Functions
Like many professional organizations, the American Planning Association's main function is to serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas between people who work in the field of urban and regional planning. The organization keeps track of the various improvement efforts underway around the country, which may include the improvement or construction of new parks, highways and roads, or residential developments.
The organization is also a starting point for people looking for employment in the city and regional planning field.
The association holds an annual conference which attracts planners and planning students from throughout the United States, Canada and the world. The conference has been held in the following cities April 13–17, 2012- Los Angeles, CA; April 9–12, 2011 - Boston, MA; 2010 - New Orleans, LA; 2009 - Minneapolis, MN; 2008 - Las Vegas, NV; April 14–18, 2007 - Philadelphia, PA; 2006 - San Antonio, TX; 2005 - San Francisco, California; 2004 - Washington, DC,
The 2007 Conference was held in Philadelphia, PA, from April 14 to April 18; among the discussions were items on Hurricane Katrina, universal design, transit oriented development, protected open space, urban open space, land use, the development of Philadelphia itself (as well as the surrounding area), and other planning-related topics.
The association is subdivided into 47 state/regional chapters, such as the NJAPA (New Jersey Chapter of the APA) or the Western Central Chapter of the APA.
Read more about this topic: American Planning Association
Famous quotes containing the word functions:
“When Western people train the mind, the focus is generally on the left hemisphere of the cortex, which is the portion of the brain that is concerned with words and numbers. We enhance the logical, bounded, linear functions of the mind. In the East, exercises of this sort are for the purpose of getting in tune with the unconscious—to get rid of boundaries, not to create them.”
—Edward T. Hall (b. 1914)
“Adolescents, for all their self-involvement, are emerging from the self-centeredness of childhood. Their perception of other people has more depth. They are better equipped at appreciating others’ reasons for action, or the basis of others’ emotions. But this maturity functions in a piecemeal fashion. They show more understanding of their friends, but not of their teachers.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the whole.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)