SHARE
It is an honor to follow Gregory K. Ingram as the fifth president of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (see page 28), and to join you for my inaugural issue of Land Lines. It will be a challenge to live up to Greg’s accomplished leadership and remarkably productive years at the helm of the Institute since 2005. I hope that I can combine my skills and experience with Lincoln’s formidable tools and talented staff to continue its singular mission: connecting scholars, public officials, and business leaders to blend theory and practice in land policy in order to address a broad range of social, economic, and environmental challenges.
Tectonic forces—natural, man-made, or both—are reshaping our planet. As we contend with climate change, accelerating urbanization in Asia and Africa, the aging of populations in Europe and North America, the suburbanization of poverty in the United States, and the financial insolvency of American cities, the land use decisions we make today will dictate the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people for the next century. Comprehensive plans and policies that equitably govern land use, political and social systems that ensure sustainability, and sound economic analyses to address these challenges are in critical demand and will remain so for decades to come.
Lincoln Institute affiliates explore these matters in this issue of Land Lines. The 2013 Lincoln/Loeb Fellow Lynn Richards, incoming president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, lays out 10 nifty steps U.S. communities have taken to make their suburbs more pedestrian-friendly, with affordable housing to offset the suburbanization of poverty and with denser mixed-use development and public transit to reduce automobile use and help to slow climate change. Architect and 2014 Lincoln/Loeb Fellow Helen Lochhead discusses the winners of Rebuild by Design, the international competition that fostered design innovations that will integrate resilience, sustainability, and livability in the re-gions affected by Superstorm Sandy. Public Affairs Director Anthony Flint reports on Lincoln’s seventh annual Journalists Forum on Land and the Built Environment, which explored prospects for making smarter, more equitable infrastructure investments in 21st-century cities. Finally, in the Faculty Profile, Lincoln’s senior research analyst Adam Langley discusses the Institute’s Fiscally Standardized Cities (FiSCs) database—a newly developed tool that will provide the foundation for important new analyses that will guide local responses to fiscal challenges in the United States.
And just a little about me. Over the last 14 years, I worked at the Ford Foundation, where I occupied a unique perch within global philanthropy that allowed me to support, demonstrate, and test new approaches to solve vexing social problems. Some of my proudest accomplishments include founding the National Vacant and Abandoned Properties Campaign and helping to build and grow the nation’s field of shared-equity housing through collaborations with the National Community Land Trust Network and other partner organizations. I helped to design and then took leadership of Metropolitan Opportunity, the Foundation’s next generation of community and economic development programming, which seeks to reduce the spatial isolation of disadvantaged populations in metropolitan regions by integrating land use planning, affordable housing development, and infrastructure investment to better serve all residents.
I came to Ford with a research background in housing, economics, and public policy analysis. I enjoyed the opportunity to work with scholars across the globe on issues as diverse as the birth of the environmental movement in Russia, the role of trade imbalances and debt in driving macroeconomic cycles, and the impact of homeownership on the lives of low-income families. I played the role of teacher and mentor to thousands of students and have tracked their successes with great pride. I presented research, advocated for policy change, and enjoyed successful collaborations with researchers, advocates, and public officials on four continents. And now I am delighted and honored to join you in this venture with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
SHARE
Siendo estudiante universitario de diseño y planificación urbana, Matt Tomasulo organizó un ingenioso proyecto de señalización de calles para animar a los residentes de Raleigh, Carolina del Norte, a caminar en lugar de usar el automóvil. Junto con un grupo de cómplices, diseñó y produjo 27 carteles de plástico (Coroplast) de 30 cm2, en los que imprimió mensajes sencillos como “Camine 7 minutos para llegar al cementerio de la ciudad de Raleigh”, con un código de color según la categoría de destino y una flecha que apuntaba en la dirección correspondiente. El grupo fijó estos carteles con sujeciones de plástico en los postes de los semáforos y similares en torno a tres intersecciones de calles en el centro de la ciudad. Les llevó menos de 45 minutos instalar todos los carteles (lo hicieron por la noche, ya que, aunque los carteles parecían señales oficiales, este proyecto se consideraba “no autorizado”, como dijo Tomasulo).
Como era de esperarse, el municipio retiró los carteles. Y esto podría haber sido el fin de la acción: un gesto provocativo y una pieza ingeniosa más en su cartera de diseño. Sin embargo, Walk Raleigh ha experimentado una metamorfosis inesperada desde que apareció por primera vez en el año 2012 al evolucionar hasta lo que hoy se conoce como Walk [Your City] (WalkYourCity.org), un ambicioso intento por extender la idea subyacente de este proyecto por todo el país y trabajar junto con el municipio y los funcionarios encargados de la planificación, en lugar de esquivarlos. Este año, la joven organización de Tomasulo recibió un subsidio de US$182.000 de la Fundación Knight, que ha desencadenado una nueva fase del proyecto, que incluye el despliegue de una serie de carteles con un mensaje particularmente meditado, en coordinación con los funcionarios de San José, California.
Este resultado tan sorprendente se debe en gran medida a la utilización de la tecnología de una forma perspicaz, y quizá, todavía más, a las aportaciones de unos pocos funcionarios de planificación que vieron el potencial que encerraba lo que podría haber sido un divertido pero efímero recurso publicitario.
El objetivo principal de la idea original de Tomasulo era sondear e intentar provocar un cambio en las percepciones existentes sobre caminar: Tomasulo se había topado con una interesante investigación, según la cual la gente a menudo decide no caminar sencillamente porque el lugar de destino “parece” estar más lejos de lo que realmente está.
Los centros más antiguos, como el de Raleigh, por lo general “pueden caminarse más de lo que la gente piensa”, indica Julie Campoli, diseñadora urbana y autora del libro Made for Walking: Density and Neighborhood Form (Hecho para caminar: Densidad y forma del barrio), publicado en 2012 por el Instituto Lincoln. Sin embargo, en muchos casos, décadas de ingeniería de tráfico han socavado la idea de la posibilidad de caminar por los entornos construidos, en donde la señalización está colocada para que la vean los conductores, y cuya información sobre distancias está expresada en un formato dirigido a los automóviles, es decir, en millas. Según Campoli, en su mayoría “las calles están diseñadas para los automóviles”.
Tomasulo realizó una investigación por su cuenta en Raleigh, preguntando a los vecinos y otras personas si, por ejemplo, estarían dispuestos a ir a cierto supermercado caminando en lugar de ir en automóvil si ello les llevara 14 minutos. La gente respondía: “Seguro… o, al menos algunas veces”, y Tomasulo les decía: “Bueno, en realidad el supermercado está a 12 minutos”. Según Tomasulo, “Tuve esta conversación una y otra vez. La gente me decía: ‘Siempre pensé que estaba muy lejos para ir caminando’”.
Por ello, los carteles originales de Tomasulo estaban colocados al nivel de los ojos de los peatones y describían las distancias en minutos hasta un destino en particular que podría interesarles. Tomasulo documentó y promovió el proyecto en Facebook. El entusiasmo que generó en la red social captó la atención de los medios de comunicación, lo que culminó nada menos que con la visita de un equipo de filmación de la BBC.
