PDS AP Environmental Science 8th Period 2010-11

Here is the slideshow of our scavenger hunt for good and bad urban/suburban design in the Charlotte-Metro area:

So, this is a nice 3 minute video by National Geographic that ties together ideas from Unit 6 and 7.  Lots  of humans on the this planet, and they are migrating to urban areas… Are you worried?

We’ve been identifying some urban and suburban areas in Charlotte and surrounding towns that are poorly laid out or show a lack of planning in our flickr group pool.  What can cities do when there is a need to redo such areas?  Here is neat 20-minute TEDTalk on the subject if you have time to [...]

On Friday (1/7/11), we looked back on a week of learning about urban planning. We spent most of the period discussing lessons from playing Urban Plan 2001. First of all, we honored the grand champion of both classes, AlanM. Here is a screenshot of Alan’s city of 2 million plus people: Alan described some of [...]

On Thursday of last week, guest speaker Garet Johnson came to our class to discuss Charlotte’s future in terms of growth, planning, and the environment. Ms. Johnson graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and has gone on to become part of the Charlotte planning department staff. She started off by lying out [...]

For anyone out the day Garet Johnson (urban planner) of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department spoke to the class, here is the slide deck of her presentation.  BenK owes us a recap of the presentation and planning activity, so look for it soon. Charlotte’s Future View more presentations from Derrick Willard.

Our text defines urbanization as the shift from people living in rural areas to people living in urban areas and is probably the greatest change our society has undergone since the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a settled agricultural lifestyle. What exactly is an urban area? An urban area is place with a population of [...]