Hi, I'm Emma and today thanks to Student Edge i'm here at the Department of
Planning in Western Australia. What am I doing here?
Well today I'm here to find out exactly what it's like to be a town planner and
whether or not this might be your dream job, so come on let's go find out.
Now you might be thinking what on earth is a town planner and what exactly do
they plan? To be honest I really don't know but that's okay because today I'm
catching up with real-life town planner Nicholas to find out exactly
what's involved. Hi Emma, how are you? Nick, pleasure to meet you
How can I help? Well today I'm here because I'd love to know more about your
job as a town planner. Great well come with me let's have a chat.
So what would you like to know? I'm here today because i'd love to know
exactly what it is that a town planner does. Okay, town planners work to plan
human settlements and that could be anywhere from a large Australian city to a
small country town or even remote and regional areas. We work with engineers,
architects, designers, landscape architects, to come up with long-term
plans for cities and regional areas. One of the projects that have recently
worked on that I was quite proud of was the Elizabeth Quay project which is down
the Perth waterfront with the aim of bringing the city back to the river, so
that's been really exciting. It's only down the road from our office so i get
to see the way it's developing everyday. Another project that we're working on is
trying to reduce congestion and alleviate some of the transport concerns
in our city at the moment and one of the ways that we're doing that is by
planning for public transport on some of our wider arterial roads that run into
the city itself. Well your job sounds very important and interesting, can you take
us through a typical day? The typical day might started at 8.30 i'll come into the
office and check my emails and work out what I have to do for the day. It would
normally involve a couple of meetings in the morning and they could be with
anybody from the community to local government agencies, other state
government agencies or other professionals and then in the afternoon
I'll tend to work with my team and we'll get out our maps and plans and start to
draw, try and work out solutions to problems in different areas of the city.
It does sound like a lot of hard work but pretty rewarding too. Anyway I think
it's time for you to give us the edge.
I've got three questions. The first question, what makes a great town planner?
Well I think to be a good town planner you need to have a vision and an idea
for how you'd like the city to look and feel that's most important i think.
Secondly you need to be a really good listener
you need to try and understand how people feel about their own community in
their own area. Sometimes they may have ideas that are more valid or better than
than yours and thirdly I think you need to have patience you need to understand
that some of the plans that you're working on may take 5-10 sometimes 20
years to eventuate. What steps would somebody need to take to become a town planner?
Well it's important that people have a keen interest in geography when they
start out.
You go to university generally and do a town planning degree or sustainability
degree or something to do with urban design and most major universities offer
those courses. Now finally Nick if you could still end up exactly where you are
today that have done one thing differently what would that have been?
Well i'm quite happy with the course that I've taken to date. I think the work
experience really help with that and being part of the department's graduate
program but one thing that's really important is just trust yourself and
understand that you've got very valid ideas to bring to the table and it's
really important to follow the career path that you think will be right for you.
I just want to say thanks for your time today I really appreciate it. No worries Em,
It's been a pleasure.
If you love geography and are interested in designing our future then perhaps you
should consider a career as a town planner but remember what Nick said
you've got to find out who you are and believe in yourself. For more information
and to get involved
log onto studentedge.com.au and follow the link.