Fue entonces cuando Tomasulo se comunicó por Twitter con Mitchell Silver, por entonces director de planificación de Raleigh y expresidente de la Asociación Estadounidense de Planificación. Silver no sabía mucho acerca de Walk Raleigh, pero igualmente aceptó hablar con la BBC sobre lo buenas que eran las actividades que fomentaban el caminar, elogiando esta iniciativa como un ejemplo “genial”… que primero debería haber obtenido un permiso. Este documental despertó aún mayor atención. Y cuando, como resultado, se recibieron consultas sobre la legalidad de los carteles, el mismo Silver los retiró y se los devolvió a Tomasulo.
No obstante, Silver también reconoció la gran oportunidad. El plan integral a largo plazo de Raleigh ponía explícitamente énfasis en el fomento de los espacios para caminar (y para andar en bicicleta), una cuestión que tocaba de cerca a la población notablemente joven de este municipio, que crecía rápidamente (en ese entonces, cerca del 70 por ciento de la población tenía menos de 47 años de edad). “Realmente se volvió un tema crucial”, recuerda Silver. “¿Vamos a aceptar la innovación? ¿Walk Raleigh hizo algo incorrecto o nuestros códigos están desactualizados?”, se pregunta Silver, actualmente comisionado del Departamento de Parques y Recreación de la Ciudad de Nueva York. “La innovación pone a prueba las normas. Matt, sin darse cuenta, nos puso a prueba”.
¿Cuál fue la solución a corto plazo? Tomasulo podría donar sus carteles al municipio, que luego los reinstalaría según un “programa educativo piloto”. Para ayudar a Silver a convencer al Concejo Municipal, Tomasulo utilizó la herramienta de firma de peticiones en línea SignOn.org y recolectó 1.255 firmas en tres días. El Concejo aprobó unánimemente el regreso de Walk Raleigh.
Tomasulo fue un poco más allá (por entonces había concluido sus estudios, y tenía una maestría en planificación de ciudades y regiones por la Universidad de Carolina del Norte, sede de Chapel Hill, y otra maestría en arquitectura de paisajes por la Universidad Estatal de Carolina del Norte): recabó fondos por US$11.364 en Kickstarter y, junto con sus socios, construyó WalkYourCity.org, un sitio web en el que se ofrecen plantillas de carteles personalizables para cualquier persona y cualquier lugar. Como resultado, más de cien comunidades de municipios tanto grandes como pequeños de todo el país (y del exterior también) generaron proyectos dirigidos por los ciudadanos.
Esto no debería sorprender, en vista de lo que Campoli describe como un creciente interés, tanto entre los ciudadanos como los planificadores, en el fomento de espacios para caminar. Según Campoli, el movimiento de crecimiento inteligente ha reavivado el interés por formatos de ciudad compactos, “y, en los últimos diez años, se ha producido una convergencia en torno a esta idea del fomento de espacios hechos para caminar”. Particularmente entre grupos demográficos clave (especialmente la generación del milenio y aquellos en la etapa del nido vacío), ha surgido un reconocimiento de que la cultura del automóvil “ya no es tan maravillosa como se pensaba”, observa Campoli.
Y existe además una dimensión económica para las ciudades, según la autora. Una forma de medir esto es el creciente aumento de los valores inmobiliarios asociados con los formatos más compactos y que ofrecen más posibilidades de caminar.
El factor de impacto económico inspiró, hace poco, la oportunidad de cooperar con funcionarios de San José, lo que se destaca como un ejemplo sobre cómo el urbanismo táctico puede llegar a tener una influencia verdadera en la planificación. Sal Alvarez, de la Oficina de Desarrollo Económico de la ciudad, era seguidor de WalkYourCity.org como plataforma abierta en línea, pero destaca que “la ciudad probablemente retirará los carteles. En realidad se necesita un precursor dentro de la organización”. Tanto él como Jessica Zenk, del Departamento de Transporte de la ciudad, asumieron esta función en San José y rápidamente pusieron en marcha tres programas piloto.
Cada programa es concentrado y estratégico. El primero aprovecha la popularidad del Mercado de la Plaza de San Pedro, inaugurado recientemente: una concentración de restaurantes y negocios en el centro de la ciudad de 3 km2. Es un destino muy frecuentado, aunque la gente suele ir y venir en automóvil sin explorar mucho el lugar. Por lo tanto, se colocó una serie de 47 carteles que indican diferentes atracciones en el contiguo distrito de la “Pequeña Italia”, un parque con muchísimos senderos para caminar, el estadio donde juega el equipo de la Liga Nacional de Hockey y un segundo parque que ha sido objeto de medidas de revitalización continuas. El segundo proyecto llevado a cabo en el centro de la ciudad consistió en reclutar a una docena de voluntarios que ayudaran a colocar 74 carteles con el propósito de conectar el distrito artístico SoFA de la ciudad con otros lugares importantes a los que se puede llegar caminando, como el centro de convenciones.
La popularidad de estos dos experimentos inspiró a un concejal a proponer un tercer programa dirigido a un barrio fuera del centro propiamente dicho. El proyecto consiste en convertir una carretera de cuatro carriles en una de dos carriles, con un carril en el medio para girar y otro carril para bicicletas que permita dejar un poco de lado el viaje en automóvil. Tomasulo ha agregado una nueva serie de diseños de señales con códigos de color que indican específicamente otras infraestructuras alternativas al automóvil, tales como sitios de alquiler de bicicletas y paradas del tren de California (CalTrain). El municipio ha estado recabando información sobre el tránsito en relación con este proyecto, a fin de poder medir el impacto de los aproximadamente 50 carteles colocados en 12 intersecciones de calles. Según Alvarez, los carteles son herramientas útiles para fomentar los cambios culturales que ayudan a que los cambios en infraestructura se afiancen.
En términos más generales, los funcionarios de San José están trabajando junto con Tomasulo para “poner algunas herramientas más en la caja” de Walk [Your City], con el fin de motivar y ayudar a los entusiastas a encontrar a sus propios paladines dentro de cada municipio, para que estos proyectos contribuyan al proceso de planificación. “Si no logramos que el municipio acepte la idea en algún momento”, indica Capoli, “no obtendremos el cambio permanente que pretende alcanzar una actuación de corto plazo”.
En cuanto a Raleigh, el proyecto original está evolucionando y transformándose en un aspecto permanente del paisaje, con campañas completamente planificadas y controladas en cuatro barrios y la formación de una sociedad con la empresa Blue Cross & Blue Shield. Y este es un claro ejemplo de lo que Silver proponía: una ciudad que recibe con los brazos abiertos un proyecto de urbanización comunitario, en lugar de limitarse a reglamentar.
Sin embargo, el ejemplo de San José demuestra hasta qué punto el extremo opuesto también es importante: el urbanismo táctico puede recibir beneficios de las estructuras de planificación oficial. A Tomasulo se lo ve realmente satisfecho al observar que este proyecto pasó de ser un experimento “no autorizado” a lograr asociaciones activas con paladines dentro del municipio de San José y otros lugares. Tomasulo acuña un término para referirse a los funcionarios cuyo entusiasmo, creatividad y sabiduría práctica para lograr cosas rompe con todos los estereotipos comunes. “No son burócratas”, señala. “Son herócratas”.
Rob Walker (robwalker.net) colabora con Yahoo Tech, Design Observer y The New York Times.
SHARE
This article reviews the Western State Planning Leadership Retreat, in which state planners from 13 western states have participated. The retreats provide a forum for state-level planners to compare their experiences, learn from each other’s successes and failures, and build a common base of experience for land use planning in their states and across the region. Rather than promote a particular approach to land use planning and growth management, the retreats encourage planners to explore a range of land use planning strategies for responding to growth and land use issues in the West. This article summarizes what we learned during the first two retreats in 2000 and 2001.
