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Land Use

Speakers’ Series on Planning for Sustainable Communities (with webcast)
April 10, 2008 - Jun 5 2008
Published by Washington Chapter of the American Planning Association (original article)

The Washington Chapter of the APA is offering a training series on climate change and sustainability issues. For those who can't make it to the University of Washington, the sessions will be available as webcasts for three months after they take place.

Fighting global warming block by block
Published 4 May 2008 by The Washington Post (original article)

Here's a simple test you can apply to every new public works project, building plan or government land purchase: Will it increase the region's total greenhouse-gas emissions, or reduce them? That test is courtesy of King County, Washington's Executive Ron Sims, but state, regional, and city governments across the country are taking action to make sure development doesn't undermine their energy and emissions goals.

Live Webinar: Playbook for Green Buildings and Neighborhoods Project
October 7, 2008 - Oct 7 2008
Published by National Association of Counties (original article)

The Playbook for Green Buildings and Neighborhoods: Strategic Local Climate Solutions, a web-based resource, provides strategies, tips, and tools that counties can use to take immediate action on climate change through: green building, green neighborhoods, and sustainable infrastructure. The Playbook is designed both for communities that are considering making the first steps toward these, as well as for those who want to take existing efforts to a new level.

Report/Paper: Draft planning guidelines on Sustainable Residential Development in Urban Areas (Ireland)
Published 10 February 2008 by Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (Ireland) (original article)

"An ever-expanding footprint of our urban areas is not sustainable," says John Gormley, Ireland's Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. That department has just released a new set of planning guidelines for sustainable residential development in urban areas.

A new blueprint for Levittown
Published 17 January 2008 by TIME Magazine (original article)

The US's first suburb, Levittown, is launching a program to encourage energy efficiency upgrades in its homes. Volunteers are going door-to-door to publicize house upgrades that could improve the community's carbon footprint by 20%. But "having a green neighborhood and a green home are two different things" --although greening the houses is a step forward, the suburban form creates much greater impacts by requiring car use.

Cool Spots, bright idea
Published 15 January 2008 by New Urban News (original article)
Land use and transportation planning are keys to making cities more resilient in the face of energy and climate uncertainty. But what might climate- and energy-smart communities look like, and what tools are available to help plan them? This article from New Urban News describes a technique for planning walkable neighborhoods, developed by Criterion Planners of Portland, Oregon and the US Natural Resources Defense Council. "My intent is to put the methodology in the public domain," says Eliot Allen of Criterion. "Climate change is too important to be proprietary."
SCUPAD 2008: Planning for the Carbon Neutral World: Challenges for Cities and Regions
May 15, 2008 - May 18 2008
Published by Salzburg Congress on Urban Planning and Development (original article)

The major challenge facing this and the next generation of architects, planners and builders is how to develop land use patterns that respond to the demands of the post-carbon age and provide a high quality of life for future generations. How our profession adapts to the need for reducing dependency on fossil fuels and contributes to the use of new technologies and approaches to planning and development that foster sustainability is critically important and will be the focus of this year’s Salzburg Congress on Urban Planning and Development.

Report/Paper: Planning policy principles for climate change response
Published by California Chapter, American Planning Association (original article)

A paper released by the California Chapter of the American Planning Association that recommends basic and important policy principles to guide planning-related actions needed to effectively respond to greenhouse gas emission and climate change challenges. The principles are organized by level of government: State, regional, and local.

Address climate change through land use
Published 29 January 2008 by San Francisco Chronicle (original article)

City and county governments have the ability and opportunity to help California achieve its emissions reduction goals because they are the agencies responsible for creating local community land planning policy. Many cities and counties in Northern California have already done so with impressive results, and even more are following their lead.

My other car is a bright green city
Published 23 January 2008 by WorldChanging (original article)

Alex Steffen of WorldChanging on why developing low-emissions vehicles is nowhere near as important as developing more compact, efficient and livable cities. Focus on new automotive technologies can distract us from the much more effective strategy of building in less-consumptive ways.



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Post Carbon Cities: Helping local governments understand and respond to the challenges of peak oil and global warming.
Post Carbon Cities is a program of Post Carbon Institute, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization incorporated in the United States.