Sustainable Paradise
Graduate Program in City Planning
School of Public Affairs
San Diego State University.
Project Director:
Professor Larry Herzog
Coordinator, Graduate MCP (Masters in City Planning) program
This project proposes building a sustainable community planning/education laboratory at SDSU-- in the Graduate Program in City Planning, School of Public Affairs. The laboratory will train graduate MCP (Masters in City Planning) students to carry out applied urban planning and community design analyses especially in lower income communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. SCOPE-Lab will be student run, and allow graduate students in our MCP program to learn how to apply classroom learning to real world planning problems.
The community planning lab will be built into the existing graduate MCP program in a way that will maximize student participation while imposing minimal additional program costs in a time of budget limitations. It will draw from existing program activities including: a) graduate students enrolled in CP 796 (Internships) will be able to choose the SCOPE project for their internship and work on the pilot Community Planning project (see below) in the first year (or on subsequent externally funded projects in later years), in tandem with an existing agency in the region (for example, the San Diego Association of Governments). We are exploring the possibility that funded internships from outside agencies like SANDAG may also support the work of the SCOPE-Lab.; b) students will also be able to sign up for CP 797 (Research in City Planning),or CP 798 (Special Study) as one of their electives, and work in the SCOPE lab; c) Students enrolled in CP 675 (Environmental Policy & Planning: Sustainable Development) will be required to carry out a community sustainable planning study. They will have the option of choosing to work on the pilot project in 2010, or on subsequent community plans in the future; d) in the initial stage, one MCP student will be employed as an assistant on the project. In subsequent stages, if outside funding is secured, more than one student may be employed; e) SCOPE will encourage students to be involved in running the lab. The City Planning Students Association, a graduate student club, will be encouraged to form an advisory board and assist in running the SCOPE Lab.
The first year of the project will involve training students and setting up the SCOPE lab. The training will consist of the following: i) students will learn the components of a sustainable community plan; ii) students will tackle the specific problems of the pilot project community study. The completion of this community plan and the implementation of a student training system will then serve as a template for seeking major grant support for SCOPE.
The project will be directed by Professor Larry Herzog, Chair/Coordinator of the Graduate Masters in City Planning (MCP) program in the School of Public Affairs. Herzog is an internationally known expert on urban design/ planning in the U.S.-Mexico border region, with numerous published books and articles, and extensive experience in applied consulting and community planning.
Identify the need/problem to be addressed, target population and number of people to be served by the project:
The MCP (Master in City Planning) graduate program, one of the largest in the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts, has historically provided outreach to the community, through our internship program, students doing applied research for the Masters Thesis, and through some of our studio courses like CP 700 (Urban Design and Land Use Planning Studio), CP 660 (City Planning and GIS Applications), and CP 690 (Seminar in Land Use Planning Principles and Techniques). What we have never had, however, is an applied policy laboratory to provide ongoing practical training of students and planning assistance to disadvantaged communities along the border. Further, we have never had a laboratory that combined the principles of land use planning and urban design with those of sustainable development, a relatively new approach that has grown in the planning field over the past decade.
Institutionally, therefore, the need or problem is to create a Sustainable Community Planning laboratory within the Graduate Program in City Planning, School of Public Affairs that will address the infrastructure needs and environmental planning problems faced by poor people living in neighborhoods along the border. The idea is to create a community outreach and applied planning capacity within our Graduate Program in City Planning, and focus it on our border neighbor, Tijuana, Mexico.
Explain the project goals and objectives and the plan to achieve them:
The principal goals include:
1) Build a sustainable community development planning laboratory that will serve as an outreach tool to work with disadvantaged urban poor along the Mexican border, or in other communities on either side of the border;
2) Use the laboratory as a teaching and research tool that enhances our Graduate Program in City Planning capacity to provide outreach into the border region;
3) Carry out a pilot outreach effort, by completing a sustainable community plan
4) Once the laboratory is developed, it will be expanded through major grants to complete similar work on both sides of the boundary. Low income neighborhoods in San Diego will be included as clients for the student planning laboratory.
For the immediate project in funding year 2009-10, the goals include:
a) Carry out an assessment of the principal urban design/planning problems the pilot community.
b) Produce a white paper
c) Create a new SCOPE-Lab website on sustainable community planning and design to promote our initiative at SDSU. The website will strengthen our case when applying for future grants. It would include our first pilot study Use the website to promote our SCOPE-Lab work to the local media.
d) Submit a major funding proposal to build a more wide- reaching initiative on sustainable urban planning.
