Former Asheville, N.C., city planner Scott Shuford, now working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center on its new adaptation guidebook for city planners, drives the point further. ''No matter what mitigation efforts we institute today, no matter how exhaustive they might be,'' he stressed, ''we are going to have climate change that is going to require action.'' With the Pew Center on Global Climate Change listing Alaska, California, Florida, Maryland, Oregon and Washington as states preparing to act, the Climatewire reporter mentions four such preparatory moves on the local level. The Miami-Dade County Commission, Fla., approved an initial adaptation plan that aims to convert the area's taxi fleet to hybrid vehicles, impose coastal development limits, and set strict height minimums for roads and buildings in prospective flood zones delineated on the assumption of a three-foot sea level rise. The Miami City Commission endorsed similar recommendations. King County, Wash., launched an aggressive 10-year effort to protect its lower areas from anticipated heavy floods by shoring up levees on the Green, Snoqualmie and Cedar rivers. And the tiny town of Keene, N.H., is preparing sustainable design and energy efficient building code requirements to reduce its carbon footprint and the risk of structural damage from severe weather. The common problems, the reporter observes, arise from the lack of state-scale or local-scale climate projection models, the scarcity of implementation funds, and the doubts among officials about their command of adaptation practices. ''We urgently need an improved science base for decision-making,'' said Delaware Department of Natural Resources coastal program manager David Carter about the lack of local-scale adaptation modeling. Miami-Dade County climate change program coordinator Nichole Hefty and King County Executive Ron Sims' deputy chief of staff Jim Lopez agree that despite a budgetary crunch, local governments must find funds for adaptation measures. ''Some of these (adaptation steps) are certainly going to require additional expenditures. You really have to point out the cost of inaction,'' said the former, with the latter adding, ''Part of the calculus is, what is the cost of not acting?'' As to local officials' fears of their adaptation inexperience, Center for Clean Air Policy transportation and adaptation program director Steve Winkelman is confident they can quickly learn. ''We say, 'Sit with your director of emergency management and ask what you're going to do if floods come twice as often or twice as high,'' he explained. ''Plan that through.'' -- Climatewire  4/29/2008

LAS VEGAS — A new book, Overlooked America, is being released by the American Planning Association (APA) at the National Planning Conference in order to call attention to the plight of several groups of Americans — estimated to affect at least one out of every eight living in the U.S. or more than 37 million people altogether — whose daily struggles go largely unnoticed.

The shocking tragedies of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which focused national attention on thousands of residents who were unable to evacuate themselves from New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities, led APA to examine several population groups who struggle day in and day out as much as the natural disaster victims of 2005.

Writing in the book's forward, APA Executive Director and CEO Paul Farmer, FAICP, says that by overlooking some of those among whom we live, we are also "overlooking ourselves. Our own human dignity can only exist in an environment of respect and caring."

The stories in Overlooked America, originally published by APA in Planning magazine, explore the marginalized lives of several groups including:

Tracing the course of the planning profession’s focus from physical reform to social reform, and back again, Overlooked America challenges the traditional definitions of “at-risk” populations in the U.S. This progressive volume helps create a national dialogue about these persons and offers a comprehensive and systematic method of identifying the problems and possible solutions.

Planners are uniquely positioned to help address the needs of overlooked Americans given that the planning profession views social groups comprehensively and in context of complete communities: housing, transportation, schools, work places, parks, infrastructure, retail centers, commercial and industrial areas as well as economic and social considerations.

Take the elderly who do not drive and who do not want to move out of their homes where they have lived much of their lives. Planners can help address their need for mobility with the development of public and, where viable, on-demand transit along with compact, mixed-use, and mixed-age neighborhoods. Such an approach to community planning and design encourages wellness, counters isolation, and seizes the potential of elders as mentors. It reduces the traffic that contributes mightily to climate change.

No array of public interventions can solve the social problems of overlooked groups, APA believes. Governmental safety nets such as food stamps and unemployment benefits are not a panacea. Greater involvement of families, policy makers, religious institutions, advocates, and socially responsible corporations, as well as planners, is required if the needs of the overlooked are to be effectively met.

Review copies of Overlooked America are available to representatives of media organizations by contacting APA's Public Information staff by calling 312-786-6395 or 202-349-1006, or sending an e-mail to publicinfo@planning.org.

It wasn't planned that way, but now it's being copied worldwide. 

The views of architecture critic Paul Goldberger took some urban planners by surprise at the conference in Las Vegas, even jolting some into derisive chortles.

