Regionalization. If you don't know what it is, you will soon. It's the interim step on the road to globalization. The creation of another layer of government, unelected, unaccountable. A conglomeration of municipalites who are making new laws and goals that supercede their local laws---then they'll go back to the local community and say that they are required to bring their local laws into line. A manipulation.
The following story is set in the San Francisco Bay Area but it could be in your area. And it will be soon.
There are Delphi meetings going on all over the nine county San Francisco Bay Area right now. Put on by www.OneBayArea.org they are public/private meetings organized by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Association of Bay Area Governments, and local agencies and groups.
As you know, a Delphi meeting is set up on the premise that the organizer is 'welcoming the public's input' but the truth is that the outcome of the meeting was determined in advance. The public is there for a propaganda session and to give the illusion that there was public buy-in. Typically participants are given crayons and paper like children and told to 'design' a perfect community. This utopia was miraculously envisioned in advance and is produced on colored maps with lots of pretty pictures of middle class people recreating.
The goal is to homogenize the Bay Area and the nation with 'smart growth'--mixed use developments subsidized by your property tax dollars, with ground floor shops and two to four stories of residential units above. Very little parking, very little open space, few private outdoor areas. Constructed right next to a busy street or rail-line (active or not), these condo and apartment developments discourage private vehicles.
Planning documents for each and every city and county are standardized and brought into alignment with this idea. No one can get anything built that does not conform to this plan, and only government-subsidized developers (cronies) can get their projects built. Banks won't lend on these projects without government guarantees because they often have high vacancy, crime, and poor maintenance. Typically the retail space never rents up or rents for far less than the developer expected, but he's long gone...sold the project to some investor with dreams of a big return---soon to be in foreclosure. Mixed use only works in highly urbanized areas where there are enough residents to support the retail. San Francisco is an example. Typically, most smaller cities cannot support this model.
Forget the idea of a 'level playing field' because no private owner can get their project through the Planning Commission and City Council. And nothing is permitted by right anymore--in other words just because your property is zoned for a use doesn't mean you can build it. Years of paying consultants, permit expediters, architects, planners, and lawyers bankrupts many while they're waiting for approvals. Often the developer has gotten a private loan from an elderly investor who then loses everything when the developer stops paying. Up here in Sonoma County we have developers Alan Strachan and Orin Theissen as the most infamous for that behavior. They've both been hailed as 'visionaries' for their disneyland-like failed SmartGrowth developments. And you'll recall that Alan Strachan had been poised to offer 'Green Energy Loans' as a boondoggle pushed by the sponsors of One Bay Area.
This is social engineering. These developments are designed for the minimum of privacy, and to allow controlling energy and water agencies the option of limiting your usage without your input. In the guise of environmentalism the stress of living will increase through greater regulation and restrictions. This is a giant redevelopment plan with the power of eminent domain. STOP ONE BAY AREA NOW.
For a look at an incredible grassroots success at anti-Delphi-ing one of these meetings take a look at this youtube. The whole meeting is a great example of how to take over one of these meetings and how to assert yourself as a citizen, but if you go to the beginning of the second hour on this youtube you'll get the essence of it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH5KYGV8314
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