ST Planners' Club

[clonedclone87 95]

Hi all!

Planning to be either an architect or urban planner.

Looking at Portland St., Northwestern, Nebraska, Rice, UT etc...

Hope to build a better future for America, specifically Omaha 

Better watch out NYC 

[DanWalker8 3]

Good Plan, clonedclone. pun intended of course..

So News?

What is new with those of you who are in your career?

For those of you studying, what are you doing in studio?

Our studio has 8 students and we've started our fourth and final project of the year. After this, only one more year! Anyway. We're looking at the commercial strip on the Northern edge of town and basically re-planning it around the current fad principles. Bikes, Pedestrians, Mass Transit, more trees and contiguous green systems ect. Sound interesting? It is ambitious. a huge project in my opinion. I've found that working in groups is TOUGH because of communication, distance, and leadership issues. What problems have you all encountered? How have you solved them?

[sammerhammer747 0]

Hey All!!!

Well I have just been Accepted to the Planning Honours Co-op Program at the University of Waterloo. I will be starting in Semester 2A because this year, I am finishing up my Diploma at St Clair College in Windsor, ON for Civil Engineering Technology!!

I love planning and Mass Transit and hope to focus my degree in these areas!! I cannot wait to get started in September!!

It's good to see a group of fellow and future planners!! GO PLANNING!!

[The Arrowz 3]

Cool, I didn't know you guys were actually going to make this a career; I hope to too. Currently a 2nd year Civil Engineering student at Georgia Tech (Atlanta, GA) and hopefully planning to specialize in city planning and/or transportation.

[ExiL3 10]

DanWalker8: Well, since I am at the beginning of my studies, we have only looked into different cases around Norway. The most current one was to create a good solution for new residential areas on a farm field fairly close to central parts of a city called Sarpsborg. Nothing big though...

Also looked into the different proposed plans for the new city harbour in downtown Oslo, quite interesting stuff.

Here are 2 prospects on the different solutions in Bjørvika, Oslo.

www.haveiendom.no/filestore/uppdateringar__og__mars/MUNCH.pdf

www.haveiendom.no/filestore/Projectdecription_deichman_munch__mars_/Projectdescriptions-Deichman.pdf

as you can see they are PDF files so they should launch directly in your browser.

,take care

[nofunk 1,933]

I'm finishing up my master's degree now, but I also work in the planning field. Currently, I'm working in Detroit for the metro area's regional planning authority. I'm working on the region's development forecast for the year 2040. It's very interesting work, but very tedious! We've been working on the forecast for about 6 months now, and we're not expected to finish it until 2011!

DanWalker8: I've worked on three major group projects during grad school (and countless smaller ones) and those issues you described always come up. My last (and biggest) group project was a plan for dealing with vacant residental houses and lots in a section of northeast Detroit. I had 8 other team members, but over the course of the project only 4 of them really contributed, and in the end, me and one other team member were left putting together the entire 154 page report! It can be very frustrating, but I think it's very good practice for the real world, where planners often have to work in groups and deal with people who may not be willing or able to contribute their fair share to a project.

I don't know if I've discovered any real solutions, but there are a few things that help, like clearly delegating tasks to individual team members, establishing deadlines to project components, and then following up to make sure people are on track. (Of course, that means you have to be ready to lead.)

Good luck finishing up your final year!

Originally posted by: The Arrowz

Cool, I didn't know you guys were actually going to make this a career; I hope to too. Currently a 2nd year Civil Engineering student at Georgia Tech (Atlanta, GA) and hopefully planning to specialize in city planning and/or transportation.

quote>

Civil engineering is great if you want to work in transportation! I did my master's concentration in transportation and wish I had taken some engineering courses. Good luck in your studies!

[hmm 17]

Great Idea for a club!

Im currently in my 4th year and im in the Urban Design program of the University of Buffalo. The biggest project I had was converting a plan for a conventional mall into a Lifestyle Center, which is something like a traditional town center but it involves all the principals of New Urbanist Design.

I only have one semester left and I'm worried about finding a job (the US economy isnt that great at the moment). But now that i see that nofunk is able to work for Detroits RPA while still in school gives me hope. Going to continue to look for a job back home in NYC, probably for the MTA or the Department of City Planning.

[DanWalker8 3]

cool hmm, welcome to the club. Yea. i would imagine planning in detroit is an incredible task.

as for an update on our project: we've decided to do it independently, however we will work according to the same set of principles/guidelines. There are just too many particularities to work on a project like this together.

[josefmayor 8]

After I transfer to USF I'm going to dual major in Architecture and Urban Planning

[villagemayor 0]

hey all! I am an urban planner working in Hamilton ON, CAN. Congrats to all who are going to planning school (even if it is UofW booooo :-P ) and those who will graduate soon. The career is exciting and fulfilling knowing that your decisions will affect the city and people. The ST Planners Club sounds very exciting and quite exclusive. Hope we can all share our ideas or issues, whether a school project or real life ones too.

[DanWalker8 3]

Hey villagemayor! I have a practical question for ya. How much statistics is used in planning?

[DuskTrooper 314]

Hehe....

I'm currently studying for a B ARCH at the moment; I have a few yrs experience in SC4, CAD, 3d modeling and the like, if that's worth anything towards this whole planning gig.

Furthermore, I have a vested interest in the fields of urban planning/city planning, landscape architecture, and to extent, topography.

I cannot promise much, since I am quite busy with my studies at the moment, but it's always nice to talk to folks who have similar interests and pursuits in life.

[villagemayor 0]

Danwalker, I don't use stats at all. I am a development planner so we don't use much math other than to calculate densities. You might need simple mathematics for policy planning. If you are doing transportation planning or environmental science/planning then you will need more difficult math like stats.

[DanWalker8 3]

development planning seems like something i am more interested in. I think, because i am a poor drawer, that i will go the policy direction.

[eternal_sky 0]

Originally posted by: Duke87

Don't forget that without us engineers, nothing you guys plan could ever get built. quote>

So true!

Hi everyone!

I'm a third going on fourth year Architecture student with a minor in Landscape Design.

So far for grad school, I've got my eye on Ilinois Tech, U-Maryland (thinking of doing their Dual degree in Arch & Urban Design)