As documented in The Shape of the Future Vol I – and reinforced by TRILO-G – achieving economic prosperity, social stability and environmental sustainability depends on evolving functional human settlement patterns.
Citizens of Virginia the question is:
How do citizens of the Commonwealth implement something like the six overarching strategies to achieve functional human settlement patterns outlined in Vol II of The Shape of the Future?
For those who have not been paying attention, here is a sketch:
1. Start with a Wright Plan* for ALL the territory that directly impacts the use and management of land in the Commonwealth. That means doing a Wright Plan for the Washington-Baltimore NUR, the Richmond NUR and the Hampton Roads NUR as well as the DelMarVa, Appalachian and East Carolina USRs. (It would be helpful if the Philadelphia NUR and the Central Carolina NUR would also undertake a Wright Plan but that is not essential.)
2. Based on best available data, project future growth / change in Jobs and Housing for 10, 20 and 30 years by NUR and USR. Then allocate thse projections to coterminous SubRegions within the NURs and USRs.
3. Quantify the demand for land for Jobs, Houses, Services and Recreation by SubRegion starting at the Centroids and working out. This means the Centroids of the NURs and the Centroids of the Urban agglomerations of Beta Community scale or larger within USRs. Use as the basis of per capita consumption, the patterns and densities needed for developers to make a 8 percent profit if ALL the location-variable costs are fairly allocated.
NB. This calculation will document the vast OVERSUPPLY of already Urbanized land. (See “Stark Contrast” in Chapter 49 of TRILO-G. For this reason, the Initial Quantification would allocate twice as much land as will be needed to meet projected 10, 20 and 30 year demand so that the process of DeUrbanization (including Subdivision Recycling and Parcel Consolidation) can proceed from the least well located land for Urban uses to the better located land. (The value of land for agriculture, forestry, OpenSpace, extraction, and environmental functions would be factored into the process in step 5.)
4. By SubRegion allocate the amount of land Quantified:
A. INSIDE Clear Edges around the Cores of NURs (Urbanside that includes OpenSpace), and
B. OUTSIDE Clear Edges around the Cores of NURs (Countryside that includes Open Land and Urban enclaves that are within the Countryside (components of Beta Balanced But Disaggregated Communities) including larger Urban agglomerations in USRs.)
For illustrations of the boundaries of allocation see PowerPoint “New Urban Region Conceptual Framework.” in Chapter 49 of TRILO-G.
5. Start the Three Step HANDBOOK process for every Beta Community in each of the SubRegions within the entire Wright Planned territory. For an overview of how the early phases of such a process might work see EMRs 16 Feb 2004 BRZ column (#25) “The Shape of Richmond’s Future.”
Steps 1. through 4. would take no more than 5 days and would be repeated every year for 20 years to reflect changes in economic, social and physical reality, including feedback from the Step 5. processes. After the first two years, the calculations and allocations would be carried out in a transparent on-line process by a constituent assembly elected to represent to entire territory.
Step 5. would be carried out as an ongoing democratic process as outlined in HANDBOOK – TRILO-G – PART TWELVE.
The questions remains:
By the time a majority of citizens come to understand the need for such a process to achieve Fundamental Transformation of human settlement patters, will there be resources left to implement a sustainable trajectory?
* The term Wright Plan is named after and based on the 1928 plan for New York State prepared by Henry Wright. Google turns up information on Henry Wright and there is an illustration of his New York plan in Lewis Mumford’s book The City in History. The Wright Plan comes very close to allocating land in the categories suggested in THE USE AND MANAGEMENT OF LAND – PART FOUR of TRILO-G.
EMR