[HALIFAX, NS] - Cities and economies don’t grow on a whim. There is planning involved.
The Dalhousie School of Planning has been hosting Imagine, a three-day conference on the theory and practice of urban planning and building communities.
Every year, students in the Master of Planning program at Dalhousie plans and organizes the conference. It teams up with the government and community partners to hold the conference during the winter term.
Students, faculty, groups and professions gather to debate contemporary topics in planning and community design. The goal is to raise public awareness about what planning can do to enhance a community’s future.
One of this year’s sponsors and a longtime partner of the conference is the Halifax Downtown Business Commission (HDBC).
HDBC executive director Paul MacKinnon attended on Thursday to hear keynote speaker Bruce Tonn, a professor and program leader from the University of Tennessee.
“He focused on long-term planning,” said MacKinnon. “25 years is what we plan for here but he was talking about 100, 200 years out — much more of a theoretical topic.”
He said it did put things in perspective though of how what is planned and developed now can have ripple effects in the future, both economically and environmentally.
A review of Halifax’s 25-year plan is in the works and ideas learned at the conference could be very telling for the municipality.
MacKinnon says Halifax should have much tighter parameters when it comes to sticking with its development plan.
He says that much of what has been done has been beyond the needs of what Halifax could ever need, particularly in suburban areas. He isn’t calling for Halifax to halt development outside of the downtown core but to be more selective to its needs and to keep the regional plan in mind.
