1. The global housing boom - Economist – UK

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The global boom in house prices has been driven by two common factors: historically low interest rates have encouraged home buyers to borrow more money; and households have lost faith in equities after stockmarkets plunged, making property look attractive. Will prices now fall, or simply flatten off? And in either case, what will be the consequences for economies around the globe? The likely answers to all these questions are not comforting.
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A Blog: http://thehousingbubble2.blogspot.com/

 2. Driven to Spend: Pumping Dollars out of Our Households and Communities

A new study by the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) and the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) shows that families are paying a high price to meet their transportation needs and families in areas with fewer transportation choices carry even greater burdens.  Report PDF   Press release PDF  

 3. Summit's Collapse Over Budget Hints At 'Deep Crisis - Radio Free Europe - Prague, Czech Republic

 

The EU has lurched deeper into crisis after member states failed to approve a new long-term budget at their Brussels summit. France blamed Britain for the breakdown, as London refused to accept any reduction in its annual rebate. But the Netherlands and Sweden also blocked a deal on the 2007-13 budget, seeking cuts to their high contributions. The collapse was preceded by an extraordinary offer by the 10 new member states to give up some of their subsidies to sway Britain and the other objectors.

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For current debate search Google News with: EU Budget

 4. Big rise forecast in Auckland car pollution - New Zealand Herald - Auckland, New Zealand

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The final draft of the region's land transport strategy, issued last week for public submissions before being adopted in December, forecasts a growth in Auckland car numbers from about 652,000 now to more than 830,000 in 2016.

... This does not count vehicles owned by the more than 150,000 Aucklanders living outside the area covered by regional council computer modelling. ...

 

 5.  Communities unite on new development - Albany Times Union - Albany, NY, USA

 

Nine Capital Region municipalities have signed a pledge that commits them to the same goals in planning and economic development.

 

The so-called Regional Development Compact was announced Wednesday by the Center for Economic Growth, an Albany-based regional development group working to attract high-tech companies to the area.

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One of the pact's planning goals is "a focus on in-fill development," which means using vacant buildings and lots for new businesses, rather than building in the suburbs. Malta is sometimes held up as an example of a community experiencing sprawl. For instance, it doesn't have an urban "downtown."

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RC: Capital District Regional Planning Commission

6. North Carolina the next BR stop on prosperity tour - 2TheAdvocate - Baton Rouge, LA, USA

... the Chamber of Greater Baton Rouge has picked Raleigh as its next destination to study the performance -- and pick the brains -- of an outstanding city.

 

More than 100 civic leaders, including Mayor-President Kip Holden, have signed up for the "canvas workshop" on Sept. 11-13 in Raleigh ...

 

 RC: The Capital Region Planning Commission

 

 7. Planning council needs all parties - Newsday - Long Island, NY, USA

 

Bravo. For the first time in recent history, the Nassau and Suffolk County executives have agreed to move forward on a more effective regional planning council with newly proposed legislation.

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Since the 1960s, the existing Long Island Regional Planning Board has provided valuable input on land-use issues for the counties, towns and villages. But the board's role has been strictly advisory. Over time, as all zoning decisions have been made on the local level, regional effects have largely been an afterthought.
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The most effective planning councils across the nation - Southern California, Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul - all have extensive representation of the municipalities. That's a key reason why they work.

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RCs: Long Island Association   Sustainable Long Island  Regional Plan Association – Long Island Office Report PDF  Report: Long Island Index

 

 8. Taxpayers are not in driver’s seat for Virginia’s I-81 policy – SHENANDOAH & SOUTHWEST CITIZEN – Rail Solutions - Advertisement

 

Sometime in the fall of 2005, people in Western and Southwest Virginia will have a critical opportunity to speak up for the rural heritage of their communities. They’ll be asked to comment, in state hearings, on a proposal to widen I-81, all 325 miles of it in Virginia, to eight, twelve, or even more lanes.

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I-81 RCs – south to north: Mount Rogers;  New River Valley;  Roanoke Valley-Allegheny;  Central Shenandoah;  Northern Shenandoah Valley

 

 9. Panel advises PSB to reject NRC's inspection of Yankee - Brattleboro Reformer - Brattleboro, VT, USA

In comments submitted to the Vermont Public Service Board on Tuesday, the Windham Regional Commission stated that it does not believe last year's engineering inspection by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of Vermont Yankee satisfies the board order of March 15, 2004.

