“Welcome to Citiwire.net! The guest column this week, by California’s famed planning journalist and Citistates Group Associate William Fulton, pinpoints what may be an historic turning point: state transportation funding, coveted by localities, linked to “smart growth” local practices. As for me, I’ve been waiting for years to write a realistic “back to the city” column — This week, you’ll see, I got my chance — with an interesting suburban twist as well.” -- Neal Peirce
For Release Sunday, August 24, 2008
© 2008 Washington Post Writers Group
By Neal Peirce
City or suburb? For decades that’s been the choice for most Americans. Suburbs have been the hands-down winners — by the millions, we’ve rushed to the urban edge.
But could we be on the cusp of an historic “back to the city” shift? The case is building.
Alan Ehrenhalt, executive editor of Governing Magazine, says we’re in the midst of a “demographic inversion.” Check such cities as Atlanta and Washington, he suggests — they’re beginning to resemble historic Vienna or Paris, the centuries-old pattern in which the people of means chose to live near the vital city centers, while the poor were left to live in the less expensive outskirts.
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For Release Sunday, August 24, 2008
Citiwire.net
By William Fulton
In the age of climate change, California is once again on the cutting edge of environmental policy, busy figuring out how to implement its nationally-hailed new greenhouse-gas emissions reduction law. A big new question: how can “smart growth” be part of the answer?
There’s little question that California’s growth and development patterns will have to change significantly if the state’s greenhouse ambitious gas reduction goals are to be met. Technological fixes will only take the state so far, and even Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s own experts agree that “smart growth” must be part of the answer. But state officials are reluctant to dictate development patterns from Sacramento, so they’re trying to figure out whether incentives alone will do the trick. As Schwarzenegger’s chief planning deputy, Cynthia Bryant, puts it: “We need a carrot so big it’s a stick.”
The “carrot stick” is likely to be a requirement for a smart growth regional plan in every metropolis in the state, with the flow of transportation funding officially tied to implementing the local plans. This could be a national model of how to promote smart growth — if it passes the legislature without being watered down too much.
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