Forces and trends of land use planning. The West is changing and there are many differences in the states’ approach to land use planning. New forces and trends are redefining the region’s quality of life, communities, and landscapes—directly influencing how we approach land use planning and growth management. Within these trends, western state planners recognize a variety of common challenges—pockets of explosive population growth, sprawl, drought, out-of-date legislation, a lack of funding, and a lack of public and political support for planning, and changing the way development occurs.
Major themes related to land use planning and growth in the West;
Why plan? How can we build public and political support for planning? Historically, land use planning was motivated by a concern to promote orderly development of the landscape, preserve some open spaces, and provide consistency among developments. These continue to be important objectives, but they are insufficient for building public and political support.
What is the role of state government? State programs should support local land use planning efforts, and should try to engage the “big players,” such as transportation departments, to work with local jurisdictions and maintain their state’s economic competitiveness by encouraging local communities to improve their quality of life through infill, redevelopment, and preserving the natural environment.
How can regional approaches to land use planning complement state actions? Regionalism allows multiple jurisdictions to share common resources and manage joint services, such as water treatment facilities and roads. Regional approaches are gaining momentum, but they also create new challenges.
Foster effective planning and growth management through collaboration. Collaboration can be defined many ways, but most planners agree with the premise that if you bring together the right people with good information they will create effective, sustainable solutions to their shared problems. Collaboration, when done correctly, allows the people most affected by land use planning decisions to drive the decisions.
How do we measure success? In 1998, the Arizona legislature passed the Growing Smarter Act, which was amended in 2000, and created a Growing Smarter Commission. The act reformed land use planning and zoning policies and required more public participation in local land use planning. This brings us full circle to our first theme—Why are we planning?
The Three Cs of Planning—three recommendations emerge from the western state planners’ retreats that can be implemented throughout the country. First, identify the most compelling reason to plan in your community; second, rely on collaborative approaches; third, foster regional connections.
“This [the West] is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a society to match its scenery.”
Wallace Stegner, The Sound of Mountain Water (Penguin Books 1980, 38)
During the past two years, state planners in 13 western states have met in the Western State Planning Leadership Retreat, an annual event sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Western Consensus Council. Cosponsors include the Western Governors’ Association, the Council of State Governments–WEST, and the Western Planners’ Association. The retreats provide a forum for state-level planners to compare their experiences, learn from each other’s successes and failures, and build a common base of experience for planning in their states and across the region. Rather than promote a particular approach to planning and growth management, the retreats encourage planners to explore a range of strategies for responding to growth and land use issues in the West. This article summarizes what we have learned during the first two retreats in 2000 and 2001.
Forces and Trends
The West is changing. New forces and trends are redefining the region’s quality of life, communities and landscapes, directly influencing how we approach land use planning and growth management. One force that sets the West apart from other regions of the country is the overwhelming presence of the landscape. The West has more land and fewer people than any other region, yet is also very urbanized. More people live in urban centers than in rural communities.
The dominance of land in the politics and public policy of the West is due in part to the large amount of land governed by federal and tribal entities (see Figure 1). More than 90 percent of all federal land in the U.S. lies in Alaska and the 11 westernmost contiguous states. The U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manage most of the West’s geography and significantly influence the politics of land use decisions. Indian tribes govern one-fifth of the interior West and are key players in managing water, fish and wildlife.
The West is also the fastest growing region of the country (see Figure 2). The five fastest-growing states of the 1990s were Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Idaho. Between 1990 and 1998, the region’s cities grew by 25 percent and its rural areas by 18 percent, both significantly higher rates than elsewhere in the U.S. As western demographics diversify, the political geography has grown remarkably homogeneous. Following the 2000 elections, Republicans held three-quarters of the congressional districts in the interior West (see Figure 3) and all governorships except the coastal states of California, Oregon and Washington.
Within these trends, western state planners recognize a variety of common challenges—pockets of explosive population growth, sprawl, drought, out-of-date legislation, a lack of funding, and a lack of public and political support for planning and changing the way development occurs in the West. They also point out many differences in their states’ approaches to planning. Oregon and Hawaii have long-standing statewide land use planning efforts, but planning in Nevada is a recent phenomenon, limited mainly to the Las Vegas and Reno areas. Vast federal holdings in Nevada, Idaho and Utah dictate land use management more than in other states, and Arizona and New Mexico share planning responsibilities with many sovereign tribal governments. Alaska and Wyoming—with small populations and little or no growth—do very little planning.
Major Themes
Based on the first two retreats, we have identified six major themes related to planning and growth in the West.
Why plan? How can we build public and political support for planning? Historically, planning was motivated by a concern to promote orderly development of the landscape, preserve some open spaces, and provide consistency among developments. These continue to be important objectives, but they are insufficient for building public and political support. Particularly during economic recession, planning takes a back seat—the public can focus on only so many problems at once. Today, the most compelling argument for planning is that it can be a vehicle to promote economic development and sustain the quality of life. People move to the West and create jobs because they like the quality of life in the region, and planners need to tap into this motivation.
In Utah, for example, quality of life is an economic imperative, so state planners tie their work to enhancing quality of life rather than to limiting or directing growth. It is used to integrate economic vitality and environmental protection. Several years ago, business leaders and others created Envision Utah, a private-public partnership. Participants use visualization techniques and aerial photos, mapping growth as it might occur without planning, and then again under planned cluster developments with greenbelts and community centers. These “alternative futures” scenarios help citizens picture the changes that are coming and the alternatives for guiding those changes in their communities. As Utah’s state planner says, “Growth will happen, and our job is to preserve quality. That way, when growth slows, we will still have a high quality of life.”
Kent Briggs, executive director for the Council of State Governments–WEST (a regional association for state legislators), and Jim Souby, executive director of the Western Governors’ Association, acknowledge the difficulty of nurturing public and political support for growth management in the West. They agree that political power shifts quickly from one party to the other, and yet is a lagging indicator of cultural, demographic and economic change. Governors and legislators might be more convinced to support land use planning, they say, by using visualization techniques to help them understand the costs of existing patterns of development, and to picture the desired future of our communities and landscapes.
How much planning is enough, and who should be in the driver’s seat? Arizona and Colorado have smart growth programs designed to help communities plan for growth and preserve open space. In the November 2000 elections, citizen initiatives in both states introduced some of the nation’s most stringent planning requirements, but both initiatives failed by a 70 to 30 percent vote, suggesting that citizens want to maintain flexibility and freedom—and local control—when it comes to planning and growth management. The story is similar in Hawaii, where business profitability—not zoning maps—directs land use. In May 2001, Hawaii’s governor vetoed a smart growth initiative because it was perceived as being too environmental and would limit developers’ ability to convert agricultural lands.
This emphasis on home rule or local control is supported by a recent survey of citizens in Montana, conducted by the Montana Association of Realtors. In the survey, 67 percent of respondents said that city or county governments should have the power to make land use decisions, while 60 percent opposed increasing state involvement in managing growth-related problems.
In Oregon, citizens narrowly passed Measure 7, an initiative requiring state and local governments to pay private property owners for any regulations that restrict the use or reduce the value of real property. While the impacts and constitutionality of this initiative are still being debated, it sends a strong message to planners in a state that has had one of the most progressive land use and growth management programs for 25 years. The message, according to Oregon’s state planner, is to not rest on your successes, and to keep citizens and communities engaged in an ongoing discussion about the effectiveness of land use planning. He also stressed the need to balance preservation with appropriate development, emphasizing that “good planning doesn’t just place limits on growth and development.”
