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Influences

August 14, 2004

Ever since I choose to attend graduate school for urban planning, I’ve been asked the questions “What is urban planning?” and, “Why are you changing to that?” I am still not able to easily answer the first question, since so there are so many options for someone with a degree in planning. And, until recently, I was barely able to answer the second question. However, after reading a new book, Skinny Dip, and a few recent epiphanies, I’ve realized how I came to be so interested in urban planning and related issues. The extended entry includes a short list of the people and things that have directly and indirectly led me to urban planning.

Carl Hiassen: I was introduced to Carl Hiaasen by Adam Mims one day in Venice, Italy, sitting on the the beach, way back during the summer of 1995. He had just completed Double Whammy and recommended I read it too. I was intruiged by the title, which refers to a fishing lure, and the content of the book. Over the years, I've read every major title by Hiaasen and a few shorts and editorials of his as well. I would describe his work as pop fiction - extremely funny, sexual, even vulgar, but focusing on weighty topics, usually involving environmental destruction. Each novel is set in Florida, with many notes about the decline of the Everglades and the rise of suburbs and beachfront monstrosities. His work opened my eyes to land use and environmental planning, albeit through a round-a-bout way.

Trains Magazine: I also began reading this during the summer of 1995. I picked up a copy the day before I left town for Italy. The magainze is obviously about railroads, and is mostly focused on the current state of railroading or the past glory of rail. However, each month there is at least one or two small articles about existing and planned light, commuter and heavy rail systems in the U.S. In fact, the magazine has recently gone from just one or two articles a month to two pages specifically dedicated to such rail systems. The magazine promotes these systems because its readers are railbuffs, but their promotion also helps people realize what a difference public transportation can make.

Professors Henk Aay and Robert Hoeksema: These two professors led my first overseas interim class, Dutch Landscapes. This one-month trip to the Netherlands completely changed the way I thought my life would end up. Before then I was all civil engineering, all the time. After the trip, I realized I did not want to sit at a computer and figure out minute details of a water main design, I wanted to design where the neighborhoods that the water main traveled through would go. The Netherlands is refered to as the "most planned country on earth," and it shows. Professor Aay, a Geography prof, introduced me to urban studies and planning. He took us to a new towns and old towns, explaining how various they were formed and designed. It was an incredible learning experience, and without it I don't know if I would have ended up here. Professor Hoeksema was quite possibly the man who got me into grad school as well. After four years at Calvin, I had had him for seven (7) classes overall. 2 interims, 4 regular classes and a lab. And even though I didn't always do the best in the class (I was a solid B student), he seemed to realize I had something in me. And here I am, waiting to really prove that.

Posted by paul at August 14, 2004 11:21 AM

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Influences

August 14, 2004

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