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National
American Panelists in Copenhagen Call for Sustainable Land Use and Growth Patterns
''Urban development patterns have a significant role to play in carbon reduction. Otherwise we’ll just get knocked back by land use patterns,'' said University of California-Berkeley College of Environmental Design Professor of City & Regional Planning Robert B. Cervero during an international panel discussion at the climate change conference in Copenhagen. Cervero stressed that, ''Sustainable urbanism has to be part of the equation.''
Writer Ben Fried of dc.streetblog pointed out that transit investment alone can reduce the U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per capita by 10 to 20 percent, but energy savings ''embedded'' in pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented development can push that reduction to 30 percent below the current level, and up to 60 percent below the future level expected under routine sprawl-type policies. To support sustainable development patterns, the public needs to know their full economic benefits, said Utah Transit Authority (UTA) General Manager John English, briefing the audience on the formation of the public-private Envision Utah coalition in 1997, its public values research, more than 200 workshops and the resulting legislatively-endorsed 1999 Quality Growth Strategy, which offers communities a broad choice of voluntary, locally-preferred, market-based livability solutions.
Made aware of the huge infrastructure-cost savings on transit investments – with an Envision Utah transit-oriented development scenario expected to save some $15 billion by 2020, it contrast to the business-as-usual scenario, which would sink this money into roads, sewers and other infrastructure for the urban fringes – the public got on board. The savings will go for schools and parks, the UTA general manager said, concluding, ''The community was not as conservative when faced with the realities as had previously been thought.''
Learn more about Envision Utah history, programs and goals at www.envisionutah.org/eu_about_eumission.html. 12/9/2009
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