San Diego metro area has been institutionalizing its boring reputation by undertaking in recent years what is arguably the most aggressive regional planning effort in the country. Enviros and “anti-sprawl” (read: anti-poor, anti-choice)
types have fallen back in love with America’s Finest City over San Diego’s ease of meeting SB 375′s Sustainable Communities Strategies targets. Thanks to the members of the San Diego Assn of Govts (SANDAG), San Diegans can look forward to this whiter brighter future:
While the notion of efficiently coordinating transportation, housing, and commercial development across thousands of square miles and millions of people sounds daunting, officials in the San Diego area say that drafting the SCS was not nearly as difficult as it may be for other regions.
...
Overall, “anti-sprawl” forces are reducing quality of life and the costs are disproportionately borne by low-income minorities, which is what makes this leftist program so ironically terrible.
2. Planning project to protect Mid North's natural assets - State News - Agribusiness and General - General - Stock Journal
MINISTER for Urban Development, Planning and the City of Adelaide John Rau says a new planning strategy to guide future development in the State’s Mid North will protect the region’s natural assets, while preparing for economic growth.
Formally adopting the plan, Mr Rau said the Mid North Region Plan addresses the significant change underway in the region.
The plan sets out land use arrangements that aim to ensure sustainable growth integrated with infrastructure planning.
“The mid north’s rich pastoral and mining heritage, mineral resources and growing alternative energy industry were key considerations in developing this plan,” Mr Rau said.
“The plan aims to ensure that the growth of industries is managed in a way that protects the region’s natural assets and provides new infrastructure and employment opportunities for the more than 13,000 additional residents expected to live in the area by 2036.”
3. Plans for regional South Australia - Government of South Australia
Housing, property and landBuilding and developmentSouth Australia's land supply and planning systemSouth Australia's land and development planning strategyPlans for regional South Australia
On this page:
The plans for regional areas of the state Providing direction for land use and development More information about each of the regional plans The plans for regional areas of the state
The South Australian planning strategy includes plans for the following seven regional areas of the state in addition to The 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide: ...
4. Chairman says TRPA bill must work out by end of weekend | TahoeDailyTribune.com
Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-Las Vegas, said Thursday the bill to withdraw Nevada from the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency goes nowhere unless the parties work with her to find a compromise.
“If it's not done Saturday or Sunday morning, I'm not doing it,” she said. “I'm not going to ram and jam.”
Kirkpatrick said she wants to take Senate Bill 271 to a work session to try and figure out what to do with the legislation but that that will require those for and those against to work together.
“At least direct them to bring all the children into the play room,” she said.
Kirkpatrick said she will try one more time to get a bill that meets the needs of both sides.
She has now held two lengthy hearings on SB271, which would demand California agree to changes in the compact eliminating the rule requiring a majority of both states' members back a project to approve it and requiring the agency consider economic conditions in the basin in rewriting its regional plan.
...
5. Lee County planners lose jobs | The News-Press | news-press.com
Three top planners with the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council are losing their jobs a week after Gov. Rick Scott vetoed funding for local planning councils statewide. ...
Ken Heatherington, the council's executive director, said the layoffs were a result of less funding from the state.
The council's budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year is about $4.2 million, with about $728,000 in revenue coming from federal, state and local grants.
Heatherington couldn't say if the positions would be refilled.
...
The Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council, created in 1973, comprises Lee, Charlotte, Collier, Hendry, Glades and Sarasota counties.
6. Does Capital Area Regional Planning Commission deserve to die? - Isthmus | The Daily Page
One of the last things Kathleen Falk did before stepping down as Dane County executive was write a letter (PDF) about an obscure body known as the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission.
Most of the county's 490,000 residents have probably never heard of this commission, let alone know what it does. But in wonky bureaucratic circles, the letter was nothing short of earthshaking. ...
Falk's letter proclaimed the commission a failure and asked that it be disbanded.
"Despite years of extraordinary effort by some...commissioners and staff, [the commission] has failed and continues to fail," she wrote on April 14, a few days before her successor, Joe Parisi, took office. "I respectfully suggest that we
dissolve [the commission] as soon as possible — certainly before county taxpayers have to pay another $750,000 or more next year."
In an interview, Falk says she does not blame the commission's members but maintains "the institution is not doing its job."
7. University World News - SOUTHERN AFRICA: Call for a regional research fund
"Southern African universities have called for a regional fund to boost public sector research, which is considered critical to the ability of countries to innovate and develop economically. A detailed plan for a $100 million five-year fund was submitted to the continent's biggest higher education event, the biennial conference of the Association of African Universities, held at Stellenbosch University this week.
Piyushi Kotecha, CEO of the Southern African Regional Universities Association (SARUA), proposed the research fund in a presentation on Thursday, joining other higher education stakeholders in the call but for the first time outlining how it might work. ...
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak Friday urged greater multilateral cooperation to tackle international security challenges, and called on Southeast Asian nations to establish a new regional body that will provide humanitarian aid during disasters.
"Today, China is our partner. The U.S. is also our partner....It is not about taking sides. We must replace the old bilateralism of the Cold War not with a new bilateralism but with a multilateralism that can rise to the task ahead," Najib
said in a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an international security conference in Singapore.
He added the challenges of the 21st century can be solved only through cooperation and integration, rather than forcing nations to "take sides." ...
A demonstration of this multilateralism can come through regional cooperation in providing humanitarian aid during disasters.
Earlier this year, The Postal Euromed General Assembly, held in Rome, saw the formal creation of the Postal Euromed union – a collection of Euro-Mediterranean based operators coming together in a bid to promote efficiency and growth across the region. ... questions to ... Dr Sherif Battisha, of Egypt Post & Stefano Gori, of Poste Italiane.
Please provide our readers with some background on Postal Euromed. Where did the idea originate? Is it the relaunch of an existing organisation that now has Universal Postal Union (UPU) status?
“This is not the relaunch of an existing organisation. The Postal Euromed General Assembly, held in Rome, saw the formal creation of the union of postal operators in the region. It is the latest step of a process that was launched at the inaugural Euromed Postal Conference which took place in Marseille in 2007.
“It is the concrete result of a common effort, under the UPU umbrella, of a grouping covering 14 countries of the Euro-Mediterranean area ...
More bookmarks: http://www.delicious.com/I.see.regions.work
