In a push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Arlington County will buy more wind-generated electricity, give tax breaks for hybrid cars and require new public buildings to be green-certified, reports Annie Gowen at the Washington Post. The county also will provide a number of home energy audits, plant 1,200 trees and hand out 2,000 energy-efficient…

For a great example of knowledge-wave thinking about education, take a look at the column about K-12 textbooks, written by Del. Christopher Peace, R-Mechanicsville, and published today in the Times-Dispatch. Peace doesn’t use the Toffleresque terminology of “Revolutionary Wealth” to put his argument into perspective, but I shall do it for him. The problem, according…

The House land use/transportation reform package is getting negative feedback from local government officials, according to Mason Adams and Cody Lowe with the Roanoke Times. Legislators are trying to solve the growth problems of Northern Virginia with tools that don’t seem appropriate in western Virginia. But Del. Clifford “Clay” Athey, R-Front Royal, is undismayed. He…

Greetings, Rebellion readers. I’m still in bah-humbug mode from the holidays — too much food, too much drink, too little exercise, too much materialist excess. This morning I’m recovering from the celebration of the New Year. But what occasion, exactly, did we toast at 12:00 midnight? We celebrate the ticking of the second hand along…

First: Thank you Twomanytaxes for your comment on the original BAD, BAD BOYS AND GIRLS posting. I know from your past posts that there are a number of observations based on your experiences in Fairfax County, the National Capital Subregion and elsewhere that do not seem to fit within our overarching conceptual framework. Hang in…

In previous posts, I have recapitulated the thoughts of Alvin and Heidi Toffler in their book “Revolutionary Wealth” about transportation and energy policy. But nowhere is the “wave conflict” — the failure of industrial-wave institutions to keep pace with knowledge-wave institutions — more critical than the arena of education. The situation is dire. As the…

According to R. James Woolsey, former director of the CIA and now a champion of energy independence, advanced battery technologies, plug-ins and hybrid cars represent the future of energy and transportation in the United States. If he’s right, the impact on our transportation and energy economies will be profound. In an op-ed (subscribers only) in…

The 28 December WaPo headline on the “land use / transportation” issue in Virginia reads:“Va House Puts Onus on Counties for Road Crisis.” After 50 years of negligent failure to provide the constitutionally required framework to preserve the health, safety and welfare of the Commonwealth’s citizens, some members of the General Assembly want to cover…

The transportation-land use connection is finally getting debated. Although Gov. Timothy M. Kaine had made transportation/land use an issue in his gubernatorial campaign, it never got more than token coverage by the scribblers in the Mainstream Media who decide how debates are framed and presented to the public. When the House GOP leadership tried raising…

The flip side of “smart growth” is “smart shrinkage.” USA Today examines how the city of Richmond is dealing with its declining population: downsizing gracefully, as it were. Following the lead of hundreds of European cities, where populations are shrinking, many American cities are reinventing themselves as well. “Everybody’s talking about smart growth, but nobody…

As Virginia evolves toward a Knowledge-based wealth creation system, we need to take a fresh look at state-level energy policy. As Alvin and Heidi Toffler observe in their book, “Revolutionary Wealth,” America’s energy economy has not adapted as quickly as dynamic sectors of the economy. Industrial America was built on the back of cheap fossil…

I’ve culled these quotes from the articles filed today about the House land use-reform initiative. From the Washington Post: Speaking in blunt terms, House leaders said an eagerness by local officials to approve development was “an abdication of responsibility” to plan for the impact on traffic, and that supervisors in growing counties “have done a…

House Republicans have re-introduced land use-reform legislation they submitted during the ill-fated September special session of the General Assembly. The three-bill package is sure to generate controversy among home builders and local governments, but preliminary indications are that the proposals will have a lot more traction this time around. Critical differences in the political environment:…

As a follow-up to my previous post, “Virginia, the De-Synchronization of Change and Fundamental Change,” I thought it useful to recapitulate what Alvin and Heidi Toffler have to say about the American transportation system. A vast infrastructure of four million miles of public highways, roads and streets, 23 million commercial trucks and hundreds of millions…

In Arlington County, a team of 38 employees is dedicated to encouraging employers and property managers to promote transit, biking and walking. Fairfax County, with about seven times as many residents, has recently appointed a single person to coordinate the county’s Traffic Demand Management policies. So reports Alec MacGillis in the Washington Post today. Perhaps…