The National Planning Conference of the American Planning Association (APA)Â is coming to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in April 2009.
APA’s National Planning Conference is the world’s premier educational event for planners and planning officials. With hundreds of sessions, workshops, mobile workshops, and networking events to choose from, you can build your own conference — one that’s just right for you.
We’re expecting several thousand folks involved in urban and regional planning to descend on the Twin Cities this spring. Keynote speakers scheduled include liberal Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter and architecture critic Witold Rybczynski.  Plus over 100 mobile workshops in and around the Twin Cities.
Silly me, I couldn’t be happy with just attending the conference. I volunteered as a PR-Media co-chair for the MnAPA chapter Local Host Committee.
Minneapolis Stone Arch Bridge
This month APA highlights Minnesota and regional planning issues in Planning Magazine. You can read about some great places in Minnesota (with a picture of the booth the PR-Media Committee put together), transit, river and lake water resource issues, and more.
There’s also a nice article on outreach from Dutch planners helping Mississippi delta-area recovery efforts. The National Planning Conference is in New Orleans next year.
I’m looking foward to completing my continuing education credits for AICP (American Institute of Certified Planners) and am sure a fun time will be had by all. If we’re not careful we might just learn something as well.
-john c shepard, aicp
STrib
The Economist