Planning Horizons: The Edge, Future and Potential of Planning

The Canadian Association of Planning Students – L’Association Canadienne des Étudiants en Aménagement et en Urbanisme (CAPS-ACEAU) is a non-profit student-driven organization that hosts an annual conference for Canadian planning students.

The annual CAPS-ACÉAU conference is the primary event for students and researchers in urban, rural and regional planning disciplines at Canadian universities. In recent years it has also become a major event for those in related fields such as terrestrial and marine resource management, geography and policy studies. It has been held in a different Canadian City each year for over 25 years.

The 2012 conference is titled Planning Horizons: The Edge, Future, and Potential of Planning. It will be held on February 2nd – 4th at SFU’s downtown Vancouver campus and various locations around the city. As indicated by the title, the focus of the 2012 conference is an exchange of perspectives from students and professionals on what is cutting-edge in planning today.

Four themes will run through the presentations and events of the conference:

• Inspiring Potential: Showcasing what is exciting about planning today

• Championing Creativity: Generating innovation and leadership in planning

• Finding Voices: Engaging with many diverse communities and disciplines

• Widening Our Lens: Looking beyond the conventional scope of planning

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Horizons de l’Aménagement: Les Bords, Futurs et Potentiels de l’Aménagement

L’Association Canadienne des Étudiants en Aménagement et Urbanisme (CAPS-ACEAU) est un organisation non lucratif des étudiants qui organise une conférence annuelle pour les étudiants d’aménagement au Canada.

La conférence annuelle de CAPS-ACÉAU est l’événement principal pour les étudiants et les chercheurs des disciplines d’aménagement des milieux urbain, rurale, et régionale. Ces dernières années, il est également devenu un événement majeur pour ceux dans des domaines connexes tels que la gestion des ressources terrestres et marines, la géographie et des études de la politique. La conférence a eu lieu dans une ville canadienne différente chaque année plus de 25 ans.

La conférence 2012 est intitulée Horizons de Aménagement: Les Bords, Futurs, et Potentiels de l’Aménagement. Elle aura lieu le 2 Février – 4ème au centre-ville de Vancouver SFU campus et divers endroits de la ville. Comme l’indique le titre, le thème de la conférence 2012 est un échange de points de vue des étudiants et des professionnels sur ce qui est d’avant-garde en le discipline d’aménagement aujourd’hui.

Quatre thèmes se déroulera à travers les présentations et les événements de la conférence:

• Inspirer Potentiel: vitrine des aspects d’aménagement que les étudiants sont passionnés aujourd’hui

• Célébrer la créativité: génération de l’innovation et leadership dans l’aménagement

• Trouver les Voix: S’engager avec de nombreuses collectivités et disciplines diversifiées

• Élargir notre objectif: Au-delà de la portée traditionnelle de l’aménagement

Planning schools are different around the country, offering students a wide variety of specialties and capacities. CAPS-ACÉAU wants to know what are these differences and how would you communicate them in a photograph?

Therefore, we ask you:

In your view, what “image” defines your planning school?

We accept multiple entries. Ideally, planning students at all planning schools would participate, which would provide an interesting perspective to what distinguishes the various planning schools in Canada.

Two winners will be chosen. The price is a complimentary entrance ticket (or reimbursement if you’ve already paid) to the 2012 CAPS-ACÉAU Conference in Vancouver!

Submission deadline: Midnight, January 15th 2012

Submit photos to: bastian.zeiger@caps-aceau.org

Specifications:
- Submissions must be digital photos in .jpg format. Please label your file “Lastname_CAPS2012_Submission#” (use the submission # to distinguish between multiple submissions)

- High resolution images are preferred, of up to 2200 pixels at 72 dpi. The maximum file size is 2MB. Photos must be appropriate for printing as a 16 x 20 inch print, as winning photos may be printed and featured at the CAPS 2012 conference.

- Images can be in color or black and white

- The following information should be included in the email with your submission: Full name and contact email address. A title for the photograph. You may also include a brief (300 wds max) description of the image, including where and when it was taken, any information on the person(s) or other details in the image, and any relevant stories

- Photos must be submitted by the original photographer. Photo submissions that are taken by someone other than the applicant will
not be accepted.

This competition is sponsored by:

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C oncours Photo

Écoles de la planification sont différents à travers le pays, offrant aux étudiants une grande variété de spécialités et les capacités. CAPS-ACÉAU veut savoir quelles sont ces différences et comment qualifieriez-vous les communiquer dans une photographie?

Par conséquent, nous vous demandons:

A votre avis, qu’est-ce «l’image» définit votre école de la planification?

Nous acceptons les soumissions multiples. Idéalement, les étudiants de toutes les écoles de la planification participeraient, ce qui donnerait une perspective intéressante à ce qui distingue les écoles de planification différents au Canada.

