Happy New Year!

Wishing you success in school and everything else that you're trying to accomplish in 2008.

Just a quick reminder about two important events that will be taking place in the first few
months of 2008.

MAP Student Conference
Friday, February 8, 2008
The conference will take place at Michigan State University at the
Student Union on Grand River. Stay posted for information on ride-sharing.

APA 100th National Convention
April 27 - May 1, 2008: Las Vegas, NV
More information here.

Also the National Brownfields 2008 Conference will be held in Detroit.
May 5-7, Cobo Hall
More information here.

December 6th PLACE Meeting Notes

If you missed PLACE's last meeting, here are the topics we discussed:

* Fundraiser letter for scholarship, future field trips, parties etc
* Our Holiday Party, which I must say went very well!
* The upcoming MAP Student Conference on Feb 8th 2008... LOOK FOR THE POSTERS in THE HALLS and REGISTER SOON!
* Bringing the Mentoring Program to a new level with the new year!
* Next Year's events:
- 3 more Field trips, including the NEW! Detroit Institute of Arts! suggested by Nathan and Shane!

- Basic Training Course offered to students in mid January, taught by John Enos and Doug Lewan

- A Chicago Tour early or mid March

- Promotion of GIS and Planning Programs March- June and August- September

If you have suggestions or great club ideas or you just want to get involved... please contact Jenny Bruen... jbruenplanning@hotmail.com

FINALLY! GIS found on computer in Library!

Hey for those of you that didn't know:

"I actually located at least one of the computers in the library with
ArcGIS on it. It is PC#5 (which is in front of the color printing
desk). The trick is that there is no icon for it. You have to do a
search for it. I'm sure thats why no one could ever find it before. I
actually stumbled upon it by happenstance.

just figured you could post it on the blog or something,

thanks,

Dave

Call for Presentations - Extended Deadline for the 2nd Annual MAP Student Conference

The Michigan Association of Planning is seeking planning students/recent graduates to make a 15-20 minute presentation at the 2008 MAP Student Conference (to be held Feb. 8, 2008).

Examples: Study Abroad trips, field-projects, internship experiences.

Submission deadline: Wednesday, December 5, 2007

The student conference committee will be selecting sessions in the middle of December.

This is a great opportunity to improve your public speaking skills. Presentations will be evaluated by professional planners.

Form is available at MAP's website: http://planningmi.org/events1370835.asp

Amy Jordan
Director of Education
Michigan Association of Planning
219 S. Main Street, Suite 300
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104
734.913.2000

Nov. 30 PLACE trip info and directions

Here are directions for this Fridays PLACE field trip from Ann Arbor's Mallets Creek Library, to Amer's Deli, and then Carlisle / Wortman Associates,Inc.

Directions

View Larger Map

http://www.aadl.org/aboutus/mallettscreek
http://www.amersdeli.com/locations_Amers.html
http://www.cwaplan.com/

Friday Nov.30th Field Trip and Saturday Dec.8th Holiday Party

Attention ALL GIS and URP students!!!
This Friday November 30th, we are having our second and last Field Trip of the semester. We will be meeting up in the lobby at the Mallet Creek Library in Ann Arbor @ 12 noon, for a one hour tour of this sustainable "green" building. Afterwards, we will be having lunch at Amer's Deli in downtown A2 from 1:45-2:45. From the restaurant.... we will proceed to the Carlisle and Wortman Consulting office for a 3PM presentation and tour. John Enos (EMU Planning Alum) will be talking with us about how the professional planning world works and how students can prepare themselves.
For more information ... please email Aron Flohr at aflohr@emich.edu or Jenny Bruen at jbruenplanning@hotmail.com.

Hope to see you at ONE or BOTH of these great field trip options!

Reminder!!! SATURDAY December 8th @ 7PM we will be having our 2007 Holiday PLACE Party... at Dr.Bob Jones house...Look for more info this week.

Jenny Bruen
PLACE President

Reminder!

The City of Ypsilanti will be holding 2 design charettes TOMORROW,
Thursday, November 8. Meetings will be held at 3pm and 6pm.

