To start the conference I had the chance to attend the Alliance for Regional Stewardship's conference yesterday. For those of us in ACCE, this group recently became a part of ACCE.
There were many outstanding speakers throughout the day that discussed the needs and solutions to the challenges that are facing metro regions. The theme seemed to capitalize on "Sustainable Communities" and focused heavily on green strategies and practices to take advantage of this mega trend that is sweeping the country and globe.
I want to add that I agree with most of what was shared, especially the reality that we have no federally-focused water, energy and transportation plan; that looking for more sustainable soultions in our communities and businesses saves money and should be our goal; and the future need for us to work as mega regions.
But there were some problems in some of their approach and solutions. And since the purpose of blogs are to stir it up and start debate, here are some of my thoughts:
1 - Almost all of the morning speakers approached everything from the perspective that man-made global warming (I stress man-made) is the most pressing issue in our country and communities. It is not - I'd say the economy, the war, and rising costs are more important. And even objective science does not support the idea that global warming is definitively caused by man and that even if we took the most drastic of measures, it would not reduce emissions and pollution to make a real difference.
2 - As they talked about the need for more transportation infrastructure, the solutions were heavy on rail and transit and little was mentioned about the need for new road capacity. Having worked on transportation issues over the years, I know we need more of everything. It has to be both/and; not either/or. We need new outer loops, expanded secondary roads, double-decked freeways in addition to new and more rail to high density centers.
3 - As they talked about a better energy infrastucture, they stressed the need to conserve more and look for alternative forms of energy. I agree with that, but again, I was surprised their long-term solutions didn't incude drilling for domestic oil here in the US as well as building nuclear power plants. We need it all.
4 - Finally, one speaker talked about the problems about water in the mega-regions and showed a picture of Lake Lanier (in Georgia in our county) and talked about the need to use water more wisely. What she didn't say was that the reason the lake is so slow is because the Army Corps of Engineers has refused to lessen (until recently) the water release so that the Chattahoochee is completely full in a drought to have enough water for the endangered mussels in the bay down in the gulf. I'll bet the Atlanta region conserves more water than any other region in the country, but it doesn't matter as it is all sent downstream. Mussells take priority over people. And that leads me to my last point...
5 - No one talked about the need to review and eliminate many of the overly burdensome environmental regulations on the books today and pushed by more radical environmental special interest groups. They are one of the biggest problems and obstacles to building more transit and roads; drilling for our own oil and building nuclear power plants; and conserving water in many of our regions' reservoirs.
These are just a few points for our speakers to consider that will make their strategies and plans much more collaborative and comprehensive instead of tackling them from one narrow point of view.
And they should also be careful not to force new laws and regulations on communities to fit their individual points of view. Freedom of choice is what makes our region's great. As Joel Kotkin pointed out in his recent column, Jerry Brown's War on the Suburbs, there are some dark clouds on the horizon for many of our communities if Mr. Brown, heralded as a champion by a few of yesterday's speakers, gets his way:
"Mr. Brown is not above using coercion to create the demographic patterns he wants. In recent months, he has threatened to file suit against municipalities that shun high-density housing in favor of building new suburban singe-family homes, on the grounds that they will pollute the environment. He is also backing controversial legislation — Senate bill 375 — moving through the state legislature that would restrict state highway funds to communities that refuse to adopt "smart growth" development plans. "We have to get the people from the suburbs to start coming back" to the cities, Mr. Brown told planning experts in March. "
Just one person's observations...on to day two.
Demming Bass
