A Better Way to Zone: Ten Principles to Create More Liveable Cities

The above-titled book by Donald Elliott will be of interest to planners and zoning officials.  According to the author’s Web site, “A Better Way to Zone provides a vision of future zoning that is not tied to a particular picture of how cities should look, but is instead grounded in how cities should work.”

The principles are:

1 - More Flexible Uses
2 - The Mixed Use Middle
3 - Attainable Housing
4 - Mature Area Standards
5 - Living With Non-Conformities
6 - Dynamic Development Standards
7 - Negotiated Large Developments
8 - Depoliticized Final Approvals
9 - Better Webbing
10 -Scheduled Maintenance

If you’re going to have a blog…

… it might be a good idea to post something at least once a week.

Being in the strategic planning facilitation business (among others), an ad in FAST COMPANY for a business planning company caught my eye.  I went to the Web site and checked out their products and
services.  Upon clicking onto BLOG I was taken to a blog section in which the last post was September 2007.  I assume that the company is still in business.

Prefab houses

I love browsing through my replicated Sears catalogue that contains plans and order forms for house kits that Sears sold at one time.  The idea worked at the time.  People bought the materials in kit form and built their own houses.  These houses are all over the country.  There is even an organization, The Sears House Project, that helps to locate and preserve Sears Houses.

The pre-fabricated house idea seems to be a good one, but it has never really caught on. Allison Arieff, co-author of Prefab, stated in a recent Chicago Tribune interview that, “Modern prefab can begin to make a dent in the tragic vernacular homogeneity that plagues this country.”  (I think I know what that means.)

For more information about “affordable modernist factory-built residential architecture” check out fabprefab.com, a Web site by architect Michael Sylvester. Check out the section showing houses made from shipping containers.

RICH STATES, POOR STATES

The American Legislative Council’s report, RICH STATES, POOR STATES ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index, is now available online.  Click here to find out where your state is ranked; click here for the complete report in pdf format. 

The 16 variables in the index are:

• Highest marginal personal income tax rate
• Highest marginal corporate income tax rate
• Progressivity of the personal income tax system
• Property tax burden
• Sales tax burden
• Tax burden from all remaining taxes
• Estate tax/Inheritance tax (Yes or No)
• Recent Tax Policy Changes 2005-06
• Debt service as share of tax revenue
• Public employees per 10,000 residents
• Quality of state legal system
• State minimum wage
• Workers’ Compensation costs
• Right-to-work state (Yes or No)
• Tax/Expenditure Limit
• Education Freedom Index

Speakers offer lists.

Interesting lists from a couple of speakers at a conference I am attending.

Larry Sabato, Director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and one of the more accurate political analysts, listed his four “North Stars” of presidential elections.  He says that all presidential elections come down to one or more of these:
War & Peace
Economy
Scandal
Hot button social issues

Brian Dabson, CEO of the Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI) listed five “Global Forces Impacting Rural America.  They are:

Climate change
Globalizing Economies
Shifting populations
Energy
Valuing nature’s services 

How to bring awareness to endangered historic buildings in your community.

One way to bring awareness to historic buildings is to publicly name them.  The Mississippi Heritage Trust has done an excellent job at this as each year it unveils its annual 10 Most Endangered Historic Places list.  Why not have an annual naming of the one most endangered historic building in your community?

The importance of the arts to your community.

An interesting study of the arts:

Creative Industries: Business & Employment in the Arts reports offer a new, research-based approach to understanding the scope and importance of the arts to the nation’s economy. While most economic impact studies of the arts have focused on the nonprofit sector (such as our own Arts and Economic Prosperity study), Creative Industries is the first national study that encompasses both the nonprofit and for-profit arts industry.

Click here.

What Remarkable Associations Do That Others Don’t

This book is worth reading if you manage an association.

7 Measures of Success: What Remarkable Associations Do That Others Don’t
by The Center for Association Leadership. The 7 measures are:
1. A Customer Service Culture
2. Alignment of Products and Services with Mission
3. Data-Driven Strategies
4. Dialogue and Engagement
5. CEO as a Broker of Ideas
6. Organizational Adaptability
7. Alliance Building

A rural county increases college going rate from 26 percent to 84 percent.

How did such a thing happen? Old-fashioned community involvement in the schools and new-fashioned technology where every kid in 6-12 grades gets a laptop.  And investing in a wireless Internet system five years ago did not hurt.

More details at the following Web sites:
http://www.dailyyonder.com/greene-county-nc-wireless-and-way-ahead
http://www.gcsedu.org/home.aspx

Web site that focuses on small towns.

Smallwander.com ^SM links the high-quality resources of small towns. The site, which is still in the testing stage, will include 10 to 30 towns from each of the southeastern states in the not-too-distant future. This site is different than other tourism sites because it:
Focuses on small towns that have small-town charm, with historical, artistic, and natural offerings,
Pools the amenities of small towns into a single database,
Provides up-to-date information about events, and
Recruits businesses that are locally-owned, walkable, and environmentally-friendly.