What is the role of state government? Douglas Porter, keynote speaker at the first retreat and a nationally known consultant on land use and growth policy, says that one of the most important state roles is to offset the lack of will to plan at the local level. He says that state programs should support local planning efforts, and should try to engage the “big players,” such as transportation departments, to work with local jurisdictions. Porter also suggests that state governments can maintain their state’s economic competitiveness by encouraging local communities to improve their quality of life through infill, redevelopment, and preserving the natural environment.
Oregon’s state government attracted $20 million in federal funding to help communities overhaul zoning ordinances and remove obstacles to mixed uses. Colorado created an Office of Smart Growth to provide technical assistance on comprehensive planning; document best practices for planning and development; maintain a list of qualified mediators for land use disputes; and provide grants for regional efforts in high growth areas. In Arizona, Montana and New Mexico, state planning offices provide a range of technical services to assist communities, such as clarifying state laws, promoting public participation, and fostering intergovernmental coordination.
Jim Souby suggests that one of the most effective roles of state government is to promote market-based strategies and tax incentives. “Tax what you don’t like, subsidize what you do like,” Souby says. Other incentives might include cost sharing and state investment strategies—similar to Maryland and Oregon—to drive development in a positive direction.
How can regional approaches to land use planning complement state actions? Regionalism allows multiple jurisdictions to share common resources and manage joint services, such as water treatment facilities and roads. In Washington, citizens recently rejected the top-down smart growth model popularized in Florida due to concerns over home rule and private property rights. In response, the state legislature approved a system of regional planning boards that instill some statewide consistency while allowing for regional and local differences.
Nevada, despite double-digit growth in the Las Vegas and Reno areas, does not have a state planning office. However, the legislature mandated Washoe County (home of Reno and Sparks) to create a regional planning commission to address growth issues jointly rather than in a piecemeal manner. Key municipal and county officials in Clark County (Las Vegas) formed their planning coalition voluntarily—compelled to cooperate by the highest growth rate in the nation. This coalition recently presented the state legislature with a regional plan that emphasizes resolving growth issues locally rather than at the state level.
In New Mexico, the city and county of Santa Fe each recently updated their comprehensive land use plans. The plans were fine, except that they were stand-alones prepared with no coordination. Citizens demanded better integration of planning efforts and pushed for a new regional planning authority. Within 18 months, citizens and officials developed a joint land use plan for the five-mile zone around the city, and the regional authority is now developing zoning districts and an annexation plan. In Idaho, city and county officials in Boise voluntarily created the Treasure Valley Partnership as a forum to discuss policies for controlling sprawl, and to coordinate the delivery of services. They are also reviewing the possibility of light rail development.
Regional approaches are gaining momentum, but they also create new challenges. For example, the city of Reno has been reluctant to join the neighboring city of Sparks and Washoe County in revising their regional plan. With no enforcement or penalty at the state level, the other jurisdictions can do little to encourage Reno’s involvement. Likewise, New Mexico has no policy framework for regional planning and thus no guidelines on how to share taxing authority, land use decision making and enforcement responsibilities.
Foster effective planning and growth management through collaboration. Collaboration can be defined many ways, but most planners agree with the premise that if you bring together the right people with good information they will create effective, sustainable solutions to their shared problems. Collaborative forums allow local officials to weigh and balance competing viewpoints, and to learn more about the issues at hand. According to Jim Souby, local efforts should incorporate federal land managers because they play such a dominant role in the region’s political geography. Kent Briggs agrees that collaboration, when done correctly, allows the people most affected by land use decisions to drive the decisions. Collaborative processes, when they include all affected interests, can generate enormous political power, even when such efforts do not have any formal authority. While it may be appropriate in some cases to have national or state goals, it is ultimately up to the people who live in the communities and watersheds of the West to determine their future, according to Briggs.
How do we measure success? In 1998, the Arizona legislature passed the Growing Smarter Act, which was amended in 2000, and created a Growing Smarter Commission. The act reformed land use planning and zoning policies and required more public participation in local planning. The commission recommended that the state should monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of land use planning on an ongoing basis. The governor recently appointed an oversight council to continue this work, but council members say that clear benchmarks are needed against which to evaluate the effectiveness of land use planning—a percentage of open space preserved, for example, or a threshold on new development that triggers tighter growth restrictions. Arizona law, however, simply identifies the issues that must be addressed in comprehensive land use plans. It does not set specific standards or expectations, making meaningful evaluation impossible. This brings us full circle to our first theme—Why are we planning?
The Three Cs of Planning
Three recommendations emerge from the western state planners’ retreats that can be implemented throughout the country.
First, identify the most compelling reason to plan in your community. What are you trying to promote, or prevent? Be explicit about the values driving the planning process. Emphasize the link between quality of life, economic development and land use planning as a way to sustain the economy and the environment. Remember that people must have meaningful reasons to participate constructively in the planning process.
Second, rely on collaborative approaches. Engage the full range of stakeholders, and do it in a meaningful way. A good collaborative process generates a broader understanding of the issues—since more people are sharing information and ideas—and also leads to more durable, widely supported decisions. Collaboration may also be the most effective way to accommodate the needs and interests of local citizens within a regional approach and when the state’s role is limited.
Third, foster regional connections. Recognize that planning is an ongoing process, not a product to be produced and placed on a shelf. Link the present to the future using visualization and alternative futures techniques. Build monitoring and evaluation strategies into plan implementation. Encourage regional approaches that build on a common sense of place and address transboundary issues. Emphasize that regionalism can lead to greater efficiencies and economies of scale by coordinating efforts and sharing resources.
Matthew McKinney is executive director of the Western Consensus Council in Helena, Montana, a nonprofit organization that helps citizens and officials shape effective natural resource and other public policy through inclusive, informed and deliberative public processes. Will Harmon is the communications coordinator for the Western Consensus Council and a freelance writer based in Helena.
References
Center for Resource Management. 1999. The Western Charter: Initiating a Regional Conversation. Boulder, CO: Center for Resource Management.
Kwartler, Michael. 1998. Regulating the good you can’t think of. Urban Design International 3(1):13-21.
Steinitz, Carl and Susan McDowell. 2001. Alternative futures for Monroe County, Pennsylvania: A case study in applying ecological principles, in Applying Ecological Principles to Land Management, edited by Virginia H. Dale and Richard A. Haeuber. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, 165-189.
Swanson, Larry. 1999. The emerging ‘new economy’ of the Rocky Mountain West: Recent change and future expectation. The Rocky Mountain West’s Changing Landscape 1(1):16-27.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2000. Environmental Planning for Communities: A Guide to the Environmental Visioning Process Utilizing a Geographic Information System (GIS). (September).
SHARE
Like many fast-growing areas across the country, the Bluegrass region of central Kentucky is dealing with two complementary growth management issues:
Civic leadership for this critical planning process is provided by Bluegrass Tomorrow, a non-profit, community-based organization formed in 1989 to ensure that the region’s extraordinary resources-physical, natural and fiscal-are soundly managed for the future. Bluegrass Tomorrow works within the seven-county area for solutions that build a strong and efficient economy, a protected environment and livable communities. The organization accomplishes its goals by promoting regional dialogue and collaborative goal-setting among diverse interests, facilitating public, private and corporate sector cooperation, and developing innovative planning solutions to growth and conservation concerns.
