Richard Florida wrote in the Atlantic in December 2009,
How the Crash Will Reshape America:
Big, talent-attracting places benefit from accelerated rates of “urban metabolism,”The question we need to address is how to be a small talent-attracting place, and even more a smallish place that grows its own talent and jobs.
This part is especially relevant: Continue reading
No, not that city council! No, not that county commission! Not even the state board of corrections. (Although some of them might want to try that bureaucratic shoe on to see if it fits.) Here’s who: Continue readingSchuster told the directors that he thought [that organization] was supplying “vague” information and he directed that henceforth the sides meet monthly in his office for updates on the liquidation process. In short, Schuster is learning first hand — just like members, the media and the public at large have learned — that prying information out of [that organization] is usually about as fruitful as trying to squeeze information out of the Kremlin.
Georgia Tech Professor Ellen Dunham-Jones spole January 2010 at TEDxAtlanta, Retrofitting suburbia
Here’s the video: Continue readingIn the last 50 years, we’ve been building the suburbs with a lot of unintended consequences. And I’m going to talk about some of those consequences and just present a whole bunch of really interesting projects that I think give us tremendous reasons to be really optimistic that the big design and development project of the next 50 years is going to be retrofitting suburbia. So whether it’s redeveloping dying malls or re-inhabiting dead big-box stores or reconstructing wetlands out of parking lots, I think the fact is, the growing number of empty and under-performing, especially, retail sites throughout suburbia gives us actually a tremendous opportunity to take our least-sustainable landscapes right now and convert them into more sustainable places. And in the process, what that allows us to do is to redirect a lot more of our growth back into existing communities that could use a boost, and have the infrastructure in place, instead of continuing to tear down trees and to tear up the green space out at the edges.
Why do you have to take the one politician that actually works for us?
Well, some farmers in Tifton didn’t take kindly to
the main idea Kingston was pushing yesterday.
Said a farmer:
I have tried working with probationers and I’ll just say that it was a very inconsistent supply of workers.Hm, the VDT previously was of a similar opinion, an opinion that got quoted in the AJC. Maybe the VDT didn’t know Kingston was pushing HB 87, even though they sat down with him yesterday morning?
We don’t need an ALEC-organized private prison law like HB 87 to profit private prison company CCA, and we don’t need a CC private prison in Lowndes County. Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.
-jsq
Found in the August Valdosta Planners Post:
According to the FAQ for the 2030 Greater Lowndes Comprehensive Plan: Continue readingSTWP Update Due Fall 2011
The five‐year Short Term Work Plan (STWP) for the 2030 Greater Lowndes County Comprehensive Plan is due for an update later this year. The STWP is a key implementation tool that reflects the activities and strategies to support the Comprehensive Plan goals, which the City of Valdosta has undertaken for the past five years (2007‐2011). It also sets future activities and strategies for the next five years (2012‐2017). A ‘report of accomplishments’ that identifies the current status of each activity in the current STWP must be submitted to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. A local public hearing must be held and a local resolution passed in order to adopt a the STWP update. Please check our website at www.valdostacity.com/planning for news and meeting schedules related to the STWP update.
Received 12 August 2011, with attached PDF. -jsq
Continue readingHi all,
We have some really interesting projects and events this issue. Since school is back in session most are planning for football games and other semester activities. Since we are in the planning mode, please read our article on Community Planning Month in October. We have lots of fun and exciting events for citizens to participate in this year. Our theme is “New Ideas for America’s Future”. Since the youth are our future, we want to extend this invitation to any youth groups that may be interested in government and planning. Please contact us to RVSP for a lunch & learn or tour. We look forward to seeing you there!!
Also, check out an update on the Five Points Project and Tax Incentives for Historic Preservation.
August 2011 Planner’s Post
http://www.valdostacity.com/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=3D4017
Received yesterday. It’s a YouTube video. -jsq
Video by George Boston Rhynes for
K.V.C.I. Keeping Valdosta Citizen Informed
George has written up most of this in K.V.C.I. with pictures and YouTube videos.
Also, I appreciate the shoutout, George, and I’m sure the other people involved with LAKE and this blog do, as well.
-jsq
Maybe you think you’re safe, because you’re not out on the street. Think again: Continue readingThe most shocking thing I learned from my research on the fate of the working poor in the recession was the extent to which poverty has indeed been criminalised in America.
Photograph: Robyn Beck/EPAPerhaps the constant suspicions of drug use and theft that I encountered in low-wage workplaces should have alerted me to the fact that, when you leave the relative safety of the middle class, you might as well have given up your citizenship and taken residence in a hostile nation.
Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, wrote in the Washington Times 5 August 2011, JOHNSON: Hitting the cartels where it hurts: Legalization of marijuana would end drug profiteering and violence
As a Republican, he manages to say legalize and regulate but forget to mention tax, and he didn’t mention Jimmy Carter or Javier Sicilia calling for an end to the drug war, but he did mention (I added the links): Continue readingImagine you are a drug lord in Mexico, making unfathomable profits sending your illegal product to the United States. What is the headline you fear the most? “U.S. to build bigger fence”? “U.S. to send troops to the border”? “U.S. to deploy tanks in El Paso”? No. None of those would give you much pause. They would simply raise the level of difficulty and perhaps cause you to escalate the violence that already has turned the border region into a war zone. But would they stop you or ultimately hurt your bottom line? Probably not.
But what if that drug lord opened his newspaper and read this: “U.S. to legalize and regulate marijuana”? That would ruin his day, and ruin it in a way that could not be fixed with more and bigger guns, higher prices or more murder.
Received today. -jsq
“I had so many things to add after the last one, that here is a new one….Jane”So the latest update (12 August 2011) is online for the community calendar produced by Jane F. Osborn who organizes the Valdosta Civic Roundtable. She wrote:
…the calendar is not produced for civic roundtable, it is just a project of mine for the many counties that lost a source of information when 2-1-1 was discontinued.LAKE will attempt to remember to update new ones in this web page as Miss Jane sends them. We hope you, dear readers, will remind us if we don’t.
-jsq