Plan Bay Area oped

November 21, 2013 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

Yesterday, the Washington Times published an oped I co-authored with Randall O’Toole of the Cato Institute.  Entitled provocatively, “Do single-family homes threaten the planet?“, Mr. O’Toole and I take aim at the foolish premise of Plan Bay Area and other instances of the new urbanism.  We argue that there are many much more cost-effective means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than to adopt an urban planning model that forces people to live in “stack and pack” development and to give up their personal commuting vehicles.  Our arguments in the oped are consistent with our lawsuit, Bay Area Citizens v. Association of Bay Area Governments, which challenges Plan Bay Area on the ground that its stack-and-pack approach is unnecessary to achieve state-mandated greenhouse gas emissions.