Tag Archives: Planning

Highland Renewable Energy Strategy

Previously writing about biomass and carbon dioxide I said I’d supply an example of the sort of thing I’m looking for as a regional analysis for renewable energy, including biomass, solar, wind, wave, tides, and others. Here it is: the Highland Renewable Energy Strategy approved by the Highland Council at its 4 May 2006 meeting. It’s a 58 page document about renewable energy strategy and planning guidelines, considering numerous types of renewable energy, pros and cons of each, power distribution, effects on environment, protected areas, etc., illustrated copiously with detailed maps. And updated: Continue reading →

Green Exercise for Mental Health

Quantifying something we can all feel:
ScienceDaily (May 1, 2010) — How much “green exercise” produces the greatest improvement in mood and sense of personal well-being? A new study in the American Chemical Society’s semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology has a surprising answer.

The answer is likely to please people in a society with much to do but little time to do it: Just five minutes of exercise in a park, working in a backyard garden, on a nature trail, or other green space will benefit mental health.

All natural environments were beneficial including parks in urban settings. Green areas with water added something extra. A blue and green environment seems even better for health, Pretty noted.
Here’s a link to a news blurb in the journal:
Pretty says that his goal with this study is not to provide just another recommendation for individuals but to provide data that can be used in policy discussions. Those data “could translate into what the landscape guidelines are for schools or for public housing,” says Nancy Wells, associate professor of community ecology at Cornell University.
Here is a link to the actual article.

Is all development good?

What to do with Detroit? Cindy Perman writes for CNBC:
Mayor Dave Bing is apparently working on a radical plan that would bulldoze a quarter of the city — some of the most desolate areas — and return it to farmland, the way it was before the automobile. Any residents still there would be relocated to stronger neighborhoods.

Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genessee County, containing Flint, Michigan, remarks:

“The obsession with growth is sadly a very American thing. Across the US, there’s an assumption that all development is good, that if communities are growing they are successful. If they’re shrinking, they’re failing.”
Actually, building more subdivisions just increases the deficit between tax revenues collected and cost of services provided.

Perman concludes:

Welcome to the future. Why does it look so much like 1910 instead of 2010?
Perhaps because 1910 had railroads for mass transit and cities were still dense and close to existing services?

Transportation Plan Open House, MPO

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Metropolitan Planning Organization is holding an open house about its Long Range Transportation Plan. (Not to be confused with the County’s Thoroughfare Plan, which has little or no open process.) This Transportation Plan I think will include another attempt to design a bus system; we’ll see. I’ll be there; how about you?

Here’s a transcription of the PDF flyer:

PARTICIPATE! PARTICIPATE! PARTICIPATE!

Public Open House

Wednesday, February 17, 2010
3:00 PM to 5:00 PM

at the
Southern Georgia Regional Commission
327 W. Savannah Avenue, Valdosta, GA

2035 Valdosta-Lowndes MPO
Long Range Transportation Plan Draft Project List Review

Valdosta-Lowndes MPO
229-333-5277 … chull@sgrc.us … www.sgrc.us/transportation

Where and why flooding happens

Michael E. Kanell and Ty Tagami, writing in the AJC about More than 16,000 flood-related claims filed in Atlanta area, quote Robert Klein, professor of risk and insurance at Georgia State University:
Moreover, the maps that set out those high-risk areas are “woefully inadequate,” he said.

Maps should be recalibrated to account for continued development and sprawl, he said: destruction of trees, paving of roads and parking lots, addition of new homes to older areas and landscaping all change the way water drains — or doesn’t drain.

And maybe somebody should do something about that continued development and sprawl.

New Stories of Lowndes County

Here’s the Lowndes County Commission (most of it), posing about the new StormReady County designation:

StormReady County

We love the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT), WCTV, and WALB, but if they published anything about that, we missed it. They have space constraints, and we don’t. Local governments do a lot of good things (and other things) that don’t get reported in the traditional press. This is where LAKE comes in. Continue reading →