I have tried to find more information about these meetings on the
city's website, but have not been able to.

Professor Jones told us about them at the last PLACE meeting and
I'm sure there's a pretty good chance that they are being held in
the city building downtown. Again the times for the meetings are
3pm or 6pm.

If anyone attends this - please let us know. You're welcome to post
your thoughts on the blog.

Meeting Minutes from 11/1 PLACE Meeting

1) Jenny discussed the upcoming field trips that she and Aaron had set up. (see details about these in the post below).

2) The group set a date for the upcoming holiday party. We decided on Saturday, December 8. Professor Jones offered to host it at his home.

3) Professor Jones announced that Ypsilanti would be having design charette on
Thursday, November 8. There will be two meetings held: one at 3pm and one at 6pm. These charettes will address the future of Frog Island Park and the Riverside area.

4) The group discussed the possibility of traveling to the national APA conference in Las Vegas in the spring of 2008.

The meeting adjourned at 5:20.

Upcoming Events

Friday, November 9
Field Trip to Grosse Ile
(see post below)

Friday, November 30
Field Trip to Carlisle Wortman & AA Library

Saturday, December 8th
Holiday Party
Details TBA

Friday, February 8
MAP Student Conference
East Lansing, MI on the MSU Campus

FIELD TRIPS!

Hi All,

If you don't already know.... EMU's URP and GIS students have been invited, by theTownship Manager Dale Reaume, to tour Grosse Isle Island! He is an EMU Alum and a planner! He will provide us an educational and fun tour on Friday Nov. 9th!

We will meet just outside the Strong Hall Studio Room doors @ 12noon and will leave campus by way of " ride sharing " @ 12:30. We will drive along the Detroit River Front through Wyandotte and arrive at the Grosse Isle Island Township Hall by 3pm. While on the island we will learn about the airport, harbor, open space, housing and other planning related aspects. After the tour, we plan to have dinner (on the island ) at a nice but rather inexpensive restaurant. We should be leaving the island around 7pmish, arriving back in Ypsilanti by 8:30pm.

Consider the immense value in this field trip and Dale's generous offer. Get to know fellow classmates in your program and have a really fun break from the typical class room setting!

So mark your calendars, TELL YOUR FRIENDS and CLASSMATES and let me know if you will be attending...

The other field trip is a little more local. We will pay a visit to Carlisle Wortman Friday Nov. 30th in Ann Arbor. Aaron Flohr is working on trying to get us a combined tour at the Mallet Ann Arbor Library ( a sustainable green building) for the 30th before we go to C.W.

Contact me with questions...

jbruenplanning@hotmail.com

I look forward to seeing you there!

Jenny

Upcoming Meeting

There is a PLACE meeting on

Thursday, November 1
4:30 in the Studio at Strong Hall

Agenda Items:

Planning Tours
Holiday Party
Fundraising

Hope you can make it!

Perfect for Planners

Several months ago I had the great pleasure of hearing Paul Schutt, publisher of Model D Media, speak at a conference put on by the Michigan Suburbs Alliance. Paul's talk centered on the importance of changing the paradigm through which the media views a city like Detroit. While there was plenty of bad to focus on, Model D left the "if it bleeds it leads" mindset behind, in order to focus on the good that was happening in the city. As it turns out they found plenty of good there, and in cities like Pittsburgh, Grand Rapids and Lansing.

If you haven't already seen these publications, do yourself a favor and check them out.

Model D in Detroit

Pop City in Pittsburgh

Rapid Growth in Grand Rapids

Capital Gains in Lansing

Back from the MAP Conference

For those of you who attended the MAP Conference last weekend, what were your thoughts? Would you recommend that other students attend and what, if anything did you learn from the experience??

Economic Development & GIS Positions

The City of Clawson is looking for a DDA Intern.
You can find out about the position here.

