2 down, 2 to go

Rutgers 38
Kansas State 10

Kentucky 28
Clemson 20

Wisconsin plays on Jan 1

LSU plays on Jan 3rd

I am quite optimistics.

Urban Trends

PlaNetizen links to a Brookings Top Ten List of urban trends, but they kindly pull out the three they think are most relevent to their readers. Of those, one stands out to me as a very telling fact:

#3: "More than one-third of the nation's loss of manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2005 occurred in seven Great Lakes states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin."

Think: Detroit, Scranton, Akron, Gary.
We still don't have any real strategy for reclaiming cities like these. We do have some interesting approaches to sites within these, like MASS MoCA.

Houses in floodplains

Today's Star-Ledger reports one of those stories that isn't really breaking news, some homes are built in places where they never should have been built. Wayne Township is looking to buy 41 houses in Hoffman Grove so it can raze them. One of the homeowners, interviewed for the article, is actually welcoming it since owning a house in a floodplain is harder than they expected. Getting an offer that covers the mortgage is tough, but fighting this thing could turn out to be harder. Any response now is difficult and costly, with property rights, the environment, public safety and public finances all in play.

In the end, efforts like this cost a lot of money. It clearly demonstrates a major financial benefit to the community for restrictive building practices and careful site analysis, even if generous homebuilders do want to build "habitat for humans." unfortunately, weak planning boards and strong market pressures are creating a lot of problems in New Jersey that our children are going to have to pay for.

Aluna Tidal-powered Clock

Talk about a great idea. The proposed Aluna Tidal-powered Clock uses LEDs to indicate the moon phase and runs on tides. What a great way to get in touch with the cycles around you. Great images.

Washington's Crossing

Well, they did it again. Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware yesterday and the NJ.com has pictures to prove it. Hopefully we'll make it one of these years, but it is hard to imagine much better weather for it than yesterday.

Merry Christmas!

With people busily debating live versus cut versus fake trees, it might be nice to sit back and review the history of the Christmas tree. Wikipedia includes a nice summary of the many histories. You can learn a little more about the potential trees by checking out the list of the best species of trees from the National Christmas Tree Association or the Christmas Tree Identification Guide from the good folks at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.


So which tree is the best?

FEMA's competition for funds

There is an interesting twist in the move towards rebuilding the Gulf Coast. FEMA held a competitive grants process that has rewarded some of the states with some funding for building new homes. The NYTimes' version of the story includes some architectural renderings of the proposed homes and an explanation of what stood out about the winners' proposals. What is interesting is that Mississippi got $280 million while Louisiana only got $75 million. In addition, Texas got a little but FLorida got skunked.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune offers up excuses for why New Orleans was robbed of this great opportunity.

"We got shorted one more time, got cheated out of opportunities one more time," Blanco said on the steps of the Governor's Mansion after completing a call with Louisiana's members of Congress.

"It's a cruel Republican agenda that punishes Louisiana," Blanco said. "I find it detestable to find so many hard-working families left out in the cold by rotten party politics."

Unfortunately, what this really seems to show is both how complicated the situation is in NOLA, but also how much the locals (whether it is the City, or State, or other local entities) are expecting gifts more than they are trying to create creative solutions that are both quick and sustainable. Maybe more news will come out in the coming days to support the evidence of the anti-Louisiana bias, but the newspapers sure make it sound like these awards were based on merit. I just hope that there is still Federal funding left when New Orleans finaly comes up with a comprehensive and inclusive plan.

Solar trees popping up everwhere

Wired details Google's new parking lot with solar trees. This is a growing trend. I think that J&J in New Brunswick even has something like this on top of one of their parking structures. But this article includes an aerial photo of the property. What you can see is that virtually every inch of the property that is impervious is also covered with solar cells.

Is this really a trend of the future? It could be really interesting if we saw more direct linkages between I.S. and Solar? Would it limit the pressure on a developer to reduce I.S. if it meant losing solar potential too?

Atlantic Yards advances

Well, it looks like the Atlantic Yards project has made a major leap forward. The NY State Public Authorities Control Board has approved the major development over the old train yard that would be home to the Nets and thousands of residents. Bruce Ratner is working with Frank Gehry to make the development, which would already be unforgettable for its size alone, into an iconic element in the heart of Brooklyn.

Knowing that this was coming, we visited this spring on the Brooklyn RUOC hike. You could see why the locals were upset. This is will change a reasonably nice, largely unknown, neighborhood into a major attraction for the region. The controversy includes all of the fun elements: eminent domain, a neighorhood with character, tall highrises that change the skyline, sports arenas, starchitecture, traffic problems, and lots of new jobs.

