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The Planetizen News Brief - 1/29/09

29 January 2009 - 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

Fresh in the Oval Office, new President Barack Obama has reversed a controversial Bush Administration decision and has called on federal regulators to reconsider a plan by California and 13 other states to require stricter fuel and emission standards for automobiles. Obama has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to look once more at the proposal, which will require automakers to increase the mileage of their cars and trucks beyond the current national standard. According to an article in The New York Times, the move is expected to meet harsh opposition from automakers, who successfully lobbied against the plan for states to enact their own pollution and mileage standards in late 2007. But with a new administration in power, the proposal’s second look is expected to meet federal approval.

And meanwhile, in struggling communities across the country, the downturn in the housing market may have some redeeming qualities. A recent article from the Land Use Accountability Project looks at a growing pool of communities that are buying up and conserving land that had been slated for development before the bust. Open space is being saved or created in communities across the country, including the Eastern Pennsylvania Township of Buckingham, which secured a conservation easement to preserve 200 acres of land. The $5 million sale effectively blocked nearly 100 homes from being built on the land, which is protected by the easement for all time. Other communities are pulling similar sales to protect land, even in a tight economy. Land conservancies and other groups are also pitching in to buy up cheap land as developers ditch projects and values fall. Despite the downsides of the market crunch, at least some communities are able to make lemonade.

And as the economic recession spreads around the globe, an economic stimulus plan is on nearly everybody’s mind. But while the U.S. waffles over its plan, China is two months deep into an economic bailout that has the entire country undergoing a major transportation facelift. The New York Times recently reported on this stimulus package, which has dedicated hundreds of billions of dollars to new highway and rail projects, including new freight rail capacity and a $24 billion high speed rail line from Beijing to Southern China. A total of $88 billion will be spent on inter-city rail lines alone, and many are calling this the biggest single advancement of rail mobility since the U.S. built its own rail network in the early 1900s. As China flashes forward with its broad countrywide plan, the U.S. stimulus remains mired in politics and almost certain to disappoint.

Stories discussed in this week's Planetizen News Brief

Obama To EPA: Allow CA To Set Its Own Emission Standards

Turning Unbuilt Project Sites Into Open Space

Stimulus Gets Transportation Projects Moving - In China

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Instead of demeaning so-called "third world cities", we would do well to observe, understand, and adapt such approach on a much more widescale basis.
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