Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Urban Sprawl

In 2006 the CA State legislature passed the air quality bill: AB32. This piece of legislation sets a target for California to have the same measure of heavy air particulates as in 1990 by 2020.

With the increase of roads and automobile centric development, charts show a continual increase to the decline of air quality. Obtaining a dramatic decrease requires a change of land use and a reduction of automobile use. California’s current land use design patterns are automobile centric and problematic for lowering pollution. Sprawl development continues the proliferation of automobile use which exacerbates the pollution increase.

As City’s Planners began to grapple with what urban growth has turned into as they began looking into the effects of AB32, the State Senate passed SB375 which mandates every MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization) to devise a Sustainable Communities Strategies (SCS) into every regional and city growth plan.

As the West grew in the 1800s, the growth was based on trains and transit systems. With automobiles being unsustainable and our entire society being based on an unsustainable foundation, it has come to the time when we get to change.

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