PAS Memo

About PAS Memo

Today's planners need to stay informed about innovative strategies and techniques for a wide range of planning topics.

PAS Memo delivers this information to you. It highlights current cutting-edge topics — such as green roofs and climate change adaptation — while providing the latest findings and best practices in classic planning areas such as stormwater management and housing affordability.

PAS Memo is written by practicing planners and experts in the field eager to share their expertise through illuminating case studies. Each article provides a list of links to online resources for planners who want to dig deeper.

PAS Memo is available to Planning Advisory Service subscribers only.

Current Issue

PAS Memo — March/April 2015

Geodesign and the Future of Planning

Are you using a geodesign framework to help you successfully address the increasingly complex, interrelated challenges and the economic and political realities that your community faces? Geodesign is an approach that combines the best of GIS computing and the creative design process, providing a new way of thinking that integrates science and values into the planning and design process. It provides a framework and set of tools for exploring issues from a transdisciplinary perspective and for resolving conflicts between differing points of view.

This PAS Memo explores this new design approach that is rooted in the history of planning practice and enabled by rapid advances in digital technology. The article introduces the concept of geodesign and its recent history, provides examples of how it is being used in practice, and explores how it can enrich the future practice of planning. Included is a guide for planners who may wish to apply the geodesign process in their communities.

A forthcoming supplement to this Memo will address the application of geodesign across scales of planning practice, with a particular focus on the comprehensive plan.

Read the full article