Earl Blumenauer: “this week there is a meeting in Norfolk, Virginia, of the unsung heroes of the efforts to promote Virginia's livability…”

“this week there is a meeting in Norfolk, Virginia, of the unsung heroes of the efforts to promote Virginia's livability, the town planners and the citizen volunteers who are on the front lines doing one of the hardest jobs in terms of coping with the problems of growth and development and sprawl in Virginia, but sadly, they have fewer tools than almost any State in the country. They know what to do, but despite those efforts, the State of Virginia has had unbalanced growth over the course of the last 15 years. The 1990s were a disaster. There was a failure in 1990 to adopt minimal State planning goals that would have helped provide form and direction. In 1995, the legislature in Virginia overwhelmingly defeated Virginia's Strategic Planning Act. Today we have a State administration that is asleep at the switch, and a legislature that is not helping the people of Virginia. There is no tie-in between their transportation investments and land use. There is certainly a head-in-the-sand attitude regarding paying the bill.”