 

When Vermont Yankee officials proposed increasing power at the plant by 20 percent, state law required that they get approval from the Public Service Board.

 

The Windham Regional Commission was a party in the case, as was the Vermont Department of Public Service, the nuclear watchdog the New England Coalition and the Connecticut River Watershed Council.

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10. Neighborhood rumble - Daytona Beach News-Journal - Daytona, FL, USA

 

Residents of Volusia and Flagler counties -- whether in the cities or the unincorporated areas -- must sometimes wonder why their representatives have so much trouble getting along with each other. After all, what do residents care where their municipal and public safety services come from so long as they are delivered reliably and at reasonable costs? But the responsibility for delivering those services is increasingly overlapping between counties and cities, causing friction and rifts. That's obvious enough when, say, Volusia and its cities battle over who is in a better position to provide fire services.

 

What's less obvious is that, if county-city tiffs are the white noise of local government relations, it's by design. Florida law pits cities and counties against each other, either by limiting their abilities to raise local taxes, by forcing them to compete for limited state and local dollars or by reducing counties to spectators as cities annex land and tax bases left and right. ...

 

Florida RCs: Volusa Co.  – East Central;   Flagler Co. – Northeast

 

11.  Straight from Google.

 

      a) Notes and quotes from the Louisiana Legislature - Times Picayune - New Orleans, LA, USA

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Legislation that would create a Biosciences Economic Development District in New Orleans was approved Wednesday by the House after an ...

 

      b) Homeless groups figuring out winter shelter plans - North County Times - Escondido, CA, USA

... a workshop held at Interfaith Community Services' headquarters ... Originally the organization held a 100-bed ... a long-term shelter for the region's homeless veterans ...

 

      c) Henan stigma highlights regional bias - Xinhua - Beijing,China

... affect one's standing in a new community," said Yuan ... Yuan said that discrimination by region, though pervasive ... suggested, "is for a media organization to open ...

 

      d) Japan's beneficent potential - The Japan Times – Japan

... The emergence of such a regional community will contribute greatly not only to economic development in East Asia but also to political stability and security ...

 

      e) 'Planners seem to forget about the residents' - New Zealand Herald - Auckland, New Zealand

... He says the local community dug in its heels. ... with things like council meetings and decisions, district plans, growth strategies, the regional policy statement ...

 

      f) )  'New vision' hope for Axminster - Midweek Herald – UK

The initiative is run by the South West Regional Development Agency and the Countryside Agency and provides money to market towns to allow communities to ...

 

      g) The End Of Upward Mobility – Business Week – USA

... What's more, the economic performance of the past 10 years -- call it the New Economy decade, boom and bust combined -- is arguably the best since the 1960s ...

 

      h) San Francisco shows how to lure biotech - Arizona Republic - Phoenix, AZ, USA

... The new biosciences campus will eventually hold 10,000 students. "San Francisco is a boom-and-bust economy, and it has been since the days of the gold rush...

 

      i) Forward thinking - Leeds Today - Leeds, UK

... their c... REGIONAL development agency Yorkshire Forward is investing more than £3m as part of the expansion of... NEWMASON Properties ...

 

      j)  A quarter- penny wise, a pound foolish - Buffalo News - Buffalo, NY, USA

... and burning for 2006. It's regionalism in reverse. But at least taxpayers in Williamsville can afford it. "If Erie County catches ...

 

      k) No howling coyotes here: Conference breaks cliches - Albuquerque Tribune - Albuquerque, NM, USA

... "But we're trying to break down people's clich?d ideas about that and take the negativism away from the term regionalism and the term Western.". ...

 

      l) CANTO presses governments to speed up telecom reforms - Mycaribbeannews - Miami, FL, USA

"Communications is a key facilitator of regional development, and liberalization is a key factor in bringing down costs, improving technology and providing ...

 

12. U.S. regional communities straight from Google

 

      a) Road work near Carson gets top priority - Colorado Springs Gazette - Colorado Springs, CO, USA

... CDOT Director Tom Norton was angry that the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments, a consortium of regional cities and counties that does transportation ...

 

      b) New vanpool program to help farmworkers commute in Santa Maria Valley  - KESQ - Palm Desert, CA, USA

...
The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments voted this week to spend 150-thousand dollars on a project that would provide vans and vehicle insurance to to help hundreds of workers travel to the area's strawberry and broccoli fields. ...

 

      c) Appalachian Regional Council funds may be running out - Parkersburg News - Parkersburg, WV, USA

PARKERSBURG - Appalachian Regional Council funds used to help businesses in eight counties in the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Council could be nearing an end. ...

