COC Founding Principal Helps Plan Bi-State Symposium for the Future

Arnold Cogan, FAICP, a COC Founding Principal, is a member of a bi-state committee planning a symposium to discuss new initiatives and strategies to create urban places that are robust, resilient and renewable. Fellows in Oregon and Washington who represent the American Planning Association, the American Institute of Architects, and the American Society of Landscape Architecture, the professional organizations of planners, architects and landscape architects, will host the half-day event prior to the joint APA Chapter conference in Portland on October 19, 2011.

Forty thought leaders are invited from the two states including planning and design professionals, environmentalists, economists, politicians, activists, developers and communication specialists. The focus will be on political and economic gridlock affecting how we deal with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, critical impacts on natural resources due to population growth and rampant consumption, climate change that will likely result in large numbers of “climate refugees” moving to the Northwest, political views that have produced a polarized governance atmosphere, and an exploding system of social networking that fuels the fires of controversy. Participants at the symposium are being asked to examine these significant challenges and suggest new initiatives that can be implemented immediately and on an ongoing basis.

For more information, see the Web site of the Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association, http://www.oregonapa.org/CascadiaCollaborative