Regional Planning for a Sustainable America
Regional Planning for a Sustainable America
How Creative Programs Are Promoting Prosperity and Saving the Environment
Regional Planning for a Sustainable America is the first book to represent the great variety of today’s effective regional planning programs, analyzing dozens of regional initiatives across North America.
The American landscape is being transformed by poorly designed, sprawling development. This sprawl—and its wasteful resource use, traffic, and pollution—does not respect arbitrary political boundaries like city limits and state borders. Yet for most of the nation, the patterns of development and conservation are shaped by fragmented, parochial local governments and property developers focused on short-term economic gain. Regional planning provides a solution, a means to manage human impacts on a large geographic scale that better matches the natural and economic forces at work. By bringing together the expertise of forty-two practitioners and academics, this book provides a practical guide to the key strategies that regional planners are using to achieve truly sustainable growth.
The combination of thorough analysis and the contributors' specificity make this an extremely valuable resource for planners seeking ways to promote regionalism.
an emporium of regional planning initiatives and concepts, well organized for people who suspect a regional initiative would facilitate sustainable human communities or adaptive natural environments in their region. Regional Planning for a Sustainable America offers a broad look at a phenomenon that has many contexts and variations, and it delivers a valuable chronicle and assessment of an experiment that is half-finished and still ongoing.
CARLETON K. MONTGOMERY is executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, an advocacy and education organization devoted to ensuring the survival of the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I: Mandatory Plans
1. Regional Growth Management in the Portland Metropolitan Area
2. Regional Planning for the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area
3. Restoring the Tahoe Region with Comprehensive Regional Planning
4. Ontario’s Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe
5. Adirondack Park: The Great Conservation Experiment
6. Pinelands National Reserve: Saving a Unique Ecosystem in the Nation’s Most Densely Developed State
7. Planning for Tomorrow in the Highlands of New Jersey
8. Restoration, Conservation, and Economy in the New Jersey Meadowlands
9. Changing the Land Use Paradigm to Save New York’s Central Pine Barrens
10. Cape Cod: Protecting a Land of Sand and Water
PART II: Collaborative and Voluntary Planning Initiatives
11. Integrated Planning for a Sustainable Future in Puget Sound
12. Integrated Land Use, Transportation, and Air Quality Planning in Sacramento
13. Envision Utah: Building Communities on Values
14. Regional Planning in Florida
15. Regional Planning for Livable Communities in Atlanta
16. From the Mountains to the Sea: Maryland’s Smart Growth Program
17. Raising the Bar at the Chesapeake Bay Program
18. The Political Dead Zone in Chesapeake Bay
19. Regional Planning at a County Scale in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
20. Land Use and Infrastructure Planning in the Greater Philadelphia Region
21. Regional Planning for the Delaware River
22. Planning for Sustainable Agriculture, Forestry, and Biodiversity in Maine
PART III: Society, Economics, and Regional Planning
23. Regions for Climate Resiliency
24. Megaregion Planning and High-Speed Rail
25. The Economic Benefits of Regional Planning
26. Serving the Environment and Economy through Regional Planning
27. Promoting Fiscal Equity and Efficient Development Practices at the Metropolitan Scale
28. But Where Will People Live? Regional Planning and Affordable Housing
PART IV : Land Acquisition and Regional Planning
29. Ecoregional Conservation: A Comprehensive Approach to Conserving Biodiversity
30. Saving the Chesapeake Bay through Regional Land Conservation
31. Creating Synergy with Regional Planning and Conservation Easements
PART V: Envisioning the Region
32. Creating a Regional Vision for Regional Planning
33. Visioning Sacramento
Conclusion: Fulfilling the Promise of Regional Planning
References
Online Resources
Index