Our plan to achieve these goals
a) An example of a community planning approach. Over time, our students will learn how to apply sustainable planning concepts to the needs of specific communities.
b) Supporting events. As mentioned above, our community research would then become part of specific deliverables events, including a white paper to be posted on the website and a workshop.
c) Website and media. We would create a SCOPE-LAB “Sustainable community planning” website for this project. We also plan to utilize the website to promote our community planning work to the regional media—newspapers, tv, radio, etc. Dr. Herzog is also a regular contributor to local print media—he has published more than 50 essays in local outlets, including the San Diego Union Tribune, Voice of San Diego and the San Diego News Network.
d) Funding. Future funding efforts will be explored .
e) Monitoring and evaluation: We intend to organize an advisory panel to help monitor and evaluate the SCOPE-Lab. The panel would include members of faculty, and at least one or two members of planning entities, including the San Diego Association of Governments. Two steps would be taken:
Short term:
School of Public Affairs
San Diego State University.
Project Director:
Professor Larry Herzog
Coordinator, Graduate MCP (Masters in City Planning) program
This project proposes building a sustainable community planning/education laboratory at SDSU-- in the Graduate Program in City Planning, School of Public Affairs. The laboratory will train graduate MCP (Masters in City Planning) students to carry out applied urban planning and community design analyses especially in lower income communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. SCOPE-Lab will be student run, and allow graduate students in our MCP program to learn how to apply classroom learning to real world planning problems.
The community planning lab will be built into the existing graduate MCP program in a way that will maximize student participation while imposing minimal additional program costs in a time of budget limitations. It will draw from existing program activities including: a) graduate students enrolled in CP 796 (Internships) will be able to choose the SCOPE project for their internship and work on the pilot Community Planning project (see below) in the first year (or on subsequent externally funded projects in later years), in tandem with an existing agency in the region (for example, the San Diego Association of Governments). We are exploring the possibility that funded internships from outside agencies like SANDAG may also support the work of the SCOPE-Lab.; b) students will also be able to sign up for CP 797 (Research in City Planning),or CP 798 (Special Study) as one of their electives, and work in the SCOPE lab; c) Students enrolled in CP 675 (Environmental Policy & Planning: Sustainable Development) will be required to carry out a community sustainable planning study. They will have the option of choosing to work on the pilot project in 2010, or on subsequent community plans in the future; d) in the initial stage, one MCP student will be employed as an assistant on the project. In subsequent stages, if outside funding is secured, more than one student may be employed; e) SCOPE will encourage students to be involved in running the lab. The City Planning Students Association, a graduate student club, will be encouraged to form an advisory board and assist in running the SCOPE Lab.
The first year of the project will involve training students and setting up the SCOPE lab. The training will consist of the following: i) students will learn the components of a sustainable community plan; ii) students will tackle the specific problems of the pilot project community study. The completion of this community plan and the implementation of a student training system will then serve as a template for seeking major grant support for SCOPE.
The project will be directed by Professor Larry Herzog, Chair/Coordinator of the Graduate Masters in City Planning (MCP) program in the School of Public Affairs. Herzog is an internationally known expert on urban design/ planning in the U.S.-Mexico border region, with numerous published books and articles, and extensive experience in applied consulting and community planning.
Identify the need/problem to be addressed, target population and number of people to be served by the project:
The MCP (Master in City Planning) graduate program, one of the largest in the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts, has historically provided outreach to the community, through our internship program, students doing applied research for the Masters Thesis, and through some of our studio courses like CP 700 (Urban Design and Land Use Planning Studio), CP 660 (City Planning and GIS Applications), and CP 690 (Seminar in Land Use Planning Principles and Techniques). What we have never had, however, is an applied policy laboratory to provide ongoing practical training of students and planning assistance to disadvantaged communities along the border. Further, we have never had a laboratory that combined the principles of land use planning and urban design with those of sustainable development, a relatively new approach that has grown in the planning field over the past decade.
Institutionally, therefore, the need or problem is to create a Sustainable Community Planning laboratory within the Graduate Program in City Planning, School of Public Affairs that will address the infrastructure needs and environmental planning problems faced by poor people living in neighborhoods along the border. The idea is to create a community outreach and applied planning capacity within our Graduate Program in City Planning, and focus it on our border neighbor, Tijuana, Mexico.
