From your previous professional experience, academic studies, engagement in local community and readings beyond the classroom, write in no more than 140 words your vision statement as an environmentalist or an environmental advocate. Highlight how do you the future of environmental planning and your expected role as a landscape architect. #Env_Plan
Urban & Environmental Studies 
My goal is to support sustainability and equity in urban and rural communities by improving walking, bicycling, and transit facilities, focusing development in existing urban areas, and promoting local manufacturing and food production. I am interested in utilizing spatial analysis methods to inform large-scale regional policies, as well as site specific project design.
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Fully agree. Improving quality of life and using spatial analysis across scales is a key to achieve environmental sustainability
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I don’t believe in a no-win scenario. Environmental planning should be about finding the most optimal solution to a problem. Ecology, economics, social justice, and development are all important and I think that with compromise equitable solutions can be found that leave all stakeholders satisfied even if they do not get everything they want. I have a daughter and I think it’s my responsibility to create a world in which she has a future, that it is insanity to plan against the interests of future generations. Failure to find environmentally sound solutions to problems is a failure of imagination and commitment.
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To add on to your wonderful comment, we need to be collaborative, creative, and visionary to create sustainable environments that are functional, innovative, and attractive for our future generation.
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Good point. That is the thinking of a positive activist 🙂
Lets find the win/win/win scenario and get out of our limited imagination to achieve environmental sustainability. You must do a review for campbell approach and produce a paper providing a better solution to his criticism to sustainability:
Campbell, S. (1996). Green Cities, Growing Cities, Just Cities? Urban Planning and the Contradictions of Sustainable Development, 1–30.
You may also build and improve on my paper:
Gohar, A. (2016). Urbanization & Sustainable Development: Evolution and Contemporary Challenges. Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture Research, 3(12), 1813–1825.
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I love your assertion that if we do not solve our problems it “is a failure of imagination and commitment”. I agree that we have the power to make things better.
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The process of environmental planning is supporting the decision-making process of changing landscape by considering the environmental, social, and global factors. This process takes an interdisciplinary approaches and tools to develop solutions to important environment concerns. For example, I currently work on the water-energy-climate nexus research project which I synthesize characteristics from multidiscipline. It helps to think across boundaries. As an environmental planner, my role is to understand the interdisciplinary of environmental issues, gain practical experience, and take action.
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Well Said Sooyeon.
The environmental problems that we face can not be only solved by environmental planners. They are too complex to be addressed within one or two disciplines. They surly need multidisciplinary approach.
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More than ever, interdisciplinary action and schooling is needed to solve current issues. Working for a City showed me how fragmented governments attempt to solve issues and how that usually causes more problems in the long run. Looking forward to hearing more about your research on the water-energy-climate nexus.
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I want to explore more in the relationship between urban and rural areas. Environment planning should always take the influence of human into account. Considering floor area per person and other factors, does urbanization really affect environment more negatively? Environmental labelling & certification and investigating regional institutions’ roles on handling environmental problems also interest me a lot because I have never learned them in China. China is now burdened with population, different kinds of pollution and debates of social rights. I will dedicate to looking for a balance between environmental protection and economic growth.
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Your statement:
“looking for a balance between environmental protection and economic growth”
Is that we are striving to achieve. It will be nice to explore further this balance and try to articulate it clearly in a way that influence the decision makers and government bureaucrats.
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My vision is that communities of people, plants and animals can live in harmony without excessive pressures on each. As people are currently the major contributor to environmental degradation, it is also our responsibility to engineer solutions to both the issues we have created and to anticipate future problems. By creating stringent planning processes humans can better establish patterns that work within natural systems instead of against them. I believe that the answers we need are simple, exist in nature and are feasible, if we just learn how to observe.
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My vision is for a world that is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable. With citizen involvement, I believe we should be able to plan for and to foresee the challenges of the future.
Having experienced the realities of a recent man-made disaster in India, I believe that every person should be conscious of their actions today that could bring about a positive or negative change to the rest of the world. It is never too late to act upon an issue and considerable planning can prevent if not avoid such disasters.
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I agree with you. I also like to find out who is the “we” in your statement:
“I believe we should be able to plan for and to foresee the challenges of the future.”
Will find out more the different stakeholders as we go further in the class 🙂
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My vision to integrate environmental planning in all kinds of development projects particularly in a place where ecosystem is abundant and put high priority by the government. Long term vision for sustainable city development should consider clean soil, water and air. All stakeholders should share responsibility to maintain and protect the environment. Finally, environmental planning should also consider socio-cultural values of the local people.
Best regards,
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From my personal and professional experience, I came to believe that the so called “natural” disasters are culminating outcomes of the disequilibrium between human beings and how they live and occupy space. Identifying and maintaining the equilibrium between a person’s integrity and how they interact with their habitat is a vocation to any environmental planner. But this balance is dynamic and related to the ever-changing nature of human beings and their surroundings and so, these hazardous events also represent an opportunistic moment to intervene. As someone interested in pursuing this field, I decided to focus on these screaming disturbances, through which I believe we can identify underlying vulnerabilities of modern society and act from within in the interest of increasing quality of all life. Ideally, these actions will be embedded not only in professional responsibilities but personal choices, and if there is any true positive outcome, this will hopefully reach others.
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I approach environmental planning from a social justice perspective. For centuries, there have been deliberate decisions and practices that have led to the deterioration of the environment, which have often affected marginalized communities disproportionately.
It will take intentional, multi-pronged, and concerted solutions to reverse the negative outcomes of urbanization and development. As an environmental planner, I hope to help create processes that allow ordinary people to better understand their environment and feel empowered to take part in engineering solutions and to take action.
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