The guiding framework for Bluegrass Tomorrow is the Bluegrass Regional Vision that was developed in 1993 through a broad-based regional planning process. In seeking to maintain a clear definition between town and country, this Vision reflects the region’s legacy of a large urban center (Lexington) surrounded by smaller, distinct cities and towns. These communities are separated and yet connected by a beautiful greenbelt of agricultural land and areas rich in environmental and historic resources.
Smart Growth Choices
Continuing a partnership established in the early 1990s, the Lincoln Institute and Bluegrass Tomorrow cosponsored a conference in October that focused on smart growth choices for the region. The conference was designed to bring together public officials, business interests and concerned citizens to revisit the Regional Vision, discuss why that Vision remains important for good business, good cities and a good environment, and to explore how it is being unraveled by current development pressures. Through a combination of keynote addresses, plenary sessions and interactive workshops, participants learned about smart growth principles and evaluated the appropriateness of various approaches and models to their region.
William Hudnut, senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C., discussed the characteristics of smart growth, which are also the goals of the Bluegrass Regional Vision:
The conference program highlighted three smart growth themes, offered illustrative case studies from other regions in the U.S., and provided opportunities for participant feedback on promising directions and possible obstacles.
Planning and Paying for Infrastructure
The Bluegrass region’s ability to create incentives to promote smart growth practices is often limited because local governments are always in the business of playing “catch up.” This creates a problem because of the need for local government to be able to use public infrastructure to promote development in areas appropriate for growth, away from rural conservation areas, and to help in the purchase of development rights to protect the Bluegrass farmland.
Paul Tischler, a fiscal, economic and planning consultant from Bethesda, Maryland, advocated that government use a capital improvement plan to address this problem. This planning tool allows governments to create a comprehensive approach to current and future needs in one integrated program. It establishes goals for what projects are needed and how and when to pay for them. Peter Pollock of the Boulder, Colorado, Planning Department presented a case study of how his city has implemented a capital improvement program that addresses capital facilities planning and budgeting, equity concerns and linkage of service availability to development approval.
Infill Development
Promotion of more intense development and redevelopment within established cities and towns in the Bluegrass is a critical smart growth issue. It encourages more efficient use of the region’s highly valued Bluegrass farmland and makes better use of existing infrastructure. Too often, however, developers are required to reduce the density of development to respond to neighborhood concerns about incompatibility with the existing community character. As a result, land within urban areas is being used less efficiently, which increases the pressure to convert farmland on the edge of developed areas into future home sites.
To address this problem, Nore Winter, an urban design review consultant in Boulder, Colorado, discussed how communities can make sure that infill and redevelopment enhance the community and the quality of life in the surrounding neighborhood. He explained how to avoid “generica” by defining community character and using design guidelines to improve new developments with visual examples that demonstrate the type of development that is preferred. David Rice, executive director of the Norfolk, Virginia, Redevelopment and Housing Authority, shared examples of infill development projects in that city, which has successfully created quality neighborhoods, encouraged community participation and addressed difficult zoning, design and permitting concerns.
Regional Cooperation
The seven central Bluegrass counties constitute a highly integrated region in terms of land use, economy, and natural and cultural resources. Decisions in one county can have a long-term impact on another county. Although Bluegrass Tomorrow has drawn the region together to work on these issues, the current rate of change requires more intensive planning and coordination.
Curtis Johnson, president and chairman of the Metropolitan Council of the Twin Cities area in Minnesota, explored with conference participants many examples of additional steps that can be taken to promote regional cooperation. The good news for the Bluegrass, Johnson noted in his opening observations, is that unlike some regions of the U.S., the Bluegrass is still able to make important choices. He cautioned, though, that any region has only a few opportunities to get it right, and that there is no magic solution. He also offered several succinct ideas about regionalism: “setting a bigger table, including those who disagree,” “it’s never over,” and “no one is excused.”
Next Steps
Conference participants and local community and political leaders who held a follow-up meeting concluded that the region needs to explore seven action steps to build on the ideas generated by the conference speakers and discussion sessions.
1. Encourage communities to put in place a well-communicated and clearly explained capital improvement plan to help build community confidence that government can meet and pay for the needs of local communities and the region as a whole. The plan should match services to regional growth and build consensus among diverse interest groups about which areas are to be designated as urban and which will remain rural.
2. Promote infill development by using a redevelopment authority to build downtown housing, redevelop old strip centers and explore new projects in overlooked urbanized areas.
3. Develop design guidelines for infill and redevelopment projects that work as a friend, not a foe. The guidelines should be developed in partnership with the neighbors to build confidence in the process, remove fear of the unknown, and set a design framework rather than dictate a particular design style.
4. Use Bluegrass farmland as the niche or “brand identity” when marketing the Bluegrass as a location.
5. Educate the business community, especially the lending community, about the reasons for and benefits of smart growth.
6. Address concerns over economic winners and losers in the region, and undertake economic planning accordingly.
7. Build on collaborative regional efforts now in place and the common sense of place in the Bluegrass to strengthen regional planning efforts. This involves taking care to maximize alliances among groups and to balance strategic long-term planning with specific actions.
What will become of these ideas? If the past is any measure, over the next several months the leaders and citizens of the Bluegrass region will sort out which of these ideas will work best, and they will form the coalitions necessary to make them work. Bluegrass Tomorrow will continue to provide a unique model of private sector leadership on smart growth issues in collaboration with the region’s public officials and community residents.
Jean Scott is executive director of Bluegrass Tomorrow, based in Lexington, Kentucky, and Peter Pollock is director of community planning in Boulder, Colorado, and a former visiting fellow of the Lincoln Institute. Together they developed and organized the conference on Smart Growth for the Bluegrass.
SHARE
Decentralization of the state and growing business and community involvement in civic affairs are posing new challenges to the development of institutions focused on land policies and their implementation throughout Latin America. Mayors and local councils are assuming new responsibilities in the areas of environmental protection, urban transportation, basic infrastructure, local financing, social services and economic development. At the same time, business and civic organizations are finding new avenues to ensure public attention to their demands through participatory planning, budgeting, co-financing and control at the local level.
Thus, decentralization and democratic participation are gradually building an environment in which public-private alliances can develop joint projects of common interest to both government and individuals. However, many government institutions have a long way to go before they are fully adjusted to their new roles in planning, regulation and evaluation.
Long-entrenched cultures of apathy and citizen distrust of government have to be transformed into mutual confidence capable of mobilizing the best community traditions of the Latin American people. Political and economic patronage and state corruption need to be superseded by political and administrative accountability. Obsolete budget, contract and municipal laws still restrict the capacity of both local governments and civil society to interact creatively through contractual and co-financing arrangements.
The institutional challenges and policy dilemmas currently confronted by the Metropolitan Area of San Salvador (MASS) illustrate the transformations occurring throughout the region. After years of civil war, the Salvadorans signed a peace agreement in 1992 that provided the framework for real competition among political parties and stimulated more active participation by business, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community organizations. MASS incorporates several municipalities, some of them led by mayors from opposition parties to the central government. The coordinating body of MASS is the Council of Mayors, which in turn is supported by a Metropolitan Planning Office.
