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The Planetizen News Brief

8 November 2007 - 6:00am
Smart City Radio

The Planetizen News Brief is a weekly rundown of some of the most interesting and important news and issues of the past week.

The Planetizen News Brief airs every week on the nationally-syndicated radio program "Smart City", which is broadcast in cities across the U.S. Learn more about Smart City and listen to archived shows.

Full Transcript

Water is running out in metropolitan Atlanta, and the drought of this most-crucial natural resource is a huge problem. 5 million residents are struggling to come to terms with the drought’s effects on their otherwise comfortable urban lifestyles. But a recent article from the Los Angeles Times points out that even though the problem is big and the impacts broadly felt, metro Atlanta probably could have avoided this whole situation with just a little bit more foresight. Despite a population that nearly doubled between 1990 and today, very little was done to encourage the conservation of water in the area – a resource that is primarily drawn from a far-off reservoir in northern Georgia. A regional plan was drafted, however, but few metro counties chose to abide. And as projections foresee 2 million more people adding to the population by 2030, local governments are finally coming around to the idea that the status quo may not be the best policy.

Meanwhile, with much talk of traffic congestion issues and road pricing seeping into the minds of public officials in the country’s biggest cities, a transportation researcher is looking beyond the hype to more closely examine these ideas. In a recent piece published in the San Francisco Chronicle, researcher Gabriel Roth looks at how road pricing would only achieve its goals of reducing congestion if the private companies who operate the toll roads were able to reinvest revenues into building more roads as the market demands. This approach probably seems unconventional to the road pricing advocates who push it as a way to get more people out of their cars, but Roth argues that private companies would be much more efficient at building roads at the appropriate times than leaving that responsibility to the government. Roth argues this market-based private-sector approach to building roads as they are demanded not as they are affordable will be able to sustainably achieve traffic congestion reduction in the long term.

And finally, cities in California are taking steps to protect their industrial lands from being turned into housing. As cities nationwide experience a high demand for housing, industrial areas in many cities are rapidly being erased and reworked into loft-style housing and condominiums. Cities across the state are implementing strict regulations to make sure their industrial areas are preserved for their intended industrial uses. According to a recent article from the California Planning and Development Report, cities like San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and now some cities in Southern California are drafting tight zoning regulations that keep factories from turning into housing. Some cities are hesitant to impose such strict zoning regulations, arguing that industrial uses are becoming obsolete in the modern age. But many of the Bay Area cities that have imposed the regulations are already seeing the benefits, as job rates grow and new industries move in to what are becoming rare industrial sites.

Stories discussed in this week's Planetizen News Brief

Water Hog Metropolis

Road Pricing Is Best When Revenues Go To More Roads

Saying 'No' To Housing: Cities Defend Industrial Lands

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