Deux gagnants seront choisis. Le prix est un billet d’entrée gratuit (ou remboursement sivous avez déjà payé) de 2012 CAPS-ACÉAU Conférence à Vancouver!

Date limite de soumission: Minuit, 2012 Janvier 15th

Soumettez vos photos à: bastian.zeiger@caps-aceau.org

Spécifications:
- Les soumissions doivent être des photos numériques en format jpg.. S’il vous plaît étiquette de votre fichier “nom de famille_CAPS2012_soumission#” (# utiliser la soumission à la distinction entre les soumissions multiples)

- Images à haute résolution sont préférés, jusqu’à 2200 pixels à 72 dpi. La taille maximale du fichier de 2MB. Les photos doivent être appropriées pour l’impression en tant que 16 x 20 pouces d’impression, comme les photos gagnantes peuvent être imprimés et présentés à la conférence CAPS 2012.

- Les images peuvent être en couleur ou en noir et blanc

- Les renseignements suivants doivent être inclus dans l’e-mail avec votre soumission: Le nom complet et adresse email de contact. Un titre pour la photo. Vous pouvez également inclure une brève description (300 max WDS) description de l’image, y compris où et quand elle a été prise, aucune information sur la personne(s) ou d’autres détails dans l’image, et des histoires pertinentes

- Les photos doivent être soumises par le photographe d’origine. Soumissions de photosqui sont prises par quelqu’un d’autre que le demandeur sera ne sont pas acceptés.

Ce concours est commandité en partie par:

We’re looking for a group of students at a Canadian planning school, who are up to the engaging and exciting task of hosting a conference for planning students.

It will undoubtedly prepare you for a planning career more than any theoretical course, and the professional connections you make while organizing the conference is uniqe in Canada.

Please read more in the document.

A thank-you to everyone who attended the CAPS-ACEAU student session at the OPPI’s Conference in Ottawa October 14.

It was a most interesting session, where Chris Wicke from FoTenn Consultants Inc. and Deborah Jann from Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions offered their perspectives on what’s needed to build your professional profile. For instance, have you never heard of an informational interview? Are you applying for jobs using your hotmail account? Then you’re losing your competitive edge.

Chris Wicke’s presentation

For anyone who could not make it, Chris Wicke has generously provided his presentation slides – you are welcome to download them here.

Our first contributor is Matt Quick, M.E.S. candidate at the University of Waterloo.

The following is an open discussion piece entitled:

“Reflections on Resilience”
mquickATuwaterloo.ca

Since attending the Canadian Association of Planning Students Conference at the University of Waterloo in February of this year, titled ‘Resilience: Planning for Dynamic Futures’, I have spent some time contemplating resilience and how planning integrates with the notion of resilience. As a concept originally developed in ecology, the thought that urban systems can be resilient just as natural systems are resilient was initially shocking. For the most part we are planners who deal with people and buildings, not with plants and wild animals! Admittedly, over the course of the last seven months, I’ve frequently swayed back and forth on the merit of resilience: does it improve planning or is it just rhetoric?

Briefly, urban resilience is the ability for an urban system to absorb shocks and stresses and maintain functions, structures, systems, and identity[i]. Demographic shifts, climate change, and the potential of peak oil are just a few of the pressures that are quickly becoming reality, their influence being integrated into plans, policies, and strategies with the intent of keeping cities healthy and liveable. Buying into resilience is easy; it’s attractive, easily packaged with buzz-words, and has a universally admirable end state. Certainly, a city that can adapt and withstand future shocks and stresses is more desirable than a city whose processes stop functioning or shut down entirely upon the slightest perturbation.

Yet, I’m not so easily persuaded. Sure, the conference presentations were convincing and people much more educated and qualified than I am sincerely believe that urban resilience is essential to creating successful cities. But some troubling questions lingered. Where does resilience fit into the already-established sustainability planning paradigm? How does resilience seek to change our urban systems? What exactly does a resilient city look like? How does it work? Is resilient planning accomplishable by planners alone?

A sizable amount of reading and many hours of conversation later, my opinion on resilient planning has changed; less cynicism, more optimism. As much as resilience is about important implementable solutions – mixed use, high density, local food, green energy, system redundancy, et cetera – resilient planning is about entering the planning dialogue and interpreting past planning successes and failures from a new perspective, all while maturely admitting that foresight is limited. It is a new lens from which one can inspect the interplay of humans and their environments and critically engage in planning as it is currently being done. What’s most immediately valuable about incorporating resilient principles into planning and planning methods is that it allows us to ask new questions about cities and how humans interact with the built environment[ii].

Resilience, then, can be the planner’s advantage. A diverse range of challenges can now be approached not only through what has or hasn’t worked in the past, but from a novel perspective. That is, a perspective that draws no boundaries on what the future holds, implicitly removing the constraints on the range of potential planning solutions. Only novel questions will allow novel ideas to emerge and develop, ones that will lead our cities to succeed and thrive in an uncertain future.

