California Declares War on Suburbia ( Agenda 21)
WaveCameCrashin
Posts: 2,929
What California is today, the country will be 5 years from now. The liberals and their socialist agendas have taken over the state and destroyed it. We now have the environmentalist bureaucracy running rampant throughout the state, controlling zoning laws, housing permits and destroying private property rights.
M. Levin-
Planners want to herd millions into densely packed urban corridors. It won't save the planet but will make traffic even worse.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... TopOpinion
By WENDELL COX
It's no secret that California's regulatory and tax climate is driving business investment to other states. California's high cost of living also is driving people away. Since 2000 more than 1.6 million people have fled, and my own research as well as that of others points to high housing prices as the principal factor.
The exodus is likely to accelerate. California has declared war on the most popular housing choice, the single family, detached home—all in the name of saving the planet.
Metropolitan area governments are adopting plans that would require most new housing to be built at 20 or more to the acre, which is at least five times the traditional quarter acre per house. State and regional planners also seek to radically restructure urban areas, forcing much of the new hyperdensity development into narrowly confined corridors.
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Transportation consultant Wendell Cox on why California pols want to force people into denser urban housing.
In San Francisco and San Jose, for example, the Association of Bay Area Governments has proposed that only 3% of new housing built by 2035 would be allowed on or beyond the "urban fringe"—where current housing ends and the countryside begins. Over two-thirds of the housing for the projected two million new residents in these metro areas would be multifamily—that is, apartments and condo complexes—and concentrated along major thoroughfares such as Telegraph Avenue in the East Bay and El Camino Real on the Peninsula.
For its part, the Southern California Association of Governments wants to require more than one-half of the new housing in Los Angeles County and five other Southern California counties to be concentrated in dense, so-called transit villages, with much of it at an even higher 30 or more units per acre.
To understand how dramatic a change this would be, consider that if the planners have their way, 68% of new housing in Southern California by 2035 would be condos and apartment complexes. This contrasts with Census Bureau data showing that single-family, detached homes represented more than 80% of the increase in the region's housing stock between 2000 and 2010.
The campaign against suburbia is the result of laws passed in 2006 (the Global Warming Solutions Act) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and in 2008 (the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act) on urban planning. The latter law, as the Los Angeles Times aptly characterized it, was intended to "control suburban sprawl, build homes closer to downtown and reduce commuter driving, thus decreasing climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions." In short, to discourage automobile use.
If the planners have their way, the state's famously unaffordable housing could become even more unaffordable.
Over the past 40 years, median house prices have doubled relative to household incomes in the Golden State. Why? In 1998, Dartmouth economist William Fischel found that California's housing had been nearly as affordable as the rest of the nation until the more restrictive regulations, such as development moratoria, urban growth boundaries, and overly expensive impact fees came into effect starting in the 1970s. Other economic studies, such as by Stephen Malpezzi at the University of Wisconsin, also have documented the strong relationship between more intense land-use regulations and exorbitant house prices.
The love affair urban planners have for a future ruled by mass transit will be obscenely expensive and would not reduce traffic congestion. In San Diego, for example, an expanded bus and rail transit system is planned to receive more than half of the $48.4 billion in total highway and transit spending through 2050. Yet transit would increase its share of travel to a measly 4% from its current tiny 2%, according to data in the San Diego Association of Governments regional transportation plan. This slight increase in mass transit ridership would be swamped by higher traffic volumes.
Higher population densities in the future means greater traffic congestion, because additional households in the future will continue to use their cars for most trips. In the San Diego metropolitan area, where the average one-way work trip travel time is 28 minutes, only 14% of work and higher education locations could be reached within 30 minutes by transit in 2050. But 70% or more of such locations will continue to be accessible in 30 minutes by car.
Rather than protest the extravagance, California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris instead has sued San Diego because she thinks transit was not favored enough in the plan and thereby violates the legislative planning requirements enacted in 2006 and 2008. Her predecessor (Jerry Brown, who is now the governor) similarly sued San Bernardino County in 2007.
California's war on suburbia is unnecessary, even considering the state's lofty climate-change goals. For example, a 2007 report by McKinsey, co-sponsored by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council, concluded that substantial greenhouse gas emissions reductions could be achieved while "traveling the same mileage" and without denser urban housing. The report recommended cost-effective strategies such as improved vehicle economy, improving the carbon efficiency of residential and commercial buildings, upgrading coal-fired electricity plants, and converting more electricity production to natural gas.
Ali Modarres of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles has shown that a disproportionate share of migrating households are young. This is at least in part because it is better to raise children with backyards than on condominium balconies. A less affordable California, with less attractive housing, could disadvantage the state as much as its already destructive policies toward business.
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Seems my preconceptions are what should have been burned...
I AM MINE
October 28, 2009
UN Agenda 21 - Coming to a Neighborhood near You
By Scott Strzelczyk and Richard Rothschild
Most Americans are unaware that one of the greatest threats to their freedom may be a United Nations program known as Agenda 21. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Sustainable Development created Agenda 21 as a sustainability agenda which is arguably an amalgamation of socialism and extreme environmentalism brushed with anti-American, anti-capitalist overtones.