But the more than 1,000 planning specialists from around the world listening to the Pulitzer Prize winner’s talk had difficulty dismissing his argument that the rest of the world is learning from Las Vegas.

“As cities become less and less manufacturing centers, they develop more avenues for culture and entertainment, both of which Vegas has cultivated for decades,” Goldberger said after a one-hour talk at the American Planning Association’s 100th annual conference at Paris Las Vegas this week.

Because the meeting was held here, many of the hundreds of sessions held in conference rooms, and through walking and bus tours, focused on Las Vegas.

How Las Vegas and New York similarly deal with sex workers was analyzed in one session. Another featured a tour of local parkland and a discussion of federal land policy. And homelessness was looked at in a tour titled “A Homeless Plan That Works.”

Goldberger’s keynote speech may have been one of the conference’s most memorable for the simple reason that the former New York Times architecture critic put into words thoughts and ideas that rarely enter the minds of those who don’t live here. Mainly, that although it’s easy to see Las Vegas has taken from the world — the Venetian, Paris, New York-New York — few believe the rest of the world is beginning to mimic Las Vegas.

As cities spawned from now-dying heavy industries struggle for survival, some are pouring money into tourism, service and entertainment to bolster local economies. It’s what Vegas — and right now, we’re talking about the Strip — has mastered for decades.

“Today, almost every older city is becoming more and more a place of culture and entertainment, less a place of manufacturing, more a place of service businesses and health and education and tourism and leisure,” Goldberger said. “Every city is becoming more like Las Vegas, we might almost say.”

Goldberger, who now writes for The New Yorker and is a design professor and former dean at Parsons The New School for Design in Manhattan, also said something that might seem heresy to residents who avoid the Strip: He sees the Strip as having created an urban environment — if urbanism is defined as a place people want to be, where people walk, go to people-watch and get out in the day and night.

“The Strip was created to get away from the conventional city, and yet the conventional city — well, not truly the conventional city, but let’s just say the idea of urbanism — caught up with it,” he said.

Evidence, he said, can be found in the hordes found there at all hours.

“One thing that is amazing about the Strip ... is the presence of all of those thousands of people out strolling the Strip at night, sauntering from casino to casino like pilgrims wandering from church to church in Rome,” Goldberger said.

“This is urbanism in spite of itself — urbanism in spite of the builders of every building showing total indifference to it.”

There’s no question that people love their cars.

“But it is true that if you give people something they want to see, and create a situation in which, for whatever reason, it is not particularly practical to use a car, and you make walking pleasurable and even exciting — well, then people will walk,” he said.

“The Strip is the ultimate example of the street that was not designed for walking, and people are walking on it.”

Goldberger brought his audience through a history of development, “four generations” that focused on changes to the entertainment and gaming industries.

He defined the first generation as the pre-World War II era, when Fremont Street was king and before the advent of the Flamingo, Stardust and other Las Vegas Boulevard properties.

The second was heralded by the construction of those Strip casinos, whose oversized signs became more iconic than the structures themselves. The third generation came with the megaresorts — such as the Mirage, MGM Grand and New York-New York — buildings so massive and distinctive they served as signs themselves.

And now comes the fourth generation, a landscape not yet built, exemplified by the $8 billion CityCenter and its “starchitects.”

How this new generation will fare, Goldberger wasn’t certain.

“I’m not sure what these people can bring to the party, and their dilemma in Las Vegas is a difficult one, because they obviously don’t want to design things that are just like the work they have done elsewhere,” he said. “But neither do they want to design anything that looks too much like what is now in Las Vegas.”

What’s clear, he added, is that “Las Vegas’ desire to make itself a kind of theme park of highlights from the rest of the world has not disappeared.”

While there’s no denying Las Vegas has a character all its own, the differences between it and other cities of the world are shrinking, Goldberger said.

“I don’t mean that every city will become Las Vegas, and I absolutely don’t mean to forgive this city’s obvious shortcomings,” he said. “I don’t find a 50,000-room or whatever hotel amusing because it has a fake mansard roof.

“But if we put that aside for a moment and try to understand the realities of Las Vegas now ... we see a place that really does show us much of what people want out of cities.

“They want grandeur and excitement and novelty and stimulation. They want to come to a city for what they cannot get on the Internet. It is not a bad set of things to want, and as we try to figure out how to provide these things in other places, and how to build cities that have the sustaining, nurturing qualities that this city undeniably lacks, we have to admit that we can still, even now, be learning from Las Vegas.”

In the last several years, concerns over population and employment growth, congestion on our highways and even transit systems have come to the forefront of public debate. These issues affect individuals and communities now more than ever, and the lack of federal leadership and commitment to our transportation and infrastructure systems presents even larger impediments for state and local governments.