With technical assistance from international NGOs, MASS has prepared a comprehensive development plan. Contemporary urban planning instruments such as macrozoning, multi-rate property tax, value capture for environmental protection, public-private consortiums and land use coefficients are being considered for the implementation of land, development and environmental policies. Indeed, the Salvadorans have the support of several research centers that are familiar with the use and impact of these and other instruments in other parts of the world. Their primary need now is to mobilize public and private metropolitan actors around common policies and to develop shared instruments for their application.
Toward that end, PRISMA, a prominent Salvadoran NGO and urban research center, invited the Lincoln Institute to develop a joint workshop on urban management tools, intergovernmental coordinating mechanisms for metropolitan areas and public-private initiatives for sustainable cities. The workshop, held in San Salvador in October, included high-ranking officers from the central government, mayors, planning officers and other authorities from MASS, and representatives from builders’ and developers’ associations and some cooperative housing institutions and community organizations.
Speakers from the Lincoln Institute presented experiences from Taiwan, The Philippines, Mexico and other Latin American countries that underlined policies and instruments capable of harmonizing the interests of different urban stakeholders and coordinating several layers of government for land use and urban development objectives. The Salvadorans explained their immediate concerns, such as the lack of intergovernmental coordination to protect the urban environment, discontinuities in policy measures, arbitrariness at all levels of government, and legal and administrative uncertainties.
The workshop participants concluded that to foster the new legal and institutional framework sought by MASS the Salvadorans need to expand discussions among other metropolitan actors. They also need to continue to work with institutions such as the Lincoln Institute that have the trust and credibility to present internationally recognized land management policies and can help build consensus among different public and private interests.
Mario Lungo is a researcher at PRISMA, the Salvadoran Program for Development and Environmental Research; Alejandra Mortarini is the Lincoln Institute’s Latin America and Caribbean programs manager; and Fernando Rojas, a lawyer from Colombia, is a visiting fellow of the Institute this year.
SHARE
My father John C. Lincoln (1866-1959) had a strong code of ethics that played a prominent role in both his practice of business and his ideas about land. In 1895 he founded the Lincoln Electric Company of Cleveland, Ohio, which became the world’s leading manufacturer of arc welding equipment. He drew his ideas about land from the 1879 book Progress and Poverty, by the American political economist and social philosopher Henry George.
My father’s core ethical principle was to treat people as you would like to be treated. This implied the following precepts:
1) Treat people with absolute fairness. This means all people. In business it includes all the constituents of a company—employees, customers, owners, and the community. In society it means government must treat individuals fairly, and vice versa.
2) Whoever creates something should be entitled to keep it. Receiving the fruits of someone else’s labor—a windfall—often occurs. But for each windfall there is a wipeout—someone doesn’t get all he or she produced. Both the windfall and the wipeout are unethical.
3) People are important. They should be treated with respect and dignity, not as machines or cogs in a wheel.
Ethics in Business
Largely as a result of following these principles, the Lincoln Electric Company has demonstrated superior performance for its entire 100-year history. Many things have to happen to run a business ethically. One of them is making an adequate profit, which benefits the shareholders. But in my opinion, any company and all its constituents are better served if the customer comes first.
At Lincoln Electric, most employees are on piece work. If they produce more, they get more. The company has an annual bonus program, and the kitty for this bonus is composed of the extra profit beyond the returns required to run the business. Running the business includes providing a fair but not excessive dividend to shareholders and investing in new products and production methods. Beyond these costs, employees at Lincoln Electric get to keep any extra profit they produce. Recently bonuses have been about 50 to 60 percent of annual salaries. There are no windfalls, and no wipeouts.
Nowadays, manufacturing is no longer as much the “thing” as it once was. Making Lincoln Electric a successful global company requires more emphasis on company-wide teams. Individual pay is more dependent upon cooperation across departmental lines. This can work just as well as more individual programs of the past, but it is more difficult to manage. Incentives must be tailored to each location where we operate.
Ethics in Land
The heritage of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy stems from my father’s interest in the ideas of Henry George, especially the land value tax. The ethics of this tax concept are parallel to those used at Lincoln Electric.
Someone who works the land should be entitled to keep the fruits of his labor. If he produces more because of increased skill or effort, he should reap a higher reward. However, Henry George said that land is a natural monopoly. Its value is largely created by things unrelated to the actions of the land’s owner, such as population pressure or mineral deposits. The landowner or user has nothing to do with these factors, yet if they cause the land value to increase, the owner gets a windfall.
This ethical dilemma disturbed my father, as it disturbs me. He subscribed to the remedy proposed by Henry George, which is to take as a tax each year the full rental value of land produced by natural or social factors. This would eliminate the windfall. It would still leave for landowners and users the value created by their own investments and labor.
A hundred years ago land was considered one of the three factors of production, along with labor and capital. Land was essential as both a place to work and a source of raw materials. Things are more complex today. A great deal of the economy has to do with telecommunications and computer software, which allow businesses to locate anywhere and use few or inexpensive natural resources. These changes may not negate the basic economic theories of Henry George’s time, but they do make it a bit more difficult to analyze the role of land in the economy.
There are many positive illustrations that ethical business practices lead to economic success. Unfortunately, there are not clearcut illustrations showing that land value taxation produces broad economic benefits. Nevertheless, economic research suggests that land value taxation could encourage the productive and careful use of land. Individuals who used the land in ways that increased its production would be able to keep the full value they had created, and society would keep the value it created.
I believe ethical practices will benefit all sides in any transaction. Ethical land taxation should lead to an improved economy, just as ethical business practices lead to more successful companies. One should get to keep the fruits of one’s labor, but the fruits of speculation or monopolies should accrue to the community as a whole, not to individuals as windfalls. Both the private sector and the public sector would benefit. Good ethics is good business. Good ethics is good for society as well as the economy.
___________________
David C. Lincoln, president of the Lincoln Foundation and former chairman of the Lincoln Institute, presented the annual Founder’s Day lecture on August 1 at Lincoln House. He had served as chairman for the Institute’s first 22 years before stepping down in May 1996. His talk, excerpted here in part, commemorated the 130th anniversary of the birth of his father, John Cromwell Lincoln, the Cleveland, Ohio, industrialist who founded the Lincoln Foundation in 1947.
SHARE
Throughout North America, there is a growing trend to approach land use, natural resources and environmental problems on a regional basis. Since existing government agencies often lack broad authority, local and environmental leaders are increasingly taking the initiative to address the social, economic and environmental issues of a particular place by reaching across conventional political and jurisdictional boundaries, sectors and disciplines.
Interest in environmental regionalism has ebbed and flowed over the years, but its roots are as ancient as humankind’s first home in Africa’s Rift Valley and the early civilizations of Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Regionalism flourished in Europe during the early nineteenth century and emerged in the U.S. in the form of the western explorations by Lewis and Clark and John Wesley Powell. In the 1930s, regional interest in the U.S. surfaced again in the form of Lewis Mumford’s ecological regionalism and the initiatives of the New Deal. After World War II, the U.S. Congress was persuaded to experiment with unifunctional and political forms of regionalism, such as the federal-state river basin and regional commissions. At the turn of the twenty-first century, prompted by dissatisfaction with the growing numbers, scale and complexity of governmental functions, and coincident with the public commitment to civic forms of environmentalism, the stage was set for the current revival of interest in regionalism.
What Is An Environmental Region?
