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Smart Growth In A Dumb Growth Landscape

Posted by: Chris Steins
Thanks to: Chris Steins
31 January 2005 - 11:00am

Smart growth won't work in a 'dumb growth' landscape, says the city manager for Ventura, California. He offers an alternative model for growth.

Rick Cole, currently the City Manager of Ventura, California, has been for years a leading Southern California voice for good government and planning. Cole has been City Manager of Azusa, and before that served as Mayor of Pasadena. The Planning Report publishes excerpts from a recent speech he delivered as part of the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development's Urban Growth Seminar lecture series, titled "Smart Growth in Southern California: How Pasadena Made It Happen; How Ventura Will Make It Happen."

"...Here's the problem: We keep trying to do smart growth projects in a 'dumb growth' landscape. And we wonder why they don’t work. It’s like trying to run Microsoft Word on an Apple computer. We get all these error messages, and it’s really frustrating. And yet, we keep trying to do smart growth projects. Instead, we have to establish a new operating system...New Urbanism."

Full Story: Rick Cole Offers A Realizable Smart Growth Vision
Source: The Planning Report, January 30, 2005
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The decision to abandon a property is a symptom of the loss of confidence. And while abandonment certainly affects confidence among surrounding homeowners, the most important question to answer is not "how do we deal with abandoned properties?" but "what is the most cost-effective way to restore market confidence, and how do abandoned properties fit into that picture?"
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