Planning Marks First 100 Years

In May 1909, the First National Conference on City Planning was held in Washington, D.C., with 43 attendees. Throughout 2009, APA celebrated our profession's 100 years of making great communities.

Broadcast APA

Planning Centennial Video

The Broadcast APA team recorded a number of centennial video histories at the 2008 National Planning Conference in Las Vegas.

View long-time members Jerome Kaufman, FAICP; Brenda Scheer, AICP; Dwight Merriam, FAICP; and Christopher Silver, AICP, as they tell Planning's Executive Editor Ruth Knack, AICP, what motivated them to enter the field of planning.

Symposium

1909-2109: Sustaining the Lasting Value of American Planning

The achievements of America's first 100 years of planning.

1909-2109 Symposium

A Look Back

A Retrospective on the First National Conference on City Planning (1909)

An article from Planning & Environmental Law.

Read the article

Video Competition

The Next 100 Years Video Competition

APA asked students to create a video that captures their vision for the next 100 years. Congratulations to the winners, Michael Lancaster and Catherine P. Walsh from the University of Maryland.

See the winning video

Plan of Chicago

Great Books

100 Essential Books of Planning

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the American planning movement, the American Planning Association has created a list of the books essential to planning.

These essential books come from every decade starting in 1909, the date of the first national planning conference, through 2009.

See the 100 Essential Planning Books

Walking Tours

Celebrate on Foot

Take a look at how your community developed or how it is evolving by hosting a planning walking tour. The tour can be a way to celebrate 100 years of planning or to look at how planning has impacted your community.

Anyone can develop and host a walking tour. Consider doing the tour as part of a chapter activity or for your student planning organization.

Tour subjects could include a historic master planned community such as Radburn, New Jersey; Greenbelt, Maryland; Morgan Park, Minnesota; The Woodlands, Texas; Greendale, Wisconsin; or Greenhills, Ohio.

Some examples:

Sample itinerary of a walking tour in Baltimore (pdf)

Map of the Baltimore walking tour

Instructions for creating a walking tour (pdf)