From Transportation Planning to Communitarian Social Planning

The Transportation and Community System and Preservation Act (TCSP) was described on the Federal Highway Administration website this way:

The Transportation, Community, and System Preservation (TCSP) Program provides funding for a comprehensive initiative including planning grants, implementation grants, and research to investigate and address the relationships between transportation, community, and system preservation and to identify private sector-based initiatives.

States, metropolitan planning organizations, local governments, and tribal governments are eligible for TCSP Program discretionary grants to plan and implement strategies which improve the efficiency of the transportation system, reduce environmental impacts of transportation, reduce the need for costly future public infrastructure investments, ensure efficient access to jobs, services and centers of trade, and examine development patterns and identify strategies to encourage private sector development patterns which achieve these goals.

It's subtle, but it's there and if you continue to look at the development of the metropolitan regional governing structure, you will see the social planning unfold.  From the previous section, "Treasure Valley Partnership Goals":

2.  Link land use and transportation

That's Planning and Zoning which is a function of city or county government.  In the creation of a metropolitan governing structure, the administrative merger of these functions across jurisdictions is the cannibalization of elected representative government, replaced by a committee management structure that exists at a higher level of power than the city government layers being merged. 

"Centers of trade"   .... see Trojan Triangles, Trojan Triangles - "The CORE"

Note also from the previous page that it was the group, "Idaho Smart Growth Network" that informed the Treasure Valley Partnership of the grant opportunity.  Who are the Idaho Smart Growth Network?  They are the social change agents in the community who masquerade as grassroots but who are really connected with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Their purpose is to facilitate the implementation of Agenda 21 principles into our local communities while appearing not to be government central planners.  In other words, they have slithered into our communities riding (no pun intended) on the backs of the transportation system planners.   

About the Metropolitan Policy Program

Created in 1996, the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program provides decision makers with timely trend analysis, cutting-edge research and policy ideas for improving the health and prosperity of cities and metropolitan areas.

The program is based on a simple premise: The United States is a metropolitan nation. Metropolitan areas are home to 83 percent of the U.S. population, 85 percent of the nation’s jobs and 92 percent of all college graduates. They are our hubs of research and innovation, our centers of human capital, and our gateways of trade and immigration. They are, in short, the drivers of our economy, and American competitiveness depends on their vitality.

Our work is designed to help metropolitan areas (and the cities and suburbs within them) adapt to rapid economic, demographic, and technological changes and ultimately achieve three goals that are central for success in the new global order:

• Productive growth that boosts innovation and entrepreneurship, generates quality jobs and rising incomes, and helps the U.S. maintain its economic leadership;
   
• Inclusive growth that expands educational and employment opportunities, reduces poverty, and fosters a strong and diverse middle class; and
   
• Sustainable growth that strengthens existing cities and communities, conserves fiscal and natural resources, and advances U.S. efforts to address climate change and achieve energy independence.

To help metro areas, and thereby the nation, prosper, the Metro program focuses on leveraging the unique roles of federal, state and local actors, with the private sector. Our work is also increasingly informed by lessons learned from metro areas and nations abroad.

The elements of each one of the bullet points above can be seen in the 'Redesign of Government' projects implemented by Al Gore and Bill Clinton during the Clinton Administration. 

Leadership council  -  very, very important list of perpetraitors

Brookings Institute Report, "Mountain Megