National planning conference attracts 4,500 to Twin Cities

Conference organizers said that visitors to Minneapolis were particularly impressed with the network of bicycle facilities in the city.

More than 4,500 professional planners from around the world experienced a taste of Minnesota in late April at a national planning conference anchored in Minneapolis.

Hosted by the American Planning Association (APA), the five-day conference drew participation from all 50 states as well as Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Brazil and China. Besides urban planners the conference also attracted developers, builders, contractors, public officials, environmental advocates and media.

The event, “1,000 Conferences in 1,” featured 235 breakout sessions and panel discussions, and 26 training workshops. More than 100 vendors participated in the exhibit hall. In addition, there were 111 “mobile workshops” and tours held at sites across the Twin Cities, led by local planners and elected officials.

"The conference is a great opportunity to showcase the host city,” said Lance Bernard, president of the Minnesota chapter of the APA and planner with Hoisington Koegler Group, Inc. In particular, Bernard said, conference-goers were impressed with the bicycle network in the Twin Cities. “A lot of people complimented us on that.”

Several Metropolitan Council staff had a hand in developing the conference. Some presented papers, participated in panel discussions, or hosted mobile workshops.

Looking back, looking forward

Mark Vander Schaaf, the Council’s director of Planning and Growth Management, called the APA conference “the nation’s premiere event for urban planners,” and said it serves an important purpose for planning agencies, regions and states alike.

The drawing is of a proposed park from the 1909 Burnham Plan for the City of Chicago. The plan was very influential in the nascent planning field 100 years ago.

“It’s always an important event for planners when thousands of the brightest planning minds in the country get together to share ideas, discuss best practices and look into the future,” he said. “This year’s conference was especially important, however, both for its look backward and its look forward.”

"On the one hand, the conference was a retrospective – looking back 100 years to 1909, which is considered the year in which the U.S. planning movement was born, with the publication of the Burnham Plan for the City of Chicago, and the first national planning conference,” Vander Schaaf explained. “On the other hand, conferees are keenly aware that America appears to be on the threshold of a new approach to planning as a new federal administration aggressively tackles environmental, transportation, and land-use issues in the context of a serious recession that will likely change consumer housing and lifestyle preferences.”

Regional Planning session attracts attention

Metropolitan Council Local Planning Assistance Manager Phyllis Hanson, who presented a session called "Regional Planning That Endures” with Patricia Naumann, executive director of Metro Cites, said the conference offered national visitors a good chance to see what effective, long-term planning can do in a major metro area.

"Everyone was very interested to hear about the Council’s history and about the Metropolitan Land Planning Act, and how the region has worked together to create the healthy community we see today,” she said. “Folks from places like Vancouver, Atlanta and Ohio seemed duly impressed with the planning tools we have in Minnesota and how we’ve worked with them.

"People really wanted to hear about how the region is able to ‘come together and get things done,’ and how we are managing relations with the collar counties, which other metro regions face as well,” she added.

Navigating the metro area

When not attending sessions or mobile tours, conferees could venture out into the metro with the help of an information-packed, pocket-sized Planners’ Guide. The 46-page guide was designed to help out-of-town professionals orient themselves around the region by providing salient information about the Twin Cities and – specifically – the areas near downtown Minneapolis.

Mark Grimes, director of community development for Golden Valley, and Patrick Boylan, senior planner at the Council, co-chaired the subcommittee that developed the guide. Grimes said that one of the pleasures of the conference for him was seeing the region through the fresh eyes of visitors.

"When you live here, you sort of take things for granted,” Grimes said. “But visitors come in and they are really impressed with how well things work, and how the city is so clean and walkable. People were also appreciative of how good and reasonably priced our restaurants are.”

Co-chairs of the Local Host Committee included Carolyn Braun, planning director for the City of Anoka; Dan Meyers, manager of Transportation Planning with URS Corp.; and Barbara Sporlein, planning director for the City of Minneapolis.