A detailed history on sustainable development, definitions, and critical actions can be found here. Section III of the Agenda 21 Plan addresses local community sustainable development. The Preamble and Chapter 28 discuss how Agenda 21 should be implemented at a local level. The United Nations purposely recommends avoiding the term Agenda 21 and suggests a cleverly named alternative: "smart growth." The United Nations Millennium Papers - Issue 2 (page 5) says this of Agenda 21 and smart growth:
Participating in a UN-advocated planning process would very likely bring out many of the conspiracy-fixated groups and individuals in our society such as the National Rifle Association, citizen militias and some members of Congress. This segment of our society who fear 'one-world government' and a UN invasion of the United States through which our individual freedom would be stripped away would actively work to defeat any elected official who joined 'the conspiracy' by undertaking LA21. So, we call our process something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management, or smart growth [emphasis added].
Undoubtedly, residents of any town, county, or city in the United States that treasure their freedom, liberty, and property rights couldn't care less whether it's called Agenda 21 or smart growth. A recent example of this can be found in Carroll County, Maryland, where a smart growth plan called Pathways was drafted by the County Planning Department. The plan, if enacted, proposed a breathtaking reshuffling of land rights:
Rezoning of thousands of acres of beautiful, low-density agricultural farmland and protected residential conservation land into office parks
Down-zoning of agriculture land to prevent future subdivision by farmers
Up-zoning of low-density residential land around small towns into higher density zoning to permit construction of hundreds or possibly thousands of inclusive housing units, including apartments and condominiums
Inclusive housing with placement of multi-family construction on in-fill lots within existing residential single family communities
Endorsement of government-sponsored housing initiatives (subsidies) to ensure healthier, balanced neighborhoods
Carroll County, Maryland is one of 1,168 cities, towns, and counties worldwide that are members of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) - Local Governments for Sustainability, which is an international association of local governments as well as national and regional local government organizations that have made a commitment to sustainable development. The ICLEI mission statement closely resembles that of Agenda 21. In fact, the ICLEI has Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council and coordinates local government representation in the UN processes related to Agenda 21.
Community leaders working together in Carroll County recently defended their county against overreaching smart growth initiatives. Richard Rothschild, a candidate for Commissioner, emphatically remarks, "Smart growth is not science; it is political dogma combined with an insidious dose of social engineering. Smart growth is a wedding wherein zoning code is married with government-sponsored housing initiatives to accomplish government's goal of social re-engineering. It urbanizes rural towns with high-density development, and gerrymanders population centers through the use of housing initiatives that enable people with weak patterns of personal financial responsibility to acquire homes in higher-income areas. This has the effect of shifting the voting patterns of rural municipalities from Right to Left."
Smart growth plans usurp property rights and constitutional rights. Local officials, at the behest of State Government, revise zoning laws to fit into a "smart code" zoning template. A massive reshuffling of property rights ensues. Farmers may lose subdivision rights; conservation land adjacent to population centers may be rezoned into commercial employment centers; and low-density land in small towns is re-designated as growth area and rezoned to accommodate diverse housing including high-density apartments and condominiums.
Finally, a healthy dose of federal- or state-sponsored housing initiatives is embraced to ensure communities are properly balanced. The net effect of these plans is to create highly urbanized population centers throughout otherwise-rural counties, while simultaneously limiting the availability of land for suburban and estate subdivisions, as these are considered an unsustainable waste of land by Agenda 21 disciples.
Clearly, smart growth plans will impact Americans' future choices in where and how they live. Furthermore, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal and state agencies may attempt to deny grant funds to states and cities that do not adopt smart growth plans.
Most Americans will remain unaware of the implications of smart growth and Agenda 21 until after it is promulgated in their own backyards. Ironically, these plans are more insidious than the Eminent Domain ruling by the Supreme Court in the case of Kelo v City of New London. Under Eminent Domain rulings, property owners usually receive compensation for their losses.
Conversely, smart growth municipal plans, required by statute, enable municipalities to change zoning laws and engage in other regulatory actions that devalue property, restrict off-conveyances, and otherwise erode property values without payment of any compensation to the property owner.
Smart growth has another interesting unintended consequence: it can disrupt conventional alliances and lead to strange political bedfellows. Rural urbanization plans may raise the ire of environmental groups while simultaneously stirring the wrath of both conservative and liberal residents that want to maintain the rural fabric of their communities. Conversely, developers, sensing opportunity, may side with government smart growth bureaucrats in support of these plans.
Regardless of political orientation, two indisputable facts remain. Agenda 21 is a direct assault on private property rights and American sovereignty, and it is coming to a neighborhood near you.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/archived ... neigh.html at April 10, 2012 - 10:34:10 AM CDT
http://www.endofsuburbia.com/
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Excellent movie. Have you seen Sprawling from Grace?
http://www.sprawlingfromgrace.com/
Seems my preconceptions are what should have been burned...
I AM MINE