Calatrava at WTC

After taking the PATH through the World Trade Center this weekend, I looked up the latest images and videos of the new transportation center. Designed by Calatrava, this is going to a great capper to the experience of that area. Or least the videos make it seem that way.

Situation Room

The White House has unveiled its new Situation Room. As the NYTimes points out, it still isn't as impressive as the ones on TV. I love the cheap folding chair in their photo. And it feels absolutely claustrophobic. But they've gone mostly with LCDs, which is probably a good idea since a lot of what they will be doing is like video games and could cause ghosting on the displays.

PLANT in Morristown

Toronto's edgy landscape architects, PLANT, have started a pretty nice looking project in Morristown. Foote's Pond Wood looks like it is already worth a visit this spring and could be worth additional visits as the work continues.

I stumbled onto them because they are currently finalists in the competition to design Toronto's main square, http://www.toronto.ca/npsquarecompetition/

I am just happy that Toronto is going to finally address that giant void in the heart of their city. On our last visit, that was one of the few disappointments.

Land Ethics

SEVENTH ANNUAL LAND ETHICS SYMPOSIUM:
CREATIVE APPROACHES FOR ECOLOGICAL LANDSCAPING

Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve presents its Seventh Annual Land Ethics Symposium: Creative Approaches for Ecological Landscaping on Thursday, February 15, 2007 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Sheraton Bucks County Hotel, Langhorne, Pennsylvania, convenient to I-95 and the Pennsylvania turnpike. This stimulating and informative Symposium for professionals will focus on ways to create low-maintenance, economical, and ecologically balanced landscapes using native plants and restoration techniques. The Symposium is geared toward landscape architects, designers, contractors and other members of the landscape/nursery industry, environmental consultants, land planners, managers and developers, state/municipal officials and students.

CEU’s applied for from the NJ Landscape Architect Evaluation & Examination Committee

Fee: $95; fulltime students-$65. Pre-registration required by Monday, February 5. For more information and to request a brochure, contact Hildy Ellis (215) 862-2924, ellis@bhwp.org. Brochures will be mailed in early January and available at www.bhwp.org in mid-December. Symposium is sponsored by Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve, New Hope, Pennsylvania and co-sponsored by County of Bucks, Office of the Commissioners; others co-sponsors pending.

Featured Speakers:
* Dr. Jeffrey Featherstone, Director of the Center for Sustainable Communities, Temple University Ambler, “Stormwater Management from a Watershed Perspective”
* Keith Bowers, RLA, Founder/President of Biohabitats, “Conservation Design, Best Development Practices”
* Edgar David, MLA, RLA; Principal of S. Edgar David and Assoc., “Integrating Nature, Culture and Art”
* Edmund Snodgrass, President of Emory Knoll Farms Inc. and Green Roof Plants, “Green Roofs as Living Machines”
* Dr. Roger Latham, Ecologist, Conservation Biologist and Environmental Planner, “Native Grasslands and Meadows in Pennsylvania: Their History and Current Condition”

New York's Future

The Economist writes about Mayor Bloomberg's new 25-year vision for New York City. With a vision for better transportation and quality life where "every New Yorker will live within ten minutes' walk of a public park," Bloomberg's efforts are clearly directed at real citizens as well as the the larger image of the citizen. One very promising sign is the Sustainability Advisory Board that he is assembling to get serious and sincere input from scientists, environemtnalists and other sorts of experts. The city's sustainability is a serious concern on many fronts, but a few key changes they'll grapple with include anticipated growth by another 1 million people, seniors outnumbering tots, and the potential collapse of an already overwhelmed degrading infrastructre.

Ultimatley, this vision is going to need to be very strong to succeed, since it will have to be implemented by other mayors. But a greener vision for the challenges facing this great city should be something that many New Yorkers can get excited about. And probably something we'll talk about in class plenty.

It also raises an interesting question about personal perspective. Think about New York compared with other cities? Is it a city on the rise? Or is it a city in decline? Is it like some European cities which are just reliving their past greatness or is it still about what it is becoming? How you view the city says a lot about how you might treat decisions about its future.

Map Contest

The American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) and the Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS) are pleased to announce its 34th annual map design competition.

The purpose of the competition is to promote interest in map design and to recognize significant design advances in cartography. The competition is open to all map-makers in the United States and Canada.

