, and some areas of the country are becoming markedly more dangerous.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
Eagle County Government
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Nashville Planning Department
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
Journal of the American Planning Association
