GIS job in Delaware

New Castle County, Delaware is searching for a GIS technician. The description asks for:

At least five (5) years' experience in drafting, planning, GIS or related work at the level of Geographic Information Systems Specialist and completion of a standard high school course or GED certificate program, supplemented by four years of college with major course work in geography, planning or a related field; experience operating a Geographic Information System or computer Aided Drafting program; experience in Python, XML, javascript or other programming/scripting language a plus; familiarity with ArcGIS Online and Portal for ArcGIS; GISP Certification a plus or an equivalent combination of experience, education or training directly related to the required knowledge, skills and abilities.

GIS job at Rowan

A cool sounding GIS job at Rowan University.

Growing negative views of college

The Pew Research Center reports that between 2015 and 2019 colleges and universities have seen their popularity drop from a 63% positive viewpoint to 50%. This is something about which all of us in the higher education community should be aware and concerned.

The Cult of the Fantasy Pedestrian

Strong Towns has a post by Daniel Herriges talking about what he calls the Fantasy Pedestrian.

Designing streets for the Fantasy Pedestrian is really, really easy, because their behavior is 100 percent predictable in every circumstance. Just lay out the rules. But designing streets for real people, who take shortcuts and do spontaneous and expedient and sometimes even foolhardy things, requires more critical thought.

Of course, since cities preference the car, the designs really disadvantage the pedestrians who cross where and when it is inconvenient. Their justification of not being more accommodating, he argues, requires pretending to believe in fictional orderly pedestrians.

Next generation of DC landscapes

For us in New Jersey, Washington DC is close enough to visit regularly. Plus, the ASLA headquartered there, it is a great place for landscape architects to show off. ASLA's The Dirt has a nicely illustrated summary by Ian Dillon that describes several new stops on your update design tour of the District. In reality, it is the latest award winners, so they aren't all built works, yet. But it is worth marking your maps and keeping them in mind on future trips along I-95.

Landscape architecture's answer to the Pritzker?

Landscape architecture is creating a major design award that is meant to be the LA equivalent to the architecture's Pritzker.

Unpopular Positive Opinions

As usual, XKCD says something immediately funny, but also a tiny bit profound.

IPCC report

The IPCC has issued a new report on the role of land use in climate change. Every major news outlet will have their own summary or analysis (The Atlantic, Ars Technica, WSJ). But a good place to watch a conversation about it will be Real Climate. Some of the commenters will have been at the meeting or will already be reading the report.


Is land use part of the problem or part of the solution?

Friday Fotos: Wyoming

Well, only one place in Wyoming: Devil's Tower National Monument. It was established as the first national monument in the us in 1906.

 

Land management

The recent headline in the Salt Lake Tribune just about says it all, "William Perry Pendley, opponent of nation’s public lands, is picked to oversee them as acting head of BLM."

He argued in a 2016 National Review article that the "Founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold."

Readers interested in public lands will probably be watching this story unfold for a while.After all, this puts him in charge of about 250 million acres. By my rough math, that is an area larger than all of Texas and New Mexico combined.

Friday Fotos: South Dakota

Some landscapes from South Dakota to remind you that it is richer landscape than some might lead you to believe.