Planners take Boston

I returned yesterday from the American Planning Association National Planning Conference in Boston.  It was a great time hanging out with fellow students and professionals learning about what is going on in planning.  My tweets cover some of the highlights, but a rundown of the sessions I went to are as follows:

• "City Planning 360: GIS for Intelligent Cities" showed some of the power of the new ArcGIS 10 platform.
• Adapting and using Dedicated Port Areas
• An opening keynote from Michael J. Sandel
• How to evaluate "authentic" features of suburbs and how they can be used during suburban retrofits
• Turning a small town train station into a transit village
• "LEED Guidance for Neighborhood Development" where speakers called out Grand Rapids as an excellent example and case study for writing 'green' standards into a comprehensive plan.
• Green preservation and economic growth in the North Loop area of Minneapolis
• Transportation and climate change
• Using social media as a means of public participation
• Regional food systems planning
• "Leveraging the Value of Older Buildings"

I can talk in greater detail in person.

I also went to a Boston Red Sox game against the Tampa Bay Rays, which was pretty cool.  Fenway Park was neat and being able to sit up on the green monster because the game turned into a 16-5 blowout by the Rays was awesome.

Fenway Park

From the Green Monster

Bullpens