FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Anthony Flint
617-661-3016 x116
LINCOLN UNVEILS PLANNING TOOLS FOR A TUMULTOUS FUTURE
New Web site, Visual Tools for Planners, and book, Engaging the Future, provide
planners with models for forecasts, scenario planning, and planning for disaster
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Volatile weather and floods from global warming. Population increases of 120 million by mid-century, and burgeoning immigrant communities. Urban revival and suburban reinvention.
The challenges facing the planning profession are changing fast. Guidance for the profession for engaging the public in this context is now available with a new Web site and book by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Visual Tools for Planners http://www.lincolninst.edu/subcenters/VTP/, in the Resources and Tools section of the Lincoln Institute Web site, includes 19 model visual presentations to be used by planners to illustrate issues in transportation, the movement of people and businesses over time, ecosystems, and disaster scenarios, among many other topics.
The site, developed for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy by a team led by Lewis D. Hopkins, professor at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, grew out of a desire to provide planners with an expanded set of tools for communicating planning ideas. The featured application in the library of representations is based on the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the deliberations about recovery in the Gulf Coast region. The templates are, however, useful in planning practice generally.
The book, Engaging the Future: Forecasts, Scenarios, Plans, and Projects (2007 / 392 pages / Paper / $35.00 ISBN-13: 978-1-55844-170-5), edited by Lewis D. Hopkins and Marisa A. Zapata, also at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is an invaluable guide to help planners communicate with elected officials, community leaders and citizens. The subtitle refers to four ways of representing, manipulating and assessing ideas about the future. This richly illustrated volume, which grew out of a symposium sponsored by the Lincoln Institute in 2005, includes a variety of tools and examples that reflect a new approach to planning.
Engaging the Future includes chapters on the use of forecasts in creating visions for regional growth, using scenarios to make urban plans and build planning capacity, engaging the public in narrative-based scenarios and a model request for proposals.
About the Editors:
Lewis D. Hopkins is a professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He has served as editor of the Journal of Planning Education and Research and chair of the Planning Accreditation Board, and was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Nepal. He is currently a member of the Urbana Planning Commission. His B.A. in architecture, Master of Regional Planning, and Ph.D. in city planning are from the University of Pennsylvania.
Marisa A. Zapata is in the Ph.D. program in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where she completed her Master of Urban Planning in 2004. She formerly worked for Congressman Charles B. Rangel in Washington, DC, and completed her B.A. in anthropology at Rice University.
About the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy: The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a think tank in Cambridge, Mass., sponsors research, training, conferences and demonstration projects on land use, urban planning and tax policy as it relates to land. The Web site is www.lincolninst.edu. The 2007 catalog of all Lincoln Institute publications is at http://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/PubDetail.aspx?pubid=1216.
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