Explain the project goals and objectives and the plan to achieve them:
The principal goals include:
1) Build a sustainable community development planning laboratory that will serve as an outreach tool to work with disadvantaged urban poor along the Mexican border, or in other communities on either side of the border;
2) Use the laboratory as a teaching and research tool that enhances our Graduate Program in City Planning capacity to provide outreach into the border region;
3) Carry out a pilot outreach effort, by completing a sustainable community plan
4) Once the laboratory is developed, it will be expanded through major grants to complete similar work on both sides of the boundary. Low income neighborhoods in San Diego will be included as clients for the student planning laboratory.
For the immediate project in funding year 2009-10, the goals include:
a) Carry out an assessment of the principal urban design/planning problems the pilot community.
b) Produce a white paper
c) Create a new SCOPE-Lab website on sustainable community planning and design to promote our initiative at SDSU. The website will strengthen our case when applying for future grants. It would include our first pilot study Use the website to promote our SCOPE-Lab work to the local media.
d) Submit a major funding proposal to build a more wide- reaching initiative on sustainable urban planning.
Our plan to achieve these goals
a) An example of a community planning approach. Over time, our students will learn how to apply sustainable planning concepts to the needs of specific communities.
b) Supporting events. As mentioned above, our community research would then become part of specific deliverables events, including a white paper to be posted on the website and a workshop.
c) Website and media. We would create a SCOPE-LAB “Sustainable community planning” website for this project. We also plan to utilize the website to promote our community planning work to the regional media—newspapers, tv, radio, etc. Dr. Herzog is also a regular contributor to local print media—he has published more than 50 essays in local outlets, including the San Diego Union Tribune, Voice of San Diego and the San Diego News Network.
d) Funding. Future funding efforts will be explored .
e) Monitoring and evaluation: We intend to organize an advisory panel to help monitor and evaluate the SCOPE-Lab. The panel would include members of faculty, and at least one or two members of planning entities, including the San Diego Association of Governments. Two steps would be taken:
- During the six month period of analysis, fieldwork, and drafting of the sustainable community plan (see timeline below), we would hold monthly meetings with the advisory panel at which time the work of the planning group (students, faculty) would be reviewed;
- Once a draft Sustainable Community Planning Study is completed in late summer 2010, we would present the plan to the advisory panel for feedback.
Short term:
- For the current fiscal year, this project would energize our School of Public Affairs, and enhance our community service and outreach capacity, which has always been one of the strengths of our school. The SCOPE-Lab would offer a new contribution to our School: practical, applied policy training to our graduate students in City Planning (CP) or Public Administration (PA) with City Planning specialization. It would provide additional choices on timely planning issues for CP grad students in choosing internships, Special Study or Masters Thesis topics. It could further serve our undergraduate students in PA choosing possible topics for the Senior Thesis course, PA 497 (Investigation and Report), and those doing internships (PA 498). Finally, the project would also energize our new joint Masters program in Public Administration (PA) and Latin American Studies (LAS), allowing new students to choose to participate in a study along the U.S.-Mexico border
- The long term impact of this project will be to build a new policy outreach initiative in the School of Public Affairs that provides sustainable community planning assistance for lower income settlements on both sides of the border. We plan to have a team of faculty and graduate students working on this project in our school, and have collaborative relationships with the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS).
- These goals match up with those of the university more generally, in terms of international education, community outreach, and more recently, promoting sustainability. The SCOPE-Lab would add an important practical, student run, applied outreach component to SDSU’s overall community service mission. It would enhance the newer mission to promote sustainability, in this case, through the lens of urban and environmental design along the Mexican border, and in the poorest communities (colonias) of our largest urban neighbor, Tijuana. The production of SCOPE-Lab Sustainable Community Plans and a website that promotes the work of SCOPE-Lab Tijuana-San Diego could bring SDSU greater recognition both regional and nationally, as well as in Latin America.
- This project supports our School and the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts (PSFA) emphasis both on international issues and community outreach. PSFA is currently building a new International Studies minor, and has a long record of supporting community outreach. Our School of Public Affairs has built its reputation, in part, around community outreach, through our Internships both at the graduate and undergraduate levels, as well as through our senior thesis, and the applied work done by our City Planning, Criminal Justice and Public Administration graduate students. Further, our School has, for many years, sponsored community forums on border issues, regional planning, budget problems, criminal justice and environmental issues.
