While the Tea Party movement has been trying to "take back America" on the national stage since the election of Barack Obama, Tea Party activists have also turned their attention to taking back California – and, specifically,  Senate Bill 375, the 2008 law that seeks to combat climate change by promoting density in the state's metro regions. 

Even if it takes a village to raise a child, apparently it does not take a planning department to raise a village. Or even a city of villages. 

The City of San Diego's Planning Department won national acclaim for its 2008 "City of Villages" general plan update, which was guided by outgoing Planning Director Bill Anderson and his predecessor, Gail Goldberg. But budget constraints have compelled Mayor Jerry Sanders to order that the department be shut down and merged with the Development Services Department. 

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.

The unique geography of the San Francisco Bay ensures that there is only one Bay Area. Uniqueness and unity are not, however, the same thing, and planners are now working to convince the Bay Area's own residents and public officials that there is indeed One Bay Area.

When Proposition 84 passed in 2006, it reflected a booming economy. Providing $5.4 billion for clean water, parks, and open space the measure was seen as an important way to protect the state's natural resources at a time before many were worried about $28 billion deficits or maxing out the state's bonding capacity. 

Prop. 84's primary focus is on waterways and water management. However, it also includes a relatively tiny set-aside for innovative planning that is proving to be a godsend to planning departments that are suffering unprecedented budget cuts (see CP&DR Insight Vol. 25, No. 5, March 2010). 

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.

 The Vision California modeling exercise, however meticulous in its calculation methods, still relies on a slate of assumptions that call for some vigilant critiques. Calthorpe & Associates, which devised Vision California based on previous work, have stated elsewhere that the key to the global warming crisis lies in curbing "sprawl," that pejorative term for low-density suburban development. To the extent that a large lot, single-family home with a multi-car garage represents a choice, it is in Calthorpe's view neither a preferable nor sustainable one.

As national debates about climate change have raged and federal action has grown ever more unlikely in the shadow of -- take your pick -- economic woes, mid-term election jitters, and the blackening of the Gulf of Mexico, the State of California last week edged closer to implementing its own land use based program to curtail climate change. Per a June 30 deadline stipulated in Senate Bill 375, the staff of the California Air Resources Board (ARB) released its draft regional targets for carbon emissions reductions. 

The targets are based on what participants have said is an extraordinarily sophisticated scenario planning and modeling.