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Houston Galveston Regional Plan

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»We need to think as individuals. This "collective" thought is Marxist. Get rid of any subsidies. Let all businesses stand on the thier own without govenment incentive. That would be true sustainability. There is no global warming or cooling due to increase CO2 levels. Three mile island was contained. All the vegetation and wildlife has returned to Chernobyl. The Japanese will be restarting the reactors soon. The nuclear reators will save lives as people will be assured "sustainable" electricity. (Electricity that is cheap and reliable.) Wind and solar are not sustainable. They are not available nearly 100% of the time.
»I don't like government dictating where people can live or not and just as much I don't like government spending our tax money to subsidize one set of places and hold down other places. That's what's happening now in the Houston region, and one of the purposes of this planning process, in my opinion, is to stop that and balance the tables.
»First, I went to the link you provided and with the help of a couple of scientists looked at the date. If you download the first data set cited under the chart, it doesn't match the numbers in the chart at all. So the only conclusion you can reach is that the author, who is clearly not a scientist but an ideologue, made up the numbers and then used the citation assuming no one would look it up.
I would agree with your contention that not allowing tall buildings in the suburbs would be social engineering, but the City and counties don't go that far. There are dozens of very tall buildings in the suburbs.
Why should we minimize planned communities, like the Woodlands and Cinco Ranch and so forth? That's all private with essentially no government control and people choose to live there (or not). The correlation of asthma and other respiratory problems with emissions is very clear and very well understood, as is the link between CO3 and global temperature.
»Christy, We don't we eliminate zoning. We can let private developers bid on the land and develop the land the way they would see as most profitable. This would be the free market at work. No subsidies. No planed development. No redevelopment areas where a government can dictate what would be built. Absolutely, no private/public partnerships which would be codespeak for socialism/communitarianism.
»Robert, you are suggesting communitariansim which is a socialist society. Redevelopment is a scam to push socialism on people. Please read view this link. It spells out why Agenda 21 (planned development, smart growth, livable centers, sustainability) is government control to push people off the land and into pack and stack high rise building. Redevelopment has been outlawed in California. Please read this website. http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/.
»This comment begs the question of the need for Sustainable Development and its objectives presented in Agenda 21. Do we need sustainable development? Can we continue development as we are presently doing? If we don't adopt sustainable development what other prescription for development would we adopt?
»Paul, Everything on this website is a way of changing thinking to convince people to beleive that socialism is the way to go. I'm appalled an NGO like HGAC would try to force Marxism on the American people. Man made global warming does not exist. Farming does not change land into deserts. Agenda 21 is a front to push Marxism into the United States. This is being done at a local level through NGOs such as this. Agenda 21 is not "new thinking". It is old Leninist materialism. The world ecosystem was spawned by marxists.
»I respect your point on the opportunity for people to live in mixed use developments. Freedom is what I think we need. I also concur we should not have government subsidizing in any type of development. I do agree that zoning makes it difficult to build high density building in the city. In fact, I can't substantiate it but I believe you can not build tall buildings in the suburbs. I see this as social engineering. I think we should be able to have the opportunity to build the way the free market decides. I must say that I completely disagree with the public/private partnership that are pushed as part of Agenda 21. I beleive we need to minimize zoning laws as well as planned communities. I don't see the correlation with asthma from power plant emissions. I have also shown there is no link between CO2 and global temperature increases or decreases. Additionally, if the water cycle has variability, we can build desalination plants and run them with nuclear power. I enjoy our dialogue. I just do not like collectivism where a government can dictate where and what people can and can not do.
»David, Please take a look at this link. http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/01/noaa-confirms-recent-global-temperature-change-is-historically-small-warming-is-decelerating.html. Please enlarge the graphs. This data is from NOAA. The graphs show virtually no global temperature change over the last 100 years. As atmospheric CO2 increases temperature does not. These two graphs show there is no correlation between temperature change and CO2 increases.
»Actually, the hottest decade on record was the last one (http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/temp-analysis-2009.html). I want my children and grandchildren to have the choice of living in an urban setting, which they want now, and when they're young I want them to have the opportunity for a 700-ft apartment that they can afford. Right now that is very difficult because government massively subsidizes development out at the fringes of the region and the City of Houston makes urbanism generally illegal.
We would want to limit emissions from power plants first because we have such huge incidence of asthma in children because of their emissions and second because those emissions are slowly driving the temperature up and making the water cycle unreliable and sometimes dangerous.
Agenda 21 does indeed seek sustainability, which means durability, responsibility, and survival. It has nothing whatsoever to do with UN or other government control.
»David, the terms you use are very vague. The devil is always in the details of what you say. This generic ideas sound you mention are socialist buzzwords. Very similar to the type of verbage used by marxists. The agenda here is to ask questions like "Do you want clean air?" Who wouldn't say "yes" to that. Then this group who runs this website guided by the principles in Agenda 21 tell towns and counties to vote for generic clean air regulations. They then leave the details to organizations like HGAC. HGAC then makes rules to implement this by imposing zoning and reduced lanes for cars, etc. and increased bike baths. HGAC will claim this is "cleaning the air" with the ultimate goal of moving people into "human habitat areas" that are outlined in Agenda 21. Please read the Vision documents on this website. Very socialist in nature.
»Keep government at the lowest local level possible. Conservation is great but emphasize more water supply. Desalination is a great proven way to get more water if the aquifers become low. Look for ways to extract more energy from public land.
»Smart meters on the outside of the house are the first step. The next step will be a router in your house that will be connected to your thermostat. Since coal plants are being incentivised in TX to not run due to "renwable energy credits", there will be less power production. When this happens Centerpoint will shut off your thermostat until demand subsides. Eventually, the urban hubs that are part of this Agenda 21 that this website is about will get power and the rural and sprawl areas(suburbs) will get rolling blackouts and power shutoffs. This will be part of the incentive to move to the urban hubs.
»This is fantastic that the free market is at work. Multinational corporations making workers and the surrounding community wealthy. High paying American jobs. Let build more LNG plants. Natural gas is definitely a big part of our prosperous future. I can't wait until we extract more minerals from the Eagle Ford shale.
»I am still need to know why emissions should be reduced...The hottest decade since 1860 was 1930. Do you want anyone's children to only have the choice of growing up in a urban setting in a 700 square foot flat that is mixed use? Humans are living longer every year. This comes as emissions have increased. Why would we want to limit our use of power plants that use coal, nuclear and natural gas. Sustainability from the "Vision" document on your website is Agenda 21. The end game is to move people into urban hubs.

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  Featured Idea Submission  
What are the major issues of this region?
What are the major issues of this region?
Although the region has lots of great attributes, it is not without challenges. What do you think are the major issues for the region overall?
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