Land use planning is a complex, multifaceted and usually highly political process. Planning must consider the multiple and often competing environmental, economic and social values of a wide range of regulators, decision makers, stakeholders and interest groups. In addition, many of these considerations require analysis and solutions at scales beyond that of individual jurisdictions. To complicate the matter further, and to address issues of sustainability, planning needs to be carried out not only over large areas of space, but also over very long periods of time. In order to prepare reasoned and workable solutions, new processes and tools are needed to deal with this complexity. This presentation provides examples of GeoDesign tools and approaches to support integrated land use and watershed planning efforts at multiple scales – the region, the urban watershed and the community. Spatially explicit, landscape ecological and watershed modeling techniques as well as other advanced visualization tools will be examined within an organizational framework that is applicable to many cities and regions.

The presentation will be illustrated with an example from Alberta, Canada. Urban storm water has been identified as a critical concern related to the watershed management of southern Alberta and in particular the Bow River Basin. The City of Calgary has undertaken a number of initiatives to address water management at the urban planning interface. However, plans and policies for watershed management are not always well coordinated with land use approval processes, often compromising effective implementation of the objectives in both sectors. To address this problem, water management objectives must be integrated more effectively into planning and development policies and approvals at multiple scales. This paper describes GeoDesign methods and technologies used to create and evaluate integrated solutions that simultaneously consider both watershed management needs and urban land use and growth management requirements.

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Dr. Steinitz's presentation provides an overview of GeoDesign processes. He describes a framework for doing GeoDesign (design in geographic space) using six model types for assessing the geographic context, for proposing changes and for evaluating the consequences of those changes. He then shows how this framework and these models can be used to understand, plan and manage a variety of land use/management projects. He presents nine different strategies for proposing change and shows how they can be applied to different problem types at different scales, discussing the pros and cons of each in different situations. The Redlands Workshop was an experiment in which nine teams each designed a landscape plan and a transit-oriented development for Redlands CA, with each team using one of the ways of designing.

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We live in a world that is fundamentally different from anything that we have known in the past. It is a planet increasingly defined by the activities, technologies, values, and cultures of one species – us. This shift has happened quickly in geologic time, but slowly enough in human time so that we have failed to appropriately perceive the fundamental challenges this new condition poses, much less develop the tools, methods, frameworks, and understanding that will enable ethical, rational, and responsible behavior in the Anthropocene – the Age of Humans.

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The Land Use Conflict Identification Strategy as a Basis for Regional GeoDesign Modeling
Presenter: Paul Zwick

The Land Use Conflict Identification Strategy (LUCIS) was developed at the University of Florida's School of Landscape Architecture and Planning and described in the ESRI press publication "Smart Land Use Analysis the LUCIS Model" March 2007. The strategy uses suitability analysis for determining land use conflicts between three major land uses 1) urban, 2) agricultural, and 3) conservation uses within a regional study area. The strategy may also be used to identify mixed use or redevelopment opportunities between 1) retail, 2) commercial, and 3) multifamily residential within urban areas.

This presentation will present urban and regional scenarios for Orange County, Florida: The MyRegion Regional Visioning project. Scenarios will include a regional trend and regional alternative. The presentation will also include an mixed use alternative – which is generated by the new LUCISplus modeling methodology.

Economic Assessments of Urban Views
Presenter: Keith Besserud

The architecture and engineering firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is integrating advanced computational technologies into its practices in many highly innovative ways, enabling fascinating new possibilities for digitally fluent design teams. The ability to share data among powerful new software tools, the emergence of a design culture that is inspired by algorithmic thinking, a growing awareness of the direct relevance of concepts from outside disciplines like biology and computer science, and a renewed sense of responsibility to design sustainably are all converging to spawn significant changes to the ways in which we design buildings and cities.

In his presentation, Keith Besserud will share collaborative research work generated in the firm's Urban Design studio. In partnership with experts from Esri, the project is focused on developing a better understanding of the concept of views within an urban context. In particular, the economic ramifications of view quality and visibility.

10 People per Square Meter: GeoDesign Helps Optimize City of the Future
Presenter: Chris Drew

The Cheng Du project is an ambitious effort to create a sustainable city for 100,000 people on 1 square kilometer of land. The city is the first of its kind built to house 50,000 people in an urban matrix of high rises, parks, and transportation networks that allow another 50,000 to commute in by car and light rail to work. The city is comprised of equal parts residential and commercial land use including a hospital, research labs, and companies related to the biomedical industry creating a biomedical innovation hub to serve as an economic engine for the area. The planned city is surrounded by agricultural land and open space with pathways that link the city's residents to the land. Walkways and bike paths are a key element to city life with parking and rail underneath the city complex. The presentation discusses how various design tools, GIS and geodesign processes were used to check whether or not the unique layout and design of the city's buildings and infrastructure were going to meet key performance indicators and sustainability goals. Lessons learned and thoughts on future areas of growth for geodesign will also be discussed.

GeoDesign has emerged as a powerful new interdisciplinary approach to addressing the complex problems we face on the planet. It weds GIS tools with design thinking to enable us to make better, more informed decisions about our future. A number of GeoDesign initiatives and programs have emerged in colleges and universities around the world, bringing together a wide range of spatially oriented disciplines to do research and to begin to teach the next generation of designers and planners.

Thomas Fisher (University of Minnesota) will provide an overview of what some of the best GeoDesign programs are doing in terms of curriculum and research in higher education, and moderate a panel of GeoDesign educators who will address the challenges and opportunities they face in integrating GeoDesign into the curriculum. The panelists are:

• Boykin Witherspoon (California State University, San Bernardino)
• Jim Querry (University of Philadelphia)
• Janet Silbernagel (University of Wisconsin)
• Tom Paradis (Northern Arizona University)
• Karen Hanna (Cal Poly Pomona)

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The practice of GeoDesign is an art founded on science and technology; dependent equally on tools, techniques, and values. This talk reflects on some certainties, some probabilities, and some possibilities for the future of that practice.

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