Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Stockton Plan wins Green Award from Local Government Commission

Stockton's revised general plan settlement forced by the Attorney General received an award from the Local Government Commission, a green local government professional association.


This award seems a bit premature to me. Perhaps we should see some of the results first.

I wonder if this award came from some local government officials who haven't allowed residential development in their Bay Area towns, with the result that much of their moderate income workforce drives over the pass for long commutes. A lot of the Valley's long commute times are caused by poor planning in the Bay area, not sprawl in places like Stockton.

It's also worth noting that a much larger share of our employment base (industrial, agriculture, transportation, construction) isn't compatible with residential, doesn't occur downtown, and doesn't lend itself as easily to mixed-use green development plans and mass transit.

This spin that Jerry Brown is helping Stockton's environment and the city learned from him strikes me as a bit odd. My understanding is that he has a long history of supporting the peripheral canal and Delta water exports which are far more destructive of the local environment than a Spanos development.

By the way, how green is it to have business meetings in Yosemite National Park? Shouldn't this have been done in some high density urban center served by public transit?

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