Chapter 1: Visioning
This chapter focussed on the importance of vision in the success of sustainability. When people are involved in the process of thinking about their future, and engaged in the formulation of the steps that will get their city from point a to point b, they are far more likely to feel committed to those steps.
The vision statement should define the citizen's values towards the three e's, recognize the constraints of the community, and identify the priorities of the citizens. This will help in the implementation process.
In the first two stages, the people and planner should identify the ecological and social assets and constraints to help guide the visioning process.
Steven Ames' book suggests these elements for visioning:
- Involve key institutions in the community, including government and private sector groups
- Attract the support of key opinion leaders
- Formulate clear goals and objectives for the process itself
- Allocate sufficient resources
- Engage people authentically
Sub Chapter: Strategies for Visioning
Ask:
- What do we value?
- What are human needs?
- What are our ethics? How should we treat each other and the natural world?
- What is the role of technology?
- What is the role of place in sustainability?
- Relate vision to ideas of progress
- "human needs are essential characteristics associated with human evolution and thus are constant across ass cultures and time periods. While needs remain constant, satisfiers, which are the ways in such needs are met, can vary across cultures and over time. "
- Relate vision to Human needs
- Max-Neef's forty cell matrix can be used to find symbiotic relationships between needs and satisfyers.
- Nussbaum
- This approach emphasizes "the possibilities for human unfolding, the qualities that allow us to fully express our humanity..."
- Relate Vision to Ethics
- Anthropocentric ethics
- See humans as the locus of all value and the non human world only as a resource
- Deep Ecology
- movement founded on the concept of self-realization and biocentric equality.
- Newman and Kenworthy developed ethics for sustainability; they suggest that the elements of environmental spirituality associated with indigenous ethics can also be found in Western spiritual traditions.
- Relate Vision to Technology
- "The current direction of modern technological development seeks to find escape from "the constraints of body, nature and place"
- "the technocratic agenda is driven by the desire for security but, in the process of creating a thoroughly technological world, undermines the possibility of a sustainable world, a world worth caring for.
- Develop technologies that facilitate intimate engagement with the world.
- technology that fosters bioregional and community connections
- Relate Vision to Place
- A city should not try to be the most creative city in the world but the most creative for the world.
Daniels, Thomas, John Keller, Mark Lapping, Katherine Daniels, and James Segedy. 2007. The Small Town Planning Handbook (3rd ed.). Chicago: APA Planners Press.
Chapters 5, 6, and 7
Chapter 5: Information Resources for the Town Plan
Identifying Info and Resources: The planning commission should always know where the data is coming from.
Human Resources
- A planner will need good Technical Advice
- Ask local professionals (a banker about the economic situation, a business person about trade, a demographic contact, etc).
- Vlaunteer Labor is valuable
Info to Collect
- Population info
- Census
- Regional Planning Agency
- Individual state and federal agencies for data on water quality, floodplain hazards, or major highway projects.
- league of municipalities for technical assistance
- one of the first things a planner should do is contact the LOM and ask for a list of publications available at little or no cost.
- Natural Resources Conservation Service
- Soils
- maps
- soil survey
- electronic GIS database
- Published data
- US Census of Population and Housing
- National Association of Counties, Towns and Townships
- Legislative research service
- Secretary of State
- government documents section of your state's library
- Visual data
- google earth
- Base Maps
- Community clerk
- County engineer
- State highway commission
- more listed in the book page 62
- You need
- a housing base map
- land use maps
- community facilities
- soils
- transportation
- floodplain maps
- Visual Graphics
Chapter 6: Community Profile, Geography and History
Write your community profile last because it is a summary.
- Geography and History Overview
- highlight community on state reference map
- local chamber of commerce or tourism groups
- provide descriptions of features and locations
- History
- Particularly detailed around buildings important to tourism
Chapter 7: Population Projections and Characteristics
Population Characteristics
- several simple tables
- types and numbers of households (average household size included)
- Is my community's population increasing faster, more slowly, or about the same as the pop in the county?
- Is the population in my community declining faster, more slowly or about the same as the population in the county and nearby communities?
- Identify the median age over the decadesA median age under 32 indicates a high number of young people
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