An environmental region usually has some combination of the following attributes:
Examples of these places abound at different scales throughout the U.S.: Chesapeake Bay, the Northeast’s Northern Forest, the Great Plains (popularly termed the Buffalo Commons), the Southwest’s Sonoran Desert, the Rocky Mountains, California’s Great Valley of the Sacramento River, and the Pacific Northwest’s Puget Sound. The ambitious “Y2Y” (Yellowstone to Yukon) and Northeastern Landscape projects are designed to secure wildland corridors in crucial regions across the borders of the U.S. and Canada.
But environments need not be large to become good candidates for regional action. For example, a cranberry bog lying in two small Massachusetts towns was the spark for an eventual statewide statute permitting jurisdictions of all sizes to enter into joint powers agreements for environmental purposes. In the Deep South, high-level political negotiations currently preoccupy municipalities, states and federal agencies in the northern portions of the three-state, 20,000-square-mile Apalachicola/Chattahoochee/Flint (ACF) Basin while citizen environmental interests remain focused on the relatively modest, still unspoiled reaches at the southern end of the basin. The famous Quincy Library case in northern California was an initiative prompted by three local citizens, meeting at the town library, to forge a common strategy for nearby national forests. And, on Whidbey Island in Washington’s Puget Sound, one of the earliest land management collaborations involved local citizens and jurisdictions serving as surrogates for the National Park Service. In fact, such is the breadth and diversity of regional environmental initiatives across the country that national collaboration expert Julia Wondolleck of the University of Michigan has likened them to snowflakes— none exactly alike.
The Harvard Environmental Regionalism Project
Responding to an apparent resurgence of interest in regionalism throughout the U.S. and Canada, researchers at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in the spring of 1998 asked nearly 150 prominent North American regionalists how regions might be used to advance environmental protection, use and management. The survey paralleled a similar New Deal-era inquiry into the possible use of regions for social and economic development and resulted in an outpouring of opinions (C. Foster and Meyer 2000). Some respondents advised that regions are bounded and shaped in response to a number of physiographic, hydrologic and biotic factors, while others noted influences built around a strong human sense of place.
Regions tend to be less distinct at the margins than at the core. In fact, many regions exhibit a kind of fractal, multi-core quality, operating through individual components that are layered, nested and organized hierarchically. But all seem to work best when they address real, politically relevant issues occurring in a “problem-shed” context. Thus, regions should be viewed as conceptual frameworks for analysis and practice, and ways to organize processes and relationships in order to harness capabilities and integrate policies and programs within a given area, rather than as definitive lines on a map.
Although environmental attributes will be prominent and compelling in any environmentally based region, they should not be controlling. More important will be the inhabitants’ own values, perspectives and priorities, which may include a range of environmentally relevant economic, social, political and cultural objectives. Such regions, like the environment itself, will turn out to be dynamic, not static. The best regions will employ a changing mix of largely organic activities supported by the programmatic services of established governmental agencies and political jurisdictions. Their scales must be large enough to encompass the problem or problems to be addressed, but not so large as to lose any prospect of a supportive constituency. The region’s form and administrative structure should be fitted carefully to its proposed programs and functions, and should operate as a viable business organization.
Despite passionate individual adherents for certain kinds of regions (for example, watersheds or ecoregions), no single best type of environmental region seems to fit all circumstances. Each region must reflect its own biological and cultural diversity and represent the needs of both the present and future occupants of the area in question. The survey respondents recommended starting with a sizable, recognizable, organic landscape, preferably one with a coincidence of natural and cultural features, where sufficient regional consciousness already exists to make the area identifiable (and even nameable). Pluralistic and deliberative processes should then be employed to define the required regional entity. In some instances, preexisting governmental authorities (such as the Endangered Species Act) can serve as the spark; in others, environmental functions may simply be added to established regional agencies for planning, transportation, economic development or metropolitan affairs. Whatever form it may take, and whatever its program objectives may turn out to be, the regional organization must not waver from its goal of achieving meaningful, positive and timely change in the state of the environment by either improving its present condition or removing impediments to its proper management, protection and use.
The Harvard researchers concluded that successful environmental regionalists will need a “tool box” of technical and financial assistance delivered to them through one or more “centers of excellence” established to serve on-the-ground networks of practitioners. Responding to that challenge, the Lincoln Institute has been supporting an inquiry and evaluation of the center of excellence concept through a project known as ENREG (environmental regionalism).
The ENREG Project
The project began with the drafting of a white paper, “Fostering Conservation and Environmental Regionalism: A Blueprint for Action,” describing the rationale for and likely attributes of a national environmental regionalism program (C. Foster 2002b). Separate audiences of regional practitioners and organization/agency representatives reviewed and debated the paper during sessions in Salt Lake City in December 2001 and at Lincoln House in Cambridge in April 2002.
After reviewing an extensive inventory and assessment of ongoing regional initiatives (McKinney et al. 2002), the western practitioners agreed that regionalism is by definition an integrative concept, eventually touching a whole circle of social, economic and political, not just environmental, issues. They noted that regionalism was growing in popularity for several reasons: necessity, self-interest, and as a way to design a shared future and avoid a common fate. They listed a number of obstacles and challenges facing regional initiatives in the West, describing such keys to success as new and creative processes, partnerships, coalitions, planned redundancy, and the exercise of a learning, adaptive attitude on the part of regional practitioners. As strategies to support and promote regionalism, they encouraged experimentation with different models, use of Internet tools to foster communications and networks, and the development of training programs for regional practitioners built around actual case experience. While they agreed that a common framework for promoting and supporting regionalism would be helpful, they cautioned against any attempt to institutionalize what was in essence an organic movement (McKinney, Harmon and Fitch 2002).
The eastern group used four case presentations to begin sorting out what regions are for, how they might be founded and used, what role government should be asked to play, and the implications of regionalism in a global sense. In terms of general precepts and strategies, participants were encouraged to be bold, positive, goal-oriented and adaptive. Those seeking to encourage and support regional initiatives should be sure that the right science and data are available at the right time, and that research and documentation do not overlook the crucial role to be played by people in achieving the necessary behavioral/societal changes (Foster 2002a).
Both groups agreed on the need for specialized education and training in regional environmental practice. The westerners urged training in designing regional initiatives, managing regional organizations and undertaking collaborative problem solving. The easterners suggested a curriculum that would start with concepts, principles and history, and then turn to the skill sets and processes needed to build an effective constituency for change. All favored research and documentation into what works in actual practice, what doesn’t, and why.
The Next Steps
Given these encouraging developments, what does the future portend for ENREG and the field of environmental regionalism it is advocating?
First, the Lincoln Institute is developing a short course on practical strategies to help citizens and officials initiate, manage and sustain regional initiatives. It is being designed for people interested in starting and operating regional initiatives or organizations, such as individual activists, local advocacy groups, governmental officials, and business and industry leaders. The course builds on recent work supported by the Lincoln Institute (see K. Foster 2001 and C. Foster 2002) and uses a combination of lectures, case studies and simulations to provide background information and teach practical skills. The first offering of the course is planned in the spring of 2003 for a group of 20 to 30 prospective practitioners and their associated organizations interested in solving environmental problems according to “the natural territory of the problem,” whether that be watersheds, ecosystems, metropolitan areas, or other types of regions. Ideally, the course will provide an opportunity for people from a common region to come together and begin the process of thinking and acting regionally. Future courses may be convened by one or more local organizational cosponsors that will be responsible for the recruitment of practitioners and many of the logistical and organizational arrangements and for working with the Lincoln Institute to provide instructional resources.
