Robert Goodspeed

<p>I received a newsletter in the mail recently about the <a href="http://www.purplelinemd.com/" target="_blank">Purple Line</a>, a light rail line in the planning process in the Washington, D.C. suburbs. Like hundreds of other public transit projects across the country, the rail line is in the &quot;planning&quot; stages and nobody can really say exactly when it will be constructed or begin operations.<br /><br />The cause is simple: too little funds and a lack of political support both locally and from the federal government. Quite simply, we get more roads because our policies are structured to spend more money on them, and they&#39;re more popular with elected officials. Although the specific cause of the lack of transit investment is simple enough, its effect on the way transit systems are planned and perceived by the public is far from simple. The lack of funds has added complexity length to an already complex and lengthy process. As a result, project supporters and detractors alike are alienated from the planning, forced to navigate a morass of acronyms, plans, and steps.<br /><br />The problem lies in the fact that since there is some money available, local supporters of the <a href="http://www.reconnectingamerica.org/public/reports/375" target="_blank">roughly 400 planned projects</a> (with an estimated total cost of $248 billion) pretend they&#39;ve got a shot at it. Time and again local boosters tell the media they&#39;ll just submit for federal funds and break ground after they complete the required paperwork. As we&#39;ll see, this couldn&#39;t be farther from the truth.<br /><br />

<p> Will the red-hot microblogging platform <a href="http://www.twitter.com" target="_blank">Twitter</a> change the way we live in our cities, how we call for help in an emergency, or even help rally a group to topple the city&#39;s government? Or is it a frivolous technology that simply atomizes our thoughts and relationships into 140-character bits? </p>

Over a year ago <a href="/node/28197" target="_blank">I blogged about</a> a conference of urban historians where the group debated a talk, titled &quot;Whither the Region?,&quot; where historian Greg Hise observed the group was talking about regional history less. In my response, I suggested several causes: limited decision-making at the regional level in America, center city biases among historical sources like newspapers, and metropolitan areas growing to encompass entire regions due to urban sprawl. I also observed that although it may go <em>unstudied</em> by the group, a good number of regional planning organizations and agencies do exist.<br />

<p> In thousands of planning and zoning laws across the nation, official announcements are required to be published in the local newspaper of &quot;<strong>general circulation</strong>.&quot; In an era of newspaper decline and expanding diversity of media, are these laws becoming obsolete? Furthermore, should we be concerned with newspapers at all if a newer, more universally accessible medium is available: the Internet? </p> <p> A variety of announcements are legally required to be published in a local periodical of &quot;general circulation,&quot; sometimes in addition to being published in an official government gazette. The practice entered the planning world through the U.S. Department of Commerce&#39;s highly influential <a href="http://www.planning.org/growingsmart/enablingacts.htm">standard zoning and planning enabling acts</a>.

Decades after its founding, New Urbanism design movement retains a serious reputation problems among American urbanists.