During my time as an undergrad, one of my professors used an analogy that has stuck with me through the years. On a brief tangent, he was discussing how everything seems to go in cycles. Proudly he recalled his shag carpet, rolled up in his attic, ready to be displayed whenever it came back in style; he was wise, cognizant of the cyclical nature of many human systems. While I’m not sure if shag carpet will ever return, I am convinced that the tools, ideas, and most importantly, the perspective that resilience brings to planners and planning must not replicate the cycle of shag carpet – it must never be stowed in the attic of planning paradigms, waiting for the right situation to be shown. As future shocks and stresses become current shocks and stresses, lessons of resilience will go a long way in ensuring Ontario’s cities continue to be some of the world’s best.

Planning students got to display their research using a wide variety of mediums. It appeared to be a very enjoyable event for students and professionals alike. Poster displays, PowerPoint presentations and YouTube videos were all shared to conference participants eager to see what planning students are up to these days.

Join us for a World Town Planning Day November 8th in Toronto. It’s a free event. Simply meet us at the designated locations (1st stop: meet at Dundas and McCaul Street), where keynote speakers will share their insights on planning that matters in Toronto.

First stop is the Art Gallery of Ontario (317 Dundas Street West) at 11:00am.

We walk from there to the next destination at our own leisure. In short, it is a day of walking, exploring, meeting fellow students and professional planners and city builders, and learning more about the profession we’re about to enter.

Bring clothes and shoes for walking – rain or shine.

ABOUT VANCOUVER

Vancouver is inhabited by a multi-cultural crowd of over 580,000 (over 2million in Metro Vancouver) and has been repeatedly rated as the World’s No. 1 most livable city by The Economist and other rating agencies due to its stability, health care, culture, environment, education system, and infrastructure.

Vancouver is located on the Pacific Coast between the Burrard Inlet and the northern banks of the Fraser River. Stunning vistas are offered both by the immediate North Shore Mountains, Vancouver Island to the West and the silhouette of Mt. Baker to the distant East. With Stanley Park, Vancouver is home to one of North America’s largest urban parks.

A variety of cutting edge planning approaches are being taken to achieve the city’s self-proclaimed goal of becoming the World’s Greenest City by 2020. Vancouver’s already excellent public transportation system is under continuous improvement to increase the use of public transit, biking and walking while decreasing automobile traffic. New housing developments have to adhere to the most stringent environmental regulations in all of Canada.

Climate change and its impact on Vancouver’s water supply is another major challenge to city planners and offers some exciting lessons to up-and-coming environmental and urban planners. The city’s juxtaposition between three tectonic plates and the associated high risk for earthquakes also keep the city’s planners and engineers busy with land-use and disaster preparedness plans and initiatives.

Vancouver is home to Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia. Both institutions have a long-standing tradition of top-rated planning programs with SFU’s Graduate Program in Resource and Environmental Management (Planning) and UBC’s Graduate Program in Community and Regional Planning.

PLACES TO STAY IN VANCOUVER

CAPS-ACEAU 2012 will make rooms available in various establishments throughout town.  Please check back at a later date for more details.

RESTAURANTS AND BARS

Downtown Vancouver is home to an exciting variety of restaurants, pubs, and bars. Especially the areas around Granville Street, Commercial Drive and Gastown are renowned for their night-clubs, live music, ethnic restaurants and pubs.

For a full listing of bars, restaurants and nightly activities go to www.straight.com.

THINGS TO DO IN VANCOUVER

Vancouver is home to a number of exciting cultural activities. The UBC Museum of Anthropology, Science World and various art museums are but some of its gems. It also offers multiple ocean beaches, kayaking and endless outdoor activities in close proximity. Almost every neighborhood community also features Farmer’s Markets and colorful small grocers, book-stores and coffee shops.

More suggestions will follow at a later date.

GETTING TO, IN AND AROUND

Vancouver has an international airport, a Greyhound bus station and an international train station. It can also be reached via the Trans Canada Highway.

Vancouver’s public transit system is exceptional and will enable participants to easily and efficiently getting from a-to-b. Car-sharing is also a thriving phenomenon in Vancouver and a serious alternative for getting around in the city.

Detailed maps and directions will be provided at a later date.

LOCATIONS AND CONFERENCE ACTIVITIES:

The majority of the conference will be held in the SFU Harbour Centre in downtown Vancouver. Part of the SFU downtown campus, this venue offers state-of-the-art conference rooms, a variety of meeting and breakout rooms, and convenient access to locations in and around downtown Vancouver.

In addition, some events will be held in the Morris J Wosk Centre for Dialogue, an internationally recognized conference centre thoughtfully designed to facilitate communication and collaboration. The Centre for Dialogue is British Columbia’s only IACC-certified conference facility, ensuring the world’s highest standards among productive meeting environments.

Further locations and planned excursions will be announced.