Students are particularly encouraged to apply for the awards sponsored by the National Geographic Society and Avenza-MAPublisher. The competition is open to all college-level student mapmakers who have completed and/or published the submitted map during 2006. Each student award consists of a cash prize ($500), a National Geographic atlas, a student license of MAPublisher (worth $249), and a certificate of award. Runners-up receive a beautiful National Geographic map or atlas.

The deadline for this year's competition is January 15, 2007.

The categories for the competition include the following.

In the Professional Category:
Best of Show
Best of Category:
Reference
Thematic
Book/Atlas
Recreation/Travel
Interactive Digital
Other
In the Student Category, the National Geographic Society/Avenza-MAPublisher Awards are:
Arthur Robinson Award for the Best Printed Map
David Woodward Award for then Best Electronic Map

Details about the categories and the entry requirements can be found on the CaGIS website at www.cartogis.org <http://www.cartogis.org/> , or contact Ilse Genovese at CaGIS headquarters (240) 632-9716 ext.109.

Good luck with the competition!

Triennial

The Cooper-Hewitt has opened its 2006 Triennial: Design for Life. While it looks at all kinds of design, it features 5 landscape architects including Tom Leader and the Cao|Perrot Studio.

It is a free museum that is just a train ride away. You can even wander through The Park afterward. What's holding you up?

Playgrounds for pensioners

I have heard Jason Grabosky compare toddlers and seniors because they are both quite susceptible to tripping on sidewalk cracks. But i nGermany they are going to try to treat retirees like kids by building parks just for them. Nuremburg is building a prototype park for the elderly that creates special opportunities for them to be engaged in physical activities that promote betterhealth and fitness.

Look, the baby boomers are retiring, and many are doing it young. Are we ready for that time after they spend a few years travelling around in RVs when they'll pick a place to really settle down? Some are eyeing places like Brooklyn where you can really get to know the neighbors and walk to all of your needs. But for much of the country the boomers are going to demand special consideration and facilities, and a decent chunk of them will have the income and/or clout to back up those demands. Where will they go? What will these places be like? Aside from an increased awareness of environmental issues, this could be the single largest factor in changing the American landscape over the next 2 decades and there still seems to be very little going on to prepare in advance.

We have a winner!

According to today's Star-Ledger, President McCormick has chosen a winner in the campus design competition. The winning team is TEN Arquitectos – Enrique Norten - Wallace Roberts & Todd. Enrique Norten has become a world famous architect, with most of the built work by TEN Arquitectos either in Mexico or the NY/NJ area. Probably the closest notable building he has done was the award-winning Princeton Garage Parking Structure. WRT is already active in the area as the designer for the Main Street project in Highland Park.

The winning concept proposed a cylindric glass tower at the North end of campus which has been compared, by some, to either the classic NJ fuel tank or a frat party beer can. The campus plan featured a "red" cross axis that connected College Ave with the river and a much greener College Ave (with grass block as the surface) for the bus rapid transit that they envision.

As surprising as anything is that the winning proposal was not the plain and boring from Beyer Blinder Belle -- Ateliers Jean Nouvel -- Oehme, van Sweden & Associates. Really, I suspect that their solution would have been proven to be elegant and I really enjoy the work of both Nouvel and Oehme van Sweden, but their entry wasn't the bold sort of gamble that a design competition deserves.

UPDATE: Some of the alums and boosters that post regularly on an online sports bulletin board seem to have a different view of the winning plan. With comments like,

This is a joke gone bad.......

this group seemed to think this was one of the worst entries in the competition, disliking both the architecture and the intent behind it.

Top 10 Coaches under 40

I had freshman English with little John Pelphrey and Sean Sutton who are both on this impressive coaching list. I must have missed a few of the lectures that they went to, because I don't think I can make the list even if do get a coaching job.

LAF Scholarships

The Landscape Architecture Foundation is an important spin-off of ASLA and one way that they remind us of that are their annual scholarships. While our students are only eligible for a few of them, it is still worth a try for those with a high GPA.

The Landscape Architecture Foundation announces our annual call for submissions for the LAF 2007 Leadership in Landscape Scholarship Program. The deadline for the Douglas Dockery Thomas Fellowship is January 15, 2007. The deadline for all other scholarships is February 15, 2007.

An estimated $100,000 in awards will be available in 2007. Help us get the word out to all qualified students by displaying the following online poster prominently on campus or forwarding this email to fellow faculty members or students who may be interested in applying.

Simply go to http://www.lafoundation.org/Poster/Scholarship_Poster.pdf and print one or more 81/2" by 11" posters. (The poster download takes approximately one minute so please be patient).

