One way to improve national energy efficiency is to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels for transportation. I work for the Metropolitan Planning Organization in a major urban area (by Federal mandate, every metropolitan area has one), and you might be interested in knowing that there is currently an initiative in progress to do exactly that. The strategy involves implementing new infrastructure development policies which will gradually alter the way our cities are actually built and laid out, and the way we live.

This is not such a far-fetched concept. Our current urban architecture (rapidly expanding suburbs surrounding a declining CBD) did not evolve naturally over the last half-century. To a very great extent it was the result of deliberate government and corporate policies designed to encourage single family home ownership in suburban parklands, all made possible by easy automotive ownership and cheap fuel. This policy was implemented by directing government investment in roads and other automotive support infrastructure, and neglect of America's once-proud public transportation and rail system. A comparison of North American and European urban architecture models should make this clear.

Low property values and interest rates in the suburbs, tax policies which encouraged individual suburban single family dwellings and home and automobile ownership, heavy state investment in roads and highways, and motor and energy company purchases (and subsequent deliberate neglect!) of mass transit infrastructure all encouraged these trends. Postwar economic policy and even national defense requirements, not to mention the cooperation of big goverment, big labor, and big business, all collaborated in this effort. A tremendous engine for economic growth and prosperity resulted, but it was all built on the foundation of cheap, abundant domestic petroleum resources.

It is now clear this model of urban development is not sustainable, indeed, it has initiated a destructive feedback loop, necessitating ever more investment in automotive infrastructure which somehow always seems to lag behind and generates even more demand. Even if abundant and inexpensive motor fuels magically appeared on the scene, we simply can't build roads and parking lots fast enough. The early twentieth century mass transportation which characterized the transition from horse to motor in high density central core industrial cities simply cannot be grafted to our present, low density dispersed urban geography.

The current trend in urban planning, now being embraced by government policy makers, is to gradually wean the society from total reliance on the automobile and to slowly return to a more mixed public transport system. This implies slowing the growth and eventually reducing the spread of the suburbs and bit by bit returning to an urban geography more easily serviced by train, bus, bicycle and pedestrian traffic. Not only will this necessitate a redirection of investment from automotive infrastructure to mass transit, it will also attempt to alter urban architecture itself, by creating more mixed neighborhoods with residential, commercial and industrial uses occupying the same neighborhoods, and by decentralizing land use, that is, returning to the concept of "neighborhood". People will travel shorter distances between work, home, and recreation, and they will rely less on the automobile.

In both the professional and academic planning communities and in government it is recognized that this new vision cannot simply be legislated into existence. But it is also recognized that the current system is not "natural" either, and evolved primarily for political and economic reasons, and to a great extent, because it fit in with private commercial goals and the desires of labor. The plan now is not to prevent the construction of automotive support facilities, but to phase out subsidies of government revenue. Future spending on infrastructure upgrades will be directed to support mass transit, pedestrian initiatives, and development of alternative transport schemes. There will be increased government support and encouragement (as well as spending) on urban construction that promotes mixed land uses. The developments of the future will not be malls and industrial parks, they will be mixed neighborhoods where factories, service industries, retail and housing will be in close proximity to one another, perhaps in the same building. The idea is that without massive government intervention, the automobile will decline due to natural market forces. Government spending will support the alternatives and replacements until the private sector makes the transition.

If you want to support (or oppose!) these concepts, I suggest you get involved with your local Metropolitan Planning Organization. By Federal law , MPOs are mandated to conduct public outreach campaigns, communicate with citizen's groups, private businesses, and local governments through websites, public hearings, and other means. These are not dictatorial agencies, but they might wind up that wy if the citizenry simply doesn't care. There is plenty of opportunity for public input and discussion, and your elected representatives must be ready to lobby for their constituencies as this all unfolds. Get on their case, we do live in a democracy!

There is also unprecedented access to the Congressional legislation (on the internet) which will play such an enormous role in how the urban landscape will evolve in the 21st century. None of this is new, these initiatives have been in progress now for over a decade, but you can expect them to suddenly play a much larger role in our lives now that Federal stimulus spending takes a larger role in urban planning and corporate lobbying diminishes in influence.