The architects and supporters of the Sustainable Development movement both abroad and at home are routinely in the process of changing terms to define their initiatives and agenda. In fact, the early implementers of Agenda 21 in America knew better than to call this...
Yesterday I posted an article by Mimi Steele, President of Citizens Alliance for Property Rights, SF Bay Chapter, that describes the disastrous consequences to the future economy and quality of life in the San Francisco Bay area after a vote by ABAG and MTC to approve...
By, Mimi Steel, Exclusive to the California Political News and Views, 7/21/13 On July 18, 2013, the city of Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. On that same day, just before midnight, a group of unelected, regional bureaucrats in the San Francisco Bay Area voted...
KPBS’s article Are Cycle Tracks a Better Way to Bike? published today weighs in on alternatives to bike lanes such as cycle tracks and in doing so presumes that the bike modal share in U.S. cities must be significant enough to warrant this discussion and that...
Chicago Tribune re-printed a Reuters’ article yesterday called California City Eyes Carbon Credit Revenue from its Trees. I have posted an excerpt below as a follow up to an article I wrote on the subject on June 1, 2012, Counting Trees in San Diego.* The...
In the mid-1800s, Alexis de Toqueville, a French political thinker and historian, shared his thoughts about how Americans might lose their sovereignty if they became apathetic and lost their civic virtue. In his book called Democracy in America, de Toqueville...
Today and in the past, social engineers have been defining the ideal plan for human settlements. The Thoreau Institute published an article in May 2005 called Smart Growth and the Ideal City.1 In the article, what appears to be a contemporary description of smart...
Every American has the opportunity to own private property and for those who own land or who dream of owning land, their American Dream is threatened by a massive initiative known to us now as Smart Growth/Sustainable Development. As our country copes with dwindling...
newgeography.com just published My Free Range Life! This is a great honor. Newgeography is a national blog that focuses on “economic, demographic and political commentary about places”. In the vast ocean of public commentary about land use and the...
Recently, while scanning the news in the San Diego Union Tribune, I came across this article about “Taking Inventory of County’s Trees”. The article describes Robin Rivet’s “ambitious effort to map every urban tree in San Diego...
The American Planning Association developed a smart growth planning ‘newspeak’ during the 90s. Planning departments all around the country are adopting this new language. Click here for more buzz words. These photos are evidence that smart growth planning...
Welcome to Exurbia Chronicles! Many of you may have never heard of the term exurbia before now. According to the free on-line dictionary it means: The exurbs collectively; the region beyond the suburbs. Exurbia to me is an expression that defines a free range...