How has the economic turmoil that officially began in December of 2007 affected the profession and land use planning? I distinctly remember talking to my class in the fall of 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed, wondering out loud what this all meant. It felt like some kind of slow-motion train wreck. Most of those students graduated this year, in May of 2011, and they have been labeled a “lost generation.” I hate that label and the challenges that these recent graduates face.
One recent graduate in landscape architecture, J. Lyons (MLA 09) told me that she “honestly feel[s] like we’re in the midst of a very hasty and significant paradigm shift because of the combination of pressing environmental and economic concerns.” A paradigm shift is exactly right. Everything needs to be reconsidered, in my opinion, especially for those of us living in the United States. After 3 1/2 years of recession (or now “recovery”), people are starting to catch on to the fact that things have changed … probably permanently. Among other things, I’d like to explore in this blog the implications of this paradigm shift on the profession.
For now, I’ll start with my list of what I think will affect professional and academic practice.
Factors that will shape future practice:
- the demand for interdisciplinary approaches to complex environmental and urban land use problems;
- the need for a better understanding of urban ecological systems;
- the importance of quantifying the value of interventions (based on monitoring of built works);
- in a time of fiscal austerity, resource-efficient communities;
- design in developing countries.
How should the paradigm shift be addressed in education?
Praxis in Landscape Architecture 
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