Report From Smart Growth Conference: Seattle, 2010

The 9th annual New Partners for Smart Growth Conference: Building Safe, Health, and Livable Communities" conference held Feb 4 - 6, 2010, in Seattle, WA was an inspiring experience for Kamala Barbara Joy of Earth Matters, Inc.

Over 1,700 attendees including elected officials, city, county, regional, state and federal planners at the technical, policy and executive levels, non-profits, academics, consultants, business representatives, and senior cabinet level officials were in attendance.

Organized by the Local Government Commissionwww.lgc.org and sponsored by over 100 organizations and agencies, many of whom belong, like Earth Matters, to the Smart Growth Networkwww.smartgrowth.org, the conference explored topics such as climate change, environmental justice, transportation, green building, green infrastructure, land preservation, schools, public health, and many other topics in break-out sessions, implementation workshops and training workshops. Despite the enormous variety of topics covered, the conference was organized in a manner that allowed participants to go into considerable depth in topics of expertise while gaining a firm foundation in newer topics.

During the opening plenary the secretaries of HUD, DOT, and assistant administrator of the EPA communicated their vision for a new America and clearly meant it: as the EPA representative put it, "we're getting up in each other's business" as they meet, plan, and co-review grantee applications and proposed regulations and guidelines.

During the three days of sessions, issues as diverse as tools for modeling emission benefits of land use changes to obesity and Complete Streets programs were attended by equally diverse groups of people. Personally, to hear the persepectives of CDC, EPA, city council members, visionaries, realtors, the AARP, transit agencies, biologists, attorneys, planners, the American Heart Association, just to give a flavor, was unprecedented for me, and inspiring.

The conference concluded with a speech by Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and a rousing 30 minute call to action by Ron Simms, deputy administrator of HUD that ended with a standing ovation and thundrous applause.

I'm looking forward to presenting next year!

Backing down on climate change
Washington appears to have lost its appetite for attacking the problem of global warming.
Editorial
February 05, 2010. LA Times.

If changes in the public mood and the party alignment of the U.S. Senate have stalled healthcare legislation, they may have thrown the highly anticipated climate bill under a bus.

Even before Republican Scott Brown's stunning election to the Senate in traditionally Democratic Massachusetts last month, it was proving hard to corral moderate Democrats to support a bill capping greenhouse gas emissions. Now they're afraid to back anything that could be perceived as harmful to the economy. "Realistically, the cap-and-trade bills in the House and the Senate are going nowhere," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told the New York Times. That's a distressing comment coming from one of the three senators supposedly crafting a compromise climate bill that's capable of achieving a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Complete editorial available at http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/05/opinion/la-ed-climate5-2010feb05.