Smart Growth – Planning

What’s Behind “THE VISION” in Your Town?

February 15, 2005 | 0 Comments

By Susanna L. Jennings, 2/15/2005 - The visioning process includes: “values” research, how to run "facilitated" workshops and to how to use “consensus building” to create scenarios for area “change”. When public officials and NGOs (non-government organizations) use the term "visioning" it really means Agenda 21 principles are being implemented.

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Community Plans Aim to Change Values

October 13, 2004 | 0 Comments

By Susanna L. Jennings, 10/13/2004 -

Community plans are specifically designed to reflect aesthetically the collective values they seek to impose -- at the expense of individual expression and privacy.

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Community Planning – Case Study: Corralitos, California

October 12, 2004 | 0 Comments

By Susanna L. Jennings, 10/12/2004 -

In the name of "protecting" and "enhancing" our neighborhoods, community planners and local busybodies are fanning out all over the country to change our towns and neighborhoods. They call it "visioning".

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“Fidel gives us candy”: Of Charettes, Visioning and Contrivance

June 14, 2004 | 0 Comments

By Wendall Cox, 6/14/2004 -


BELLEVILLE, Ill. -- What can appear to be choices may very well be the result of manipulation or contrivance. Wendell Cox writes about the striking similarities between the "groupthink" tactics of Fidel Castro and the "visioning" processes that occur in urban development and regional planning exercises.

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The Santa Cruz Housing Element: False Promises?

March 3, 2004 | 0 Comments

By Susanna L. Jennings, 3/3/2004 -

The people of Santa Cruz County truly believed in 1978 that by allowing the government to limit growth in the County, they would be able to preserve the small town character of the county that they loved. But, by giving the County apparently unlimited control over the free market and building permits, they have created the opposite situation.

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Draft Housing Element Herds Residents into Dense Communities

March 3, 2004 | 0 Comments

By Colleen Shaw, 3/3/2004 -

Summary: Santa Cruz County officials claim that the Housing Element is necessary to solve a housing shortage problem, but once it is approved and goes into effect, residents will not have many of the common amenities now available. By this analysis, the only housing choice available to most families will be dense multi-family units with limited parking.

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Community Plans = Sustainable Scams

November 24, 2003 | 0 Comments

By Joanne Nathan, 11/24/2003 -

When you hear terms like, "Community Plans", "Town Plans" and "Village Plans"... take notice and take action!

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Smart Growth Rolls Into Town On A Trolley

November 23, 2003 | 0 Comments

By Michael Park, 11/23/2003 -

Plans for Recreational Rail in Santa Cruz County raise a number of issues for the community, and with future plans for a full-blown Smart Growth project, authorities have not disclosed all of the details - nor the consequences to the lives of county residents.

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Do We Need Another Entity Telling Us How, Where to Live?

November 19, 2003 | 0 Comments

By Don Lively, 11/19/2003 -

Ask 100 people about "smart growth" and likely 99 will look blank or reply, "Sounds great!" -- the desired response of proponents of this regional land use control measure. The following comments reflect concerns of smart growth-savvy citizens from both sides of the Bay -- and portray implications every Contra Costa County resident should understand about the county-wide project called "Shaping Our Future-Contra Costa County" (SOF-CCC), generically labeled "smart growth."

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‘Smart-Growth’ Plan Riles Black Farmers

August 10, 2003 | 0 Comments

By John Berlau, 8/10/2003 -

After being freed from slavery in the 1860's, Joe Neal's great-grandfather bought 75 acres of wooded land and turned it into a fertile farmland that has been managed by Neal's family for three generations. But, if Sustainable Development/Smart Growth planners get their way, Neal and his neighbors will lose their heritage in the name of "the environment". In this Insight story by John Berlau, you will see how the posterity of slavery has long fought for its freedom and rights, but today are faced with threats to their livelihood and property that that are greater than anything they've faced from segregationist politicians.

With the Sierra Club, and its government and non-government organization partners, being referred to as a "chapter of the KKK", Smart Growth may be threatening the rights of these citizens, but could ultimately change the political landscape of South Carolina. Santa Cruz residents will find an uncanny similarity between the Town and Country Plan that is threatening Neal's property and the Santa Cruz Local Agenda 21 Action Plan that has guided our local planners since 1995.

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