Four the Future - November 1

A special Four: these are some of the goings-on we talked about in Dr. Zovanyi's "Fundamentals of Planning" class.

• Biodiversity Conference Starts in Japan
  Source: New York Times; October 18, 2010
  Summary: Delegates to the United Nations conference on biodiversity will be discussing issues ranging from climate change to economic exploitation of developing nations by drug companies. The world is experiencing extinction at a rate 100 to 1000 times greater than average due to human activities.
  Opinion: Again, these are critical issues, but there is likely to be little movement because the developed countries will want to protect the profits of multinational corporations despite overwhelming evidence that our activities are unsustainable.
• [VIDEO] Stretched To The Limits: Still driving to qualify after the housing crisis
  Source: Blueprint America; October 22, 2010
  Summary: Despite continued foreclosures and abandoned neighborhoods, developers in the Phoenix suburbs continue to lure people out to the edge. Meanwhile, this is a story about a family who thought they were pursuing the "American Dream," but instead ended up upside-down in their mortgage. They find themselves waking their kids up at 4 AM to be able to have time to commute 120 miles to their jobs and childcare, dependent on their single remaining car, and so far away from transit that a local developer laughs at the prospect.
  Opinion: People did not realize they were getting themselves into these situations. Who should they be able to trust? Can it be planners, perhaps, to help them think through these situations before they are stuck? We should consider whether standard mortgages be limited by the amount of money it costs to commute and the cost of the increased infrastructure costs directly attributable to sprawl. Maybe, then, people would realize that houses out in the sticks are cheap because it is very expensive to live there.
  
• Public Housing Repairs Can’t Keep Pace With Need
  Source: New York Times; October 24, 2010
  Summary: The federal government is not keeping up with the maintenance of public housing projects. Nationwide, 150,000 housing units have been lost due to the failure to care for them. In New York City, the maintenance backlog is three years long.
  Opinion: They can give a whole lot of money to Wall Street, but cannot fix the holes in the walls of public housing. *shakes head*
  
• Seattle's proposed tree rules prompt opposition
  Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer; October 24, 2010
  Summary: The city of Seattle’s trees inspired the nickname "Emerald City," but newly proposed rules would allow property owners to cut down trees without a permit. They are considering these rules at the same time that city policy calls for an increase in the tree canopy. Staff decided that a permit system would be too cumbersome. Instead, they will require tree credits for replacement of downed trees.
  Opinion: Michael P. Brooks, author of Planning Theory for Practitioners proposes the "feedback strategy" in which planners offer alternatives as fodder for people to which to react as a way to gauge public opinion. If that is what happening here, they are certainly going to get a great deal of feedback! I wonder, by the way, how the city will know that a tree needs to be replaced if a permit isn’t necessary to remove it. Trees provide critical (and free!) services like soil retention and storm water mitigation that replacement will not remedy. How will they deal with that?