About Me: Landon

2012 marks my second semester of the Urban Studies program at SFU, which means that the time has come to dive a bit deeper into thinking about a thesis topic and narrowing my studies down into what I am truly passionate about in cities. Having been born and raised in Florida, living in the the sprawling cities of Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, and Atlanta, I have come to see the lack of varying levels of communal activities and everyday life that are something on which other places around the world thrive.

Like Andrew, I was a LEGO kid as well and built cities (with the electric train and all!) on my bedroom floor. I loved trains, buses, subways, monorails, you name it. It wasn’t until I lived in Atlanta where I truly was able to experience an urban rail system, and even that is no where near comparable to New York, London, or Tokyo. Since coming to Vancouver, I think I have found where I’d like to settle for a bit longer than my previous stays. This city is the perfect testing ground for finding that point where community and public transit cross paths. It’s what I’d like to explore with my remaining time here at SFU, and right now, it is the best location.

I am excited to contribute to this blog periodically, and I hope it inspires thought and conversation among students and faculty in our program and beyond.

About Me: Andrew

I started the Urban Studies program in the fall of 2009 with a passion for cities, but with no idea how it might become a career. I still don’t know what I’ll end up doing! But I do know that I am more confident now asking the right questions, finding the right information and connecting all the dots. In the next few months I’ll be nearing the end of my time in the program and couldn’t be more excited about the possibilities ahead. I think the future problems and opportunities of our world will be firmly rooted in cities.

When I was younger, I would create these wonderful places with LEGO – including entire LEGO cities complete with an electric train! I suppose I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was fostering an interest in systems and how discrete parts could be put together to make something much better. This early fascination with little plastic blocks has transferred into my passion for city planning and design. I really do want to make the places we live, work and play better.

This blog will be an incredible resource for ideas and discussion, and I hope it will help stimulate the questions that need to be asked!

About Me: Vanessa

My name is Vanessa, currently a candidate for a Masters in Urban Studies from Simon Fraser University. I graduated from the University of Waterloo’s School of Planning and am a full member with the Planning Institute of British Columbia and the Canadian Institute of Planners. Outside of school, I work at Innovative Housing Consultants Inc., a private development firm that specializes in affordable housing.

A common question people like to ask is where are you from? I lived the first half of my life in Montreal and the second half of my life in different parts of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). I am fairly certain that the differences I experienced living in Montreal and the GTA have led me to pursue a career in urban planning. My passion for social justice have led to my specializations in social housing and transit. Which leads me to my thesis.

My thesis is titled How do social housing locations impact transit use in family households in the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby?  The purpose of this question is to research the variation of public transit services specific to family social housing locations, and how this difference in services impacts public transit use among low-income families.

Welcome to our blog!

About Me: Brandon

I thought I’d start off the collective blog venture with some introductions. My name is Brandon, I’m 25, and this is my first semester at SFU in the Urban Studies program. I am currently doing the program part-time while I work full-time. I’ve been trying to get into a Grad program in Urban Planning/Studies since I graduated with a BA in History from UBC in 2009.

After getting rejected the first time around, I needed to know if this was a career path I wanted to go down so I started a blog and started volunteering around the city. My interest certainly hasn’t waned and I’m excited to see where it takes me in this program. Oh, I’m also on twitter at pre_planner.

If you’re interested, read on for a slightly updated version of my statement of interest that I submitted with my application to SFU.