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The Planning Commissioners Journal is pleased to announce the winners in its biennial "Building the Future" high school student essay competition -- co-sponsored this year by the Center for Understanding the Built Enviornment.
The First Place prize award went to Alicia Hudelson, a Sophomore at East High School in Duluth, Minnesota. Hudelson discussed the importance of forests and woodlands, especially near residential areas. As she noted: "Woodlands rightfully should be considered in the development of our towns and cities. We are forgetting an integral part of a successful city: preserved green space. ... [Woods] should be left in the middle of residential areas, within walking distance from as many houses as possible."
Sara Dzimianski, a Junior at Pony Trail Academy in Nicholson, Georgia, won the Second Place prize by describing the changes affecting her county in suburban Atlanta: "As the fields and forests fill with houses, factories, and shopping centers, and the dirt roads become highways, we cannot forget the children of this county. We need to make sure that there are still farms for them to visit, forests to hike, and fields where they can play."
Third Place winner Derrik J. Lang is a Junior at J.M. Tate High School in Pensacola, Florida. In his essay, Lang focused on the need for a community center in Pensacola: "Many children in Pensacola, Florida, are latch-key kids who have no planned extra-curricular activities to participate in after school. Watching television and playing video games are among the activities grade school age children do when they come home from school ... As we move into the next millenium, we must think about the seeds we are planting in today's children and how we want them to grow."
Excerpts from these essays will be published in the Summer 1999 issue of the Planning Commissioners Journal.