---

Job Title: PROPERTY ASSESSMENT TECHNICIAN (GIS), Wayne County

Annual Pay Rate: 0 $31,425

About the Job: Working for the Assessment and Equalization Division of Management and Budget, employees in this class perform specialized work duties that include: plotting legal descriptions and subdivisions of any scale and shape on both paper maps and as part of a computerized Geographic Information System; editing and correcting parcel images using ArcGIS software or other comparable mapping software; creating maps, drawings and charts using ArcGIS software or other comparable mapping software; inputting and updating tax parcel description data and other relevant data into Equalizer assessment administration software; making composite maps by joining existing map data and section map data; operating electronic scanners, printers and plotters in the development of digital maps and map products; helping in the development of GIS training course materials and classes for county and local governmental employees; and other duties as assigned.


Qualifications: An Associates degree or higher, from an accredited college or university, in Engineering, Land Surveying, Geography, Urban Planning, Computer Science or similar discipline; AND At least one (1) year full time paid professional experience in Geographic Information Systems applications using ArcInfo and ArcGIS software programs; AND A valid State of Michigan driver's license and an acceptable, safe driving record.


Career Opportunities:


Posted Date: 10/9/2007

Closing Date: Until Filled

Exam Needed: NO
http://www.waynecounty.com/personnel/asps/search_results.asp?jobs_listing=152

Hi URP and GIS Fellow Classmates!

Planetizen, the leading online news and information source for the urban planning and development community, has begun work on the next edition of its popular Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs.

To help provide prospective planning students more information about each program, Planetizen is asking current and recent urban planning graduate students to participate in an online survey about their master's degree program.

The survey only takes 5-10 minutes, and all respondents will be entered in a drawing to win a 4GB video iPod Nano.

You can take the survey by visting:
http://survey.planetizen.com/students/

Don't forget to forward this to other planning students and recent grads.

Thanks.

What happened at the Oct.4th party/meeting?

We began the meeting with some light discussion about how to expand and grow the URP and GIS programs. There were suggestions from Ian, Greg, Joe, Kevin, Erik, and others about how we can reach out to communities, high schools and the freshman/sophmore here at EMU. We talked about the brochure that is currently being used for marketing the program and discussed some ways to distribute it. Next, we moved onto the topic of some potential off campus events and/or tours that the club could partake in..... Aaron Flohr is heading this up. We brainstormed some ideas... Michigan Ave, Canton.... Cherry Creek, Midtown Detroit, Howell's New Urbanism town and we included tours of historic structures. Joe has offered to speak with a friend that is involved in "green building" about making a visit to one of our club meetings for an informal educating session.

Aaron is looking for more ideas and some contacts for tours. Please let him know if you have connections with new or old developments that may interest the club as a tour. His email is aflohr@emich.edu.

After the meeting part, we gathered around the drafting tables and created some sculptures for the studio room. We used foam core, fabric, cardboard cylinders and other nifty junk. We also worked on a "My Favorite PLACE "banner that is now located on the green wall. We encourage you to add YOUR favorite place to ours..... we'd like to display it in a better location so that those in the halls can see what we are up to.. and what urban planning is about.

We have a bake sale coming up this Wednesday, October 10th. All baked goods should be dropped off at Dr. Jones's office by Tuesday Oct.9th evening.... and we need all the baked goods we can get, as well as some help that day! Please consider 30min. to an hour of your time. We could use the money for a variety of fun activities! Contact Kristen... khatfield@gmail.com if you need more info or have some suggestions.

Our NEXT MEETING will be Thursday November 1st... all of our meetings are on the 1st Thursday of the month.
In the meantime, look for other events.... I look forward to seeing all of you real soon!

Jenny

Please Leave Comments - Your Internship Experience

For those of you who've completed internships, or are currently in an internship - what has your experience been like so far? Would you recommend the experience to another student or has it not been a good experience? If it hasn't been a good experience, why is that?

Please leave comments to let others know about your experiences and vote on the poll in the sidebar to the right.

Job Hunting?

Penelope Trunk writes an excellent blog about work, life and how the two intersect. This article is especially relevant for those just starting out:

5 Most Violated Resume Rules

This is the problem with the resume-writing world: Everyone thinks they’re an exception to the rules. Everyone thinks they can pick and choose which rules are important. Do not do this. Until you work in human resources and personally scan 300 resumes a day, you are in no position to discard rules of resume writing. Here are the six most violated rules among the resumes that people send to me to review (read more)

Don't forget...

