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The Planetizen News Brief

30 October 2008 - 5:00am
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

So much of policy ends at the border. Whether it’s a city or a county or a country, the edge of a place is typically the end of policy jurisdiction. But some issues don’t stop neatly at the border, like water. With this in mind, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization -- or UNESCO -- has created a map of the world’s underground water resources. The map shows all the aquifers of the world, layers of saturated rock and sediment below the surface that are pumped to provide drinking water and agricultural irrigation all across the planet. According to a recent article in New Scientist, more than 200 of these aquifers cross international borders. UNESCO released the map with the intention of easing international agreements over this shared and valuable resource. Knowing where these aquifers lie, experts say, will help to guide water policy -- and determine when that policy needs to go beyond international borderlines.

And in Boston, huge civic projects are practically a way of life. The recently completed Big Dig freeway project was an inescapable part of the city for more than 20 years. Another huge infrastructure project, one less known but possibly more important, is the dredging of the Boston Harbor. For the last decade, the Army Corps of Engineers has been digging pretty much non-stop to make the harbor deep enough for the newest brand of large-scale cargo ships to get in to dock. According to the Boston Globe, the $100 million project is entering its final stages and is scheduled to be completed by year’s end. The dredging may not have had as much of an intrusive affect on the lives of Bostonians as the Big Dig, but officials estimate that the economic benefit of the harbor update could be equal if not greater.

Meanwhile, on Election Day in New Orleans, voters will find on their ballots an amendment to the city charter that could have a huge impact on the way the city is developed. The amendment would grant the force of law to the city’s master plan. This means that all land use and zoning decisions would have to comply exactly with its rules. Without this force of law, projects and land use applications often receive exemptions, according to a recent article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The proposed change in the city charter would give the master plan greater authority over land use in the city, as opposed to the current system, which some say is too easy to bend. But critics argue that the master plan shouldn’t be able to wield this much power – not yet anyway. The New Orleans master plan is still being written and won’t be finished until late 2009.

Stories discussed in this week's Planetizen News Brief

World's Underground Waters Mapped

Boston's Other Big Dig

New Orleans Planning By Force of Law

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"To ignore this space is shortsighted." -- Jennifer Wolch, Director of the USC Center for Sustainable Cities
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