The dilapidation of our infrastructure, as evidenced by the bridge collapse in Minnesota and the steam pipe explosion in New York City, is a clear example of the investments we need to be making today to meet the challenges of the new century. To address these challenges, Regional Plan Association (RPA) has launched America 2050, a national initiative to establish a long-term framework for growth across the nation. A key component of the project is the concept of megaregions – networks of neighboring metropolitan areas, linked by overlapping commuting patterns, large environmental andscapes, economic networks, and shared history and culture. These megaregions can provide the appropriate scale at which to develop strategies and make investments.

In September of last year,  RPA, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and the National Association of Regional Councils organized the 6th Annual Metropolitan Regions Forum that brings together executive directors of Metropolitan Planning Organizations and Councils of Governments from the largest metropolitan regions in the nation. The goal of the meeting was to develop the components of a National Transportation Investment program, which currently does not exist. The discussions focused on how to finance projects and what role the federal government will play in establishing priorities and guidelines. A second goal of this meeting was to flesh out policies that will influence the next transportation reauthorization in 2009.

A key component of the forum was a National Transportation Investment Program Workshop, focused on identifying the components in a national program based on regional directors’ knowledge of national, megaregional and regional needs. The group went back and forth between proposed criteria and projects submitted by regional directors with the intention of being able to distinguish local and national priorities. Attempting to move away from earmarks which have dominated the last few transportation bills, the group addressed the following questions during the workshop: What methodology do we use to establish priorities? How do we evaluate projects and investments and what is the appropriate criterion? How do we identify projects of national significance? Who should govern these priorities and how will we finance future projects?

Some of the resulting policies the group generated included: maintaining existing assets, operations and facilities, building capacity, and making the land use/transportation- climate change connection. There was consensus that Washington would not take the leadership on these issues, so the energy must come from the regions. We must be clear about what we want from our systems, which requires developing a shared vision. Furthermore, it is important to realize what climate, energy, economic competitiveness all add up to, regionally and nationally.

Bob Yaro, president of RPA, suggested five categories/criterion in thinking about a national strategy: 1) global competitiveness; 2) climate change; 3) congestion; 4) security and 5) energy.

In the following months, regional directors agreed to continue to work with RPA to further develop the vision for a National Transportation Investment Program, under the umbrella of the America 2050 initiative. The directors hope to reconvene in Washington early next year to review and endorse a final proposal. In the Northeast Megaregion, RPA is leading an initiative with the CEO Council for Growth in Philadelphia to develop a vision and strategy for improving mobility in the Northeast megaregion as the centerpiece of an economic competitiveness and sustainability strategy for the Megaregion. Titled the Business Alliance for Northeast Mobility, the group is establishing priorities for the Northeast Corridor intercity and regional rail service. The short-term goal is to ensure multi-year funding authorization and appropriations for Amtrak in Congress to bring the Corridor back to a state of good repair. Short term rail policy goals include: establishing passenger rail coordination along the NE Corridor that incorporates all stakeholders and facilities; expanding regional rail service; and increasing frequency and reliability of service. These are seen as essential steps toward the long-term goal of true high-speed rail service in the Northeast.

The 100th Annual National Planning Conference in Las Vegas was attended by approximately 6,000 planners of which approximately 1000 were students and the Massachusetts Chapter had 70 members present. Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Portland, Oregon was the Opening Keynote Speaker and he called on the Planning Community to join him on making infrastructure a key issue to address for the country. The Mass. Chapter has been a member of the MA Infrastructure Coalition and will continue to work within this partnership to advance infrastructure issues in the Commonwealth.  The National APA Board of Directors approved the Policy on Climate Change. Our Chapter was represented at the National Assembly by Jennie Raitt, Neil Angus, and Peter Lowitt. The Policy can be reviewed on www.planning.org. The Chapter at its March 2008 meeting voted to become a Bioregional Partner for the GreenBuild 2008 International Conference that will be held in Boston on November 19-21. The Chapter has also agreed to participate on the Local Host Committee of the Rail Volution Conference that will be coming to Boston.  Just a reminder of upcoming events that members should be planning for: June 5-6 MAPD Conference in Northampton Sept. 4-5 Southern New England Planners Conference Sept. 15  2nd Annual APA-MA Chapter Golf Tournament Information for both of the conferences can be found on the website.  Hopefully, everyone is nearing the end of "town meeting" season and getting ready for a great Spring/Summer! Sincerely, Steve Sadwick, AICP APA-MA Chapter