Second and closely allied with the short course is an executive seminar for senior regional practitioners who will be invited to share information and learn from one another through a peer exchange process, thereby building and sustaining viable practitioner networks and refining the instructional principles and strategies through the use of experiences drawn from the real world. The first executive seminar will be held in the West in March 2003.
Third, former ENREG national advisor Richard Doege is seeking supplemental funding to establish a national center of excellence on environmental regionalism. His efforts focus initially on case study research and on outreach to Congress, federal and state agencies, and national environmental NGOs. The objective is to develop a constituency for legislation, governmental practices and civic action that can promote sound environmental protection and management through the exercise of regionalism. The case studies are expected to be a critical resource for developing Lincoln’s training curriculum, and the contacts with organizations and agencies will help identify additional venues, targets and cosponsors for future courses. Through his liaison with Congress, Doege has already identified a number of regionalist provisions in important pending legislation. His future outreach efforts will aim to inform Congress and the national environmental community about ENREG’s research findings and help ensure that Lincoln’s curriculum objectives reflect the current status of regionalism in governmental circles.
Finally, the ENREG planners have in mind the ongoing development of curricular materials. For example, the initial elements of theory, skills and practice will be just the first steps toward an entire “library” of subject matter from which course organizers can make their own selections. Some courses may lend themselves to conversion into distance learning modules so that training can proceed either in conventional course settings or through home computers via the Institute’s web-based instructional program, Lincoln Education Online (LEO). This combination of face-to-face courses and distance learning will advance the Institute’s long-term mission of making knowledge comprehensible and accessible to citizens, policy makers and scholars throughout the world, and ENREG will have more than fulfilled the promise perceived by its proponents at the time of its founding just a year ago.
Charles H. W. Foster is adjunct senior research fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Harvard University, a former Massachusetts secretary of environmental affairs and a former dean of Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. His colleagues in the ENREG inquiry were Matthew J. McKinney, executive director of the Montana and Western Consensus Councils, and former Harvard Loeb Fellow Rebecca Talbott, a career intergovernmental partnership specialist with the U.S. Forest Service.
References
Foster, Charles H.W. 2002a. Conference summary. ENREG Eastern Regionalism Conference (April). Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
_____. 2002b. Fostering conservation and environmental regionalism: A blueprint for action. ENREG working paper (June 30). Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Foster, Charles H.W. and William B. Meyer. 2000. The Harvard Environmental Regionalism Project. Discussion paper 2000-11. Cambridge, MA: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Foster, Kathryn A. 2001. Regionalism on purpose. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
McKinney, Matthew, Will Harmon and Craig Fitch. 2002. Regionalism in the west: A working session with practitioners. (February 25). Helena: Montana Consensus Council.
McKinney, Matthew et al. 2002. Regionalism in the west: An inventory and assessment. Public Land and Resources Law Review. Missoula: University of Montana School of Law.
ENREG National Advisory Board
Robert L. Bendick, Jr., Southeastern Division vice president for The Nature Conservancy, Florida; former New York deputy commissioner for natural resources and director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.
Richard L. Doege, Esq., Specialist in environmental economics and public policy; advisor to Congress in the areas of energy and the environment, Washington, DC; former business executive and legislative counsel.
Marion R. Fremont-Smith, Esq., Senior counsel at Choate, Hall and Stewart, Boston, and senior research fellow at the Kennedy School’s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations; former Massachusetts assistant attorney general in charge of the Division of Public Charities.
DeWitt John, Director of the Environmental Studies Program at Bowdoin College, Maine; former director of the National Academy of Public Administration’s Center for the Economy and the Environment.
Chester M. Joy, Esq., Senior analyst for natural resources and the environment at the U.S. General Accounting Office, Washington, DC.
Ethan Seltzer, Director of the Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies at Portland State University, Oregon; former land use supervisor for Portland Metro.
SHARE
The implementation of any national planning program on a regional or local scale can be a challenge, even under the best circumstances. Colombia faces many social, political and economic issues that could easily have derailed the expansion of its major planning initiative—the national cadastral program. Some of these issues relate to its decentralized government, changing local public administrations, unstable economy and pervasive issues relating to poverty, the drug trade and international intervention. In spite of this situation, Bogotá’s Administrative Department for the District Cadastre (DACD) is gradually being recognized as a success story for developing countries in Latin America and beyond.
While legal conveyance, land policy and planning have been significant aspects of cadastres historically, fiscal management has been the primary focus in Bogotá for both its citizens and the business sector. The assessment administration process includes the maintenance of a database that receives information from the divisions that develop the econometric model, geographic information systems (GIS), building codes and enforcement, cartography, socioeconomic analysis of homogeneous sectors, land registration and zoning. As noted in the previous article, the numbers of incorporated (formación catastral) and updated (actualización catastral) properties have increased significantly (see Figure 1).
The large volume of parcels and improvements has been managed in such a short time by a deliberate and comprehensive administrative plan. The mandated public participation process did not compromise the efficiency with which the updates and property validation were completed. Within the last fiscal year, the econometric model took into consideration typical assessment variables but also considered a key element in the Bogotá cadastre, the “public value estimate.” According to Law 44 of 1990, a public comment and review process is used to update and maintain each property record card. The property owner or occupant provides an estimate of the property value and its depreciation or appreciation as required by the Unified Property Tax Reform Act. This legislation seeks to simplify the administration of taxes on land and avoid the possibility of taxing the same factors twice. Reliance on the public to provide the most current information on property conditions is important, but verification is also required. Thus, a fleet of professionally trained assessors has conducted inspections of all properties now recorded within the cadastral system. The public has been particularly forthcoming with information on improvements to vacant land, since the tax rate on land is higher than the rate on land with improvements. This integrated planning approach has encouraged community investment by limiting speculation.
The use of GIS has been key to department-wide integration and evaluation of property reviews, system updates and overall program administration. IGAC is in the process of developing an ArcCadastre program in coordination with the University of Bogotá. The goal is to link all of the regional cadastres to the national database. Within Bogotá a central GIS provides the cadastral managers with a powerful database that includes an interactive and multilevel inventory used during the property tax abatement process. The GIS has recently been expanded to allow for public searches of historic property record information along with parcel-level real estate listing data for all neighborhoods. The intended use of GIS, and the increase in the number of public terminals, will provide further access to the cadastral system. In the interim, the DACD Web site is a creative educational tool that keeps the public informed while managing this monumental process.
The Bogotá cadastre has made innovative and tangible progress in the creation, development and maintenance of a cadastral system considered by many to be a theoretical impossibility. The vision and tenacity of the public administrators, private industry and citizens have helped to build a cadastre that should meet or exceed the goals set by FIG’s Cadastre 2014 (Van der Molen 2003). This plan calls for a cadastre to have “inclusive rights and restrictions to land within map registers, comprehensive cadastre map models, seamless collaboration between public and private sectors and a cadastre that is cost recovering.” Given its political, administrative, financial, technical and practical challenges, the Bogotá cadastre has been able to turn a dream into an innovative reality.
Michelle Thompson is a real estate and research consultant teaching geographic information systems at the Cornell University Department of City and Regional Planning. She is also a faculty associate of the Lincoln Institute and she participated in the November 2003 conference on cadastres in Bogotá.
References
Bogotá’s Administrative Department for the District Cadastre (DACD): http://www.catastrobogota.gov.co/
Van der Molen, Paul. 2003. The future cadastres: Cadastres after 2014. FIG Working Week 2003, Paris, France (April 13-17). Available at http://www.eurocadastre.org/pdf/vandermolen2.pdf
