If, as the adage goes, it's impossible to tell the dancer from the dance, then it might be even harder to tell the SCS from the RTP. 

The midpoint of 2011 is rapidly approaching, and that means the first glimpses of the "Sustainable Communities Strategies" created under SB 375 are beginning to emerge. In particular, the "Big Four" metropolitan planning organizations � those from the Los Angeles Area, the Bay Area, San Diego, and Sacramento � are all moving forward with their SCS processes, and discernable trends are beginning to emerge.

In 2007, then-Attorney General Jerry Brown established a new paradigm for planning in California. With his settlement in a lawsuit against San Bernardino County, he clearly signaled that cities, counties, and county subregions would have to account for, and attempt to mitigate, greenhouse gas emissions in their general plans under the California Environmental Quality Act and AB 32. In fact, Brown went so far as to vow to sue any city that failed to account for its greenhouse gas emissions.  

A great deal of literature has already anointed the hero in the fight against climate change: the city. Beginning with David Owens' Green Metropolis and including the work of Paul Hawken, Ed Glaeser, and countless others, the city has come to symbolize all the ways that humans can live densely and tread lightly on the Earth. 

These accolades might be premature. In his brief but wide-ranging book Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in a Hotter Future, Matthew Kahn renders no such heroes. 

If California's redevelopment agencies vanish on July 1, as Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed, it's clear the task of mending the state's blighted neighborhoods will likely grow more complicated. Less obvious is the fact that California's effort to clean up the Earth's atmosphere may grow more difficult as well.

With the advent of AB 32 and SB 375, California has adopted some of the world's leading anti-greenhouse gas laws. And yet, even according to conservative projections, certain very low-lying coastal areas may not survive.

Some of the state's most vulnerable land rings the San Francisco Bay, which is becoming a battleground in the latest round of climate change policy debates. 

Local voters in the Nov. 2 California election were not necessarily "pro-growth" or "anti-growth" but rather seem to have embraced smart growth like never before. They expressed subtle but clear preferences for preserving open space while accepting compact development. Urban growth boundaries were a big hit, and several infill plans and projects were approved while anything that would have led to encroachment on greenfields or urban fringes was shot down.

Local election highlights include the following:

The City of Chico's draft general plan opens with the darndest thing: a sustainability element.

The California Air Resources Board's long-awaited greenhouse gas emissions targets probably are not perfect, to say the least. But they may be the closest thing California has to a consensus these days.