The good people at the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) are asking for your help in updating their nine county regional plan. This organization is often the gateway through which federal money is translated from earmarks or grants into actual physical construction and the planning documents that precede it. They bring you bike lanes and trails and play a leadership role in planning out transportation and land use. While we don't read much about them in the progressive blogosphere this organization is one we should partner with when possible.

Right now they are asking for input on priorities for regional transportation and land use. It only takes a few minutes and you can enter an drawing for an Ipod. The survey will be up until March 7.

http://www.dvrpc.org/connections/

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) is conducting a public outreach survey to gather opinions on the vision for transportation and land use in the greater Philadelphia region. This is laying the groundwork for the update to the nine-county long-range plan. Please take a few minutes to fill out this short survey and give us your input at www.dvrpc.org/connections. By doing so you could be eligible to win an 8 GB iPod Touch. Survey ends March 7, 2008.

Thank you,

DVRPC Long Range Planning

For the many YPP readers interested in planning and sustainability issues and urban development: Alex Steffen at WorldChanging has a terrific essay on city redevelopment titled "My Other Car is a Bright Green City." It's fairly long for a blog post, but well worth reading, as it summarizes a lot of the current thinking about green tech, density planning, and cities over the past couple of years. (See also David Owen's "Green Manhattan [PDF]," etc.)

A brief summary of Steffen:

1) Since most of the energy consumed and CO2 produced happens in the home, we should focus on how people live and work rather than (solely) the gas efficiency of the car they use to get there.

2) We need to act fast, not just because our lifestyles are out of control, but that the rest of the world emulates us.

3) This doesn't mean cars aren't important, just that tailpipes and MPG matters less than the enviro (and social!) costs of roads and infrastructure, commuting, etc.

4) If we want to turn this around, we have to promote and build denser housing developments and leverage existing high-density neighborhoods (i.e. cities and inner-ring suburbs.

5) We can do this faster and achieve higher energy gains than we can turn around the existing automotive fleet.

6) Goodies! Bike shares, transit-oriented development, New Urbanist neighborhoods. A green-city-geek's geekstuff.