Charlotte, a Smart Growth mecca? Some of you are laughing, having witnessed or maybe even lived through our miles and miles of definitively suburban sprawl.
Others of you are probably listening for the black helicopters that will swoop in and snatch our freedom as the socialists central planners triumph.
I guess we’ll have a chance to see which vision triumphs, next Feb. 3-5, when the EPA’s 10th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth Conference arrives in Charlotte. To see more, visit the conference website.
Here’s your chance for some input. Lee Sobel of the EPA’s Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation, sent a notice of the conference’s call for session proposals – a way you can submit ideas for breakouts, workshops, trainings, tours, or networking activities. This being, after all, the federal government you may submit your ideas via the “CFSP Submittal Form.” It, and the “CFSP Instructions” are posted on the session proposals section of the conference website. Deadline to offer your ideas: June 30.
All are invited to offer ideas. Some of the sessions at the 2010 conference in Seattle dealt with passenger rail, safe [pedestrian] routes to schools, health and the built environment, Smart Growth and race relations, etc. My suggestions – and no I’m not submitting a CFSP Submittal Form”: Surviving and Thriving in the Down Economy; exploring the financial burden sprawl puts on local and state governments; Dealing with Legislators.
I note they’ll award a Lifetime Achievement Award to someone. Past winners have been former King County (Washington) Executive Ron Sims, now deputy secretary at HUD; ex-Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening; Dr. Richard Jackson, formerly director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and now a professor at University of Michigan; and Walkable Communities founder and pedestrian/bicycle advocate and occasional Charlotte visitor Dan Burden (who would absolutely wins the “epic mustache award” if they had one. Great guy.)