There's a PLACE meeting this week:

Thursday, October 4
4:30 pm
Planning Studio, Strong Hall

Hope you can make it!

Dymaxion House Installation at the Henry Ford

From Wikipedia:

The Dymaxion House was developed by inventor Buckminster Fuller to address several failures he perceived with existing homebuilding techniques. Fuller designed several different versions of the house at different times, but they were factory manufactured kits, assembled on site, intended to be suitable for any site or environment and to use resources efficiently. One important design consideration was ease of shipment and assembly.

This house has been reassembled inside of the Henry Ford Museum and it is fascinating. Check it out in person if you get a chance, or see it on the museum's website.

Image courtesy of The Henry Ford.

Trulia Hindsight

Trulia Hindsight has animated maps of homes in the United States. The maps use the year the properties were built to show the growth of streets, neighborhoods and cities over time...Be sure to check out the map that documents the Decline of Detroit. Very interesting!

Where do I fit in planning?

This is an interesting project created by a group of graduate students from Ohio State University examining what aspects of planning they want address in their careers:

http://www.youtube.com/user/CityPlanningOSU

1st Fundraiser of the Year

Our first fundraiser of the year will be a bake sale...

It will take place on Wednesday, October 10

We are still determining the times for the sale, we'll keep you
posted and have more information at the next PLACE meeting
on Thursday, October 4. If you're interested in picking up a
shift or contributing some baked goods, send Kristen an
email: kristenhatfield@gmail.com

This will be a great opportunity to get to know some of your
classmates and let some people about the planning program.

About PLACE

Hi everyone,

Welcome to EMU and to a new semester. All of PLACE members are excited to get the club up and running again. We held an orientation for new students in mid-September and got a chance to meet some of you and give you an idea of who we are and what we're trying to accomplish.

Essentially, we feel that school - be it graduate or undergraduate is what you make of it. However many years it takes you to complete your education, at some point you'll be finished and on your way. While you're here why not get as much out of it as possible?

We hope (with your help) to offer a range of opportunities for professional, educational and social growth. When it's all said and done, what you learn in school is important but who you know can sometimes be just as important. Take these opportunities (and create your own) to network with your fellow students and professionals working in the field.

To wrap up, these are some of the main projects that the core PLACE group is working on:

1) Increasing the program's outreach efforts to recruit new students and increase the size of the program
2) Raising funds to supplement and increase the club's scholarship fund
3) Foster networking with each other, alumni and the planning community

These are general goals, with specific activities that need to happen to accomplish them. These activites include: registering PLACE as an official club with the university, starting up the PLACE Journal again, organizing fundraisers, regularly updating the blog and keeping members informed through emails and the web, continuing the Mentoring Program that was started last year, planning field trips and hosting guest speakers and starting an Alumni Association specific to the program.

There is obviously a limit to what a few people can do. If any of these activities sound interesting to you and like something that you would like to either organize or support, please contact any of us and we will be more than happy to work with you. We would really like for this club to be a success.

Thank you for taking the time to check out the blog. We'll see you at the meeting on Thursday, October 4!

The PLACE Club

Jenny Bruen (jbruenplanning@hotmail.com)

Jessica Corsi (jcorsi@emich.edu)

Erik Dotzauer (edotzauer@gmail.com)

Kristen Hatfield (kristenhatfield@gmail.com)

Events

Michigan Association of Planning Annual Conference
Date: October 17-20, 2007
Location: Grand Traverse Resort - Traverse City, MI
Website: http://www.planningmi..org/
Note: PLACE is currently arranging car pools and hotel-sharing for this conference. If you're interested in
going, please contact Kristen Hatfield at KristenHatfield@gmail.com

MAP 2nd Annual College Planning Conference (more information to come!)
Date: Friday, February 8
Location: Michigan State University - East Lansing, MI
Website: http://www.planningmi.org/events1370835.asp

PLACE Meetings

PLACE meetings will be the 1st Thursday of the month and will run from 4:30 - 5:20 in the Planning Studio.

Subsequent meetings will be held on: 11/1 and 12/6.