 

      d) Toll-road claims doubted - Denver Post - Denver, CO, USA

Will Toor, chairman of the Denver Regional Council of Governments, said the toll road would increase demand on surrounding state highways while failing to ...

 

13. Other in the news:

 

      a) Train mindsets to keep pushing boundaries - Moneycontrol.com - Mumbai, India

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The banking business, on the other hand, will be seeing a lot of action in the coming years. The prospect of gaining in fresh markets will keep them on their toes. Kocchar admits, "Now Indian corporates are going global and if we follow them, that’s huge business. And as that happens, you start creating your base for a true global business. And it’s not that you really need to wait for the first phase to get over and then follow the second phase, but while you are preparing yourself and getting your brand known to the local community there (abroad), you can at least use the Indian consumers, you actually participate in businesses to give you the first mover advantage."

 

"If you look at our Canadian operations - the competitive advantage is that we built on the technology in India and we used that to offer a product, which is really an online product, in Canada. It started by marketing to NRIs, but today the larger proportion of accounts is actually from the local Canadian population, rather than Indians."
...  

      b) Google Scholar (Redux) - addict3d.org – USA

 

... re-testing HighWire Press and Google, I kept thinking about where we would be if publishers had provided HWP with the same unfettered access to their digital archives as they did for Google. Publishers should recognize that Google is not the only game in town and that there are others who are willing to be as smart and more commitment-oriented.

 

Google Scholar has to be looked at with this background: Even in its disappointing incarnation it is an asset for those scholars whose university or research institute cannot afford WoS or Scopus. Those who just need a few good papers and Web sites might as well be satisfied with the regular Google or Yahoo search engines. Those who need a comprehensive set of papers that includes the most respected (and hence most-cited) articles, books and conference papers are advised to treat the hits — and citedness scores — in Google Scholar with much reservation.

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14. Announcement

 

"World-Information City"  Bangalore November 2005

 

 "World-Information City" is a joint effort of European and South Asian civil society, a global cooperation rooted in the diversity of Bangalore's Information Society projects.

 

"World-Information City" conference in November 2005 will focus on cultures of Open Networks in technology driven information societies and on issues of Intellectual Property. A workshop series based on local and European expertise will be organised together with Alternative Law Forum and local institutions.

 

15. Subscription link stories 

 

      a) Plans For Proposed Missouri River Corridor Taking Shape – Subscription - Yankton Daily Press - Yankton, SD, USA

 

In the future, you could buy locally-processed meat with the Missouri River Corridor label.

 

Or you could get one of the new jobs attracted to the Missouri River Corridor by the local work ethic and quality of life.

 

And in your free time, you could enjoy bird watching, canoeing or biking along the Missouri River Corridor.

 

Those are just a few of the ideas coming out of this week's meeting of southeast South Dakota and northeast Nebraska officials. The latest meeting at Santee, Neb., has continued the momentum for the proposed economic corridor.

... office in Yankton, the Southeast Council of Governments (SECOG) office in Sioux Falls and the Northeast Nebraska Economic Development District (NENEDD) office ...

 

      b) Old city plan shows less government is more - Atlanta Journal Constitution (subscription) - GA, USA

 

All Atlanta needs is one more government. Right.

 

When residents of Sandy Springs go to the polls Tuesday to vote on creating a new city, it will set into motion a new wave of more governments.

 

...  a whole bunch of scenarios exist for reconfiguring Fulton County and its cities, there's no question that this region is moving in the direction of more governments, not fewer.

 

And that trend only will create more heartaches and headaches for this region as well as the entire state.

 

Already, Georgia has 159 counties — more than in any other state except Texas, which has 254 counties and is 4 1/2 times our size. The area served by the Atlanta Regional Commission includes 63 cities plus 10 county governments.

 

For decades, state and area leaders have pointed to the multiplicity of our governments as reasons why we can't get anything done or why we can't develop a regional mindset with everyone looking out for their own jurisdictions.

 

Yet whenever the "c" word comes up — consolidation — everyone runs for cover.

 

It's easy to be sympathetic to those living in Sandy Springs because we all want a government that's most responsive to our needs. But there must be a more sensible way to govern our region and our state than our current splintered governments.

 

Actually, we had the answer 54 years ago.

 

It was the Atlanta Plan of Improvement, which passed the Legislature in 1951 and was implemented on Jan. 1, 1952.

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