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Peak Oil and Energy Uncertainty: Challenges for Local Governments (video)
Global Public Media
Daniel Lerch, author of Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty, speaks to an audience in Hamilton, Ontario about some short and long term challenges that peak oil will cause for local governments. Global crises can have very local repercussions – but prompt planning can take the edge off of some of the negative effects.
(12 Nov 2007, but just posted)
How NYC’s Congestion Pricing Plan Crashed
Adam Federman, Earth Island Institute
… Ultimately, Bloomberg’s plan, which narrowly made it through the city council, was scrapped by the state legislature in Albany. The NY state legislature often intervenes in city affairs, and reserves the right to oversee many local decisions – for example, the number and type of red light enforcement cameras, bus lane enforcement cameras, and speed limits for traffic calming designs. It is likely the city’s authority to charge drivers would have been challenged in court, delaying the plan indefinitely. As it was, the assembly put the idea to rest.
In what many viewed as a cynical display of political gamesmanship on the part of State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the congestion pricing bill did not even go to the assembly floor for a vote. According to Silver, the legislation was killed in committee by the Democratic caucus (the majority of Republicans supported the measure) because the mayor did not make his case convincingly. As a measure of just how emotionally charged the issue had become, The New York Times, in an editorial published the day after the non-vote, declared Silver “unworthy of his office.”
The demise of Bloomberg’s plan means that New York City will lose $354 million in federal transportation aid, in addition to $500 million in projected annual revenue from the traffic fees. It is unclear when and if the idea will be revived. Many say some form of congestion pricing is inevitable, that its time has come, and that even in defeat there have been victories – transit improvements that likely would not have been made or even discussed had congestion pricing not been on the table. But there is also deep concern that New York has missed an opportunity that will be difficult if not impossible to replicate.
(Summer 2008)
Speech by Philadelphia Mayor Nutter inspires city planners
Inga Saffron, Philadelphia Inquirer
… In the first major policy speech of his five-month-old administration, Mayor Nutter presented a pitch-perfect vision on a subject that rarely gets people’s hearts racing: planning and zoning. But he was less successful in describing the concrete measures that he’ll use to turn that stirring vision into reality.
The mayor’s address, delivered Tuesday to an overflow crowd of 600 people at the Academy of Natural Sciences, was remarkable on several levels. It has been a long time since a Philadelphia mayor has laid out his views with such depth of thought and eloquence. That Nutter chose to give prominence to the wonkish subject of planning, rather than more visceral topics such as crime or taxes, was a statement in itself.
Coming after 16 years in which Philadelphia’s mayors were generally indifferent, and sometimes hostile, to the nitty-gritty of urban planning, Nutter’s speech amounted to a vindication for those who believe that planners – not developers and their lawyers – should lead the discussion of how new buildings are sited, designed and woven into the city’s fabric. Nutter made it plain that a strong and assertive Planning Commission was not just good government but vitally linked to Philadelphia’s economic health.
… Over the years, as developers became a major source of campaign contributions, they were increasingly able to dictate their will to city planners. Major policy decisions were made ad hoc by the Zoning Board of Adjustment, which knew little of the larger issues. Meanwhile, neighborhood groups had to hire private planners to defend their interests. The city paid the price for this laissez-faire approach as more overscaled, automobile-oriented buildings were inserted into Philadelphia’s gentle, walkable streets.
… No doubt many in the audience pinched themselves when Nutter described Philadelphia as if it were a progressive West Coast city rather than a Rust Belt survivor:
“We are a walkable city, increasingly home to bicycles,” Nutter declared. “We want to preserve our urban form. We do not want the automobile and its design requirements to dominate the landscape.”
Platitudes, maybe. But what stirring ones.
(20 June 2008)
The End of Suburbia As We Know It? (audio)
The Bryant Park Project, NPR News
When James Howard Kunstler describes the future of American suburbs, it sounds like he’s describing a disaster movie.
The housing crisis, he says, isn’t just a low point in a real estate business cycle; high gas prices aren’t just a temporary problem for suburban commuters. Neither of those problems will go away; instead, they’ll get worse, growing into long-term catastrophe.
We’re at the end of the suburban phase of American history, he says. “We’ve invested all of our post-World War II wealth in an infrastructure for daily life that has no future.”
(19 June 2008)
Sounds like the poor interviewer didn’t know what he was getting into. -BA
