subdivision ordinances, helping communities to adapt to climate change, making housing more inclusionary, and supporting both equity and better transportation by mixing land uses and housing types. Learning Objectives: Understanding how to amend local development regulations by adding environmental information to zoning maps and removing incentives for environmental damage from residential subdivision ordinances, including factors that will aid localities in adapting to climate changes. Understanding how to amend local development regulations to mix land uses and housing types to support both greater equity and more effective transportation. Understanding current measures to make zoning, especially single-family zoning, more inclusive. Readings: Chapter 10 “Rewriting Local Regulations to Promote Sustainability and Equity” in Designing the Megaregion: Meeting Urban Challenges at a New Scale, by Jonathan Barnett, Island Press, 2020, pp 133-143. Also “Managing Climate Change Locally” and “Encouraging Walking by Mixing Land Uses and Housing Types” in Reinventing Development Regulations by Jonathan Barnett and Brian W. Blaesser, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2017 pp 47-104.
Review Lecture and Discussion: A Design Agenda for Megaregions Individual citizens, civic organizations, advocacy groups, and professional organizations can influence government agencies to implement the megaregion design agenda, as can the staff and leadership of the agencies themselves. The design agenda includes adding environmental factors to development regulations through the use of GIS: operating fast-enough passenger trains through every megaregion, and amending local development regulations to facilitate more equitable development, such as turning commercial corridors into mixed-use corridors and rebuilding by-passed parts of cities and towns. These improvements to the way decisions are made about megaregions will still leave many difficult choices to be made within the new framework. However, compared to current trends, adopting these practical and relatively simple changes will lead to a much more desirable future. Discussion Questions: 1. Why does the availability of GIS for states and local governments improve their ability to manage development? What kinds of information are most important to include in the GIS maps? How can this information help make policy decisions which have environmental implications? Are there any reasons why local governments can’t modify their development regulations to include environmental factors? 2. How practical will it be to implement plans for fast-enough trains in megaregions? What are the potential sources of funding? What are the advantages of fast-enough trains for