Meeting today on California SB 375

The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association hosts a meeting today to discuss California Senate bill 375, which aims to address greenhouse-gas emissions and reduce carbon production through better land use, transportation and city planning.

As the bill's author, state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, told The Planning Report, SB 375 "requires the 18 metropolitan planning organizations across the state of California to show that their future planning scenarios will result in a reduction in carbon."

While SB 375 isn't about clean technologies per se, it certainly is linked to cleantech in many ways. Most literally, urban in-fill construction and densified new construction is more likely to use green building methods than traditional suburban construction.

More importantly, though, you might think of dense cities as clean technology writ large. Dense cities that are pleasant to live in enable residents and workers to walk or take efficient mass transit to their destinations, and they encourage people to live where the environment is already built up -- instead of in areas that serve important agricultural, environmental or even industrial purposes. People in dense cities are able to use energy and water much more efficiently than people living in most rural or suburban situations.

SPUR's meeting is for the members of its Housing Committee and Sustainable Development Committee, but the think tank could host a public presentation or publish an article on the bill in the future.

More about SPUR.

Read more of The Planning Report's interview with Steinberg.