All scholarship details and application requirements are available at www.lafoundation.org/scholarships.htm

LAF plans to add several new scholarships for 2007. As these scholarships become available, they will be listed on the above referenced LAF website. So stay current by having all interested parties regularly visit the site from now until February.

LA Education

In a recent posting on Larch-L, someone posted the following tidbit:

> In the past year Karen Hanna, FASLA and recent VP for Education at
> ASLA looked at the problem in a paper and presentation called
> "Challenges in Education" that was widely presented to the
> President's Council, ASLA, CELA, CLARB and LAF. That rather
> extensive study pointed out that the profession in North America is
> producing very close to the same number of graduates today as we have
> since 1983 - that is 1150 per year with about a annual variation of
> approximately 75 or so. Her data from ASLA states the following:
>
> 2002: 75 programs
> 1986: 57 programs
> 1972: 22 programs
>
> 2001: 1133 degrees awarded
> 1998: 1231 degrees awarded
> 1987: 1113 degrees awarded

The rapid growth in programs without an equal growth in degrees is interesting. I wonder how many programs have reduced their size to focus on crafting a more meaningful education for fewer students. I suspect that some schools have become much more concerned about things like national rankings than with size.

It sure doesn't seem to be a market response since the Department of Labor forsees an above average outlook, and there are presumably a number of baby boomers retiring. Admittedly, mobility helps find jobs since places like San Diego don't even have an LA program and areas like Florida are growing faster than all the LA grads can help with.

A step closer to OLPC

A Beta version is out, advancing Negroponte's efforts to build a $100 laptop that can be distributed to African villages and Brazilian ghettos acheiving his goal of One Laptop Per Child. While it is still a little buggy, you can study the photos and imagine for yourself whether or not this is such a good idea.

I would encourage everyone to watch, because this really looks like an idea and a force for change that could change the world forever. Can you imagine the amount of spam that a new generation of web-enabled users could create? Are there enough Universities ready to absorb a larger student population if this doubles the number of college-prepared students in Africa or Southeast Asia? How will villages keep their children loca for another generation when they've grown up excited about distant places like Mumbai, Shanghai and Dubai? Will relief agencies be able to use these to pinpoint specific places and times of acute need?

A Post-Katrina baby boom

This morning's Times reports that New Orleans is experiencing an unexpected change. Traditionally, NOLA has been a city with very little immigrant population -- frankly, while it was hard for old residents to leave it was even harder for new residents without an existing stream of support.

Suddenly, immigrants are doing an enormous amount of the rebuilding work and finding New Orleans so comfortable as to have babies, a real boom of babies. But the hospitals haven't been rebuilt fast enough to help. The Charity hospitals, which would normally take on most of the uninsured cases, are particularly far behind in rebuilding. The biggest impact for the expecting moms may be the lack of any sort of prenatal care for the babies. Instead, they show up when they go into labor and can no longer be refused.

It wouldn't be a surprise to see this growth in the hispanic population become a permanent change in the city. After all, many who left after the storm have vowed never to return. And the rebuilding is going to last decades. But this change will clearly impact the culture and the image of this city in ways that are, today, still unpredictable.

PS - When we talk about "Waves" in a Post-Katrina
environment, we do not mean this Katrina and the Waves.

Taking land FROM developers is OK, too

The NJ Supreme Court issued a ruling on eminent domain that allows agencies to condemn land owned by a developer to set it aside for open space. This is an interesting twist in the wake of the US Supreme Court's recent Kelo decision which addressed taking land to give TO the developers.

While the home builders issue their usual statements about the diminshment of property rights, the court did look after them in a specific way. The ruling made it clear that the land owner's reimbursement must reflect the latest zoning and improvements. In this case that included approvals for plenty of $400,000 homes with the construction of the retention basin already completed. I don't expect to see many towns waiting until this late date in the process to pursue eminent domain proceedings.

"Land-preservation experts said the ruling was important in a state like New Jersey, which is already heavily developed. But they did not expect a flood of towns to use eminent domain to preserve open space because it is an expensive and time-consuming process."

It is another tool in a very complicated toolbox.

Census data

One of the most frequent requests that I get from students is for help with data from the US Census Bureau. So I was quite happy when I saw some new tools to help out. See the post below...

Over the past several years I have written several programs for use with Census Data. As part of my service on the AAG’s Census Advisory Committee, I am making these programs available as freeware. I also am releasing the source code for TGR2SHP, the most challenging of programs I have written, along with a technical whitepaper that describes logic and structure of that program. In working with students, and in my own self-education, I have found some of the ideas used in TGR2SHP, particularly efficient extracting of the topology in TIGER and the
strategy for quickly assembling area features (polygons to us older folks), to be quite instructive. Students who have been exposed to these ideas seem to have a better understanding of how programs can be structured to exploit topological relationships.

In addition to the TIGER translators, there are programs for extracting tables from Census Summary Files, and one program for creating shapes from DLGs. All of these are now freeware.
The programs, user manuals, whitepaper, and source code can be found at http://tnatlas.geog.utk.edu/downloadfree.htm. If you find these materials useful, and particularly if you use them in an educational setting, please send me an email (bralston@utk.edu) indicating that fact.
I will release a whitepaper and source code for the Summary File extractors sometime before the end of the year.

--
Bruce A. Ralston
Professor of Geography
University of Tennessee
304 Burchfiel Geography Building
Knoxville, TN 37996-0925

A new Town Center for "Us"

Labelled as a new "smart growth" project, this is the official website for a new Transit Village on the Northeast Corridor in North Brunswick. The proposal is to take the old Johnson & Johnson site on Route 1 and convert it into a significant community hub. While the words "New Urbanism" seems to be conspicuously absent, I do see TND and TOD popping up in an early newsletter. For those unfamiliar with the site or or concepts, I would encourage you to watch the main video/ad for the project.

The project team includes Hillier and the relatively new firm of MelvinKernan which brings some great experiences to bear on planned communities.

The participatory elements are particularly interesting as they have insisted on running a series of public workshops. Their website includes photos and videos from the workshops which seem well run. The challenge, as with most public participatory work, is how to respond to the public comments while doing something creatively original and financially successful.

USDA plants database

The USDA has an online plants database that you might find useful. You can search the database by common or scientific name and by state.

"The PLANTS Database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories."

With 30,000 plant photos and plenty of information about each, it certainly makes it easier for the average client to check out the things they hear from their landscape architect or the local nursery. (Hat tip to MetaFilter)

Flood Insurace

This fall I got a chance to visit the areas on the gulf coast of Mississippi where the eye of Hurricane Katrina ripped through towns like Waveland and Bay St Louis. A giant wave that was over 30 feet high wash in over this lowlying little peninsula and took many houses back out to sea with it. Many of those houses had absolutely no flood insurance because they were ineligible - they were just a few feet above a poorly calculated 100 year floodplain. Now they have recalculated the floodplain and many of those houses would still be out of the floodplain and ineligible for any flood insurance, if they could afford it. Those that should have been covered said that the insurance companies aften tried to claim that the damage was the wrong kind (water vs. wind).

15 months later it was still a ghost town with few houses being rebuilt because so many owners were uninsured or underinsured.

Today's Washington Post said that insurance companies are getting pretty nervous about coastal zones, especially as they consider the possibility of sea
level rise. As a result, many are thinking of getting out of
the business of insuring properties along the shores. The article points out that if they quit insuring these properties businesses won't go there and both old and new homes will be seriously impacted. New buyers might be unable to get mortgages.

What will the new shorelines of America look like?

UPDATE: Our local paper now reports that Allstate is going to stop selling new policies in NJ because a hurricane could bankrupt them. The state says it isn't a big deal even though Allstate is the #2 insurer in NJ behind the ever-popular State Farm.

New Jersey Books

I always said that zoning is the REAL news. Now there's more proof. Today's Targum leads with a front page above-the-fold zoning story. They are talking about the condemnation of a property downtown that currently houses New Jersey Books. You'll notice that the city is describing anticipated future disrepair of the buildings as a mechanism for justifying the eminent domain proceedings. This isn't always necessary, but appears to be central to this case.

Andropogon

I had a chance to visit Andropogon today down in Philly. Not that they care, but they have been on my A-list since I was a grad student at LSU. LSU is very close to Crosby Arboretum which remains one of their great designs mixing ecology and design. Crosby also features a great pavillion by E. Fay Jones who is best known for his Thorncrown Chapel, but also designed John Scruggs' house outside of Lexington.

Andropogon also did restoration work at Grey Towers (as pictured above).

Aside from the great work they continue to do, we talked about their use of GIS. They told me that GIS, and the contextual work it introduces to a project, has become integral their process and they way they conceptualize their work.

Finally, their office is in Manayunk. Very cool little downtown that has been helped along by WRT.

Just how complicated are the Highlands?

The Daily Record published a very interesting letter from a farm owner in the Highlands. The author calls the act elitist and accuses the plan of robbing property owners of their rights as a way of providing a giant park for the rich.

As we so often see in these cases, serious fundamental concerns about real issues evolve into base accusations:

But they didn't listen to me. Excepting two, the council members put their principles aside and voted to release the plan. In so doing, they missed an opportunity for a bold initiative that might have enabled the Highlands Act to evolve into a fair and equitable environmental law. Instead, the act stands as a nationalization of private property without the just compensation promised for public use takings in our Constitution.

Illegal takings seems like a great hook. In reality, the current Supreme Court would seem inclined towards protecting individual property rights so you wouldn't think an unconstitutional act would last long.

Underneath the emotions lie some really important issues about balancing personal versus comunity interests and the trade-offs between different perspectives on quality of life. A letter like this should be a reminder to all of our students (and alums) of these balances and the individuals involved.

GIS job

I just got a job posting from Morris Land Conservancy. They are located at a wonderful part of Morris County and fighting the good fight, both in and out of the Highlands. It would be a great place to build some GIS chops. Check it out.


-------------
GIS Mapping Specialist – Full or Part-Time Position
Morris Land Conservancy

Job Description:
Morris Land Conservancy is seeking to hire a GIS Mapping Specialist to join our conservation team to protect northern New Jersey’s beautiful open space lands. The GIS Mapping Specialist will work closely with the Land Preservation and Planning Staff on maps for open space planning and grant applications. The ideal candidate will have a strong interest in land conservation, excellent GIS and mapping skills, knowledge of tax maps and tax classification, and a goal oriented team player who enjoys working with people.

Qualifications/Skills:
Strong proficiency with ESRI ArcGis 9 and ArcView 3 and extensions.
Proficiency with Access and Excel.
Experience with general data analysis techniques, data development, management and maintenance.
Experience in map production with strong design and layout skills.
Ability to customize mapping processes according to project goals/needs and audience.
Knowledge of hardware and software maintenance and ability to troubleshoot problems.
Ability to learn new technical skills quickly.
Excellent time management skills.
Strong team player.

Responsibilities:
Work in conjunction with other Conservancy programs to provide mapping services for a variety of purposes, including open space, greenway and trail planning, land acquisition, stewardship, outreach and education. Manage GIS system including maintaining hardware, software and data. Train other staff members in use of GIS as needed.

Employer:
Morris Land Conservancy is a nonprofit land trust organization founded in 1981 to protect open space in northern New Jersey. The Conservancy has helped to preserve over 10,000 acres of open space. We currently assist 29 municipalities in implementing their Open Space Plans, put corporate volunteer teams to work improving our parks and develop open space plans and maps through our Aresty Mapping Center. The Conservancy is located in a beautiful park in Montville, N.J. and has a staff of fifteen.

Start Date:
Position is available immediately – effective December 4, 2006

Application Process:
The Conservancy will review resumes and interview strong candidates during December. If you are interested in this position, please send a resume to:

Barbara Heskins Davis, PP, AICP
Vice President, Programs
Morris Land Conservancy
19 Boonton Avenue, Boonton, NJ 07005
Phone: (973) 541-1010 Fax: (973) 541-1131
bhdavis@morrislandconservancy.org

NJ ASLA 2007

The NJASLA has started to announce the details for its 2007 Annual Meeting in Atlantic City. It is being held January 28 - 30, 2007 at the Trump Taj Mahal. It is a valuable opportunity for students and professionals alike. The room rates are reasonably cheap ($75) and the meeting often helps students work in exchange for a discount on their conference registration.

Aside from our own talent (Drs. Goodman, Hoefer, Hartman, Hamilton, Goto, etc.) there are also some great keynotes with one by Laurie Olin looking like my early favorite.

ArcGIS 9.2

David Maquire's blog is talking up the new release of ArcGIS 9.2. There are certainly a fair number of folks in the GIS community that are talking it up. We'll give it a pretty good test drive this spring in Intermediate Environmental Geomatics.

Highlands Plan Released

The NJ Highlands Council has released its much anticipated plan for the region. As this article implies, it isn't clear what this will mean. The article says that only 20% of the region is available for development. It seems like the council is still working through the politics necessary to hold things together, but the 60-day comment period will be quite telling.

Getting started

Welcome to the Environmental Planning and Design blog. Ultimately this should be a place for a variety of personal comments and links to news of interest. It'll take a few weeks for this to become useful. And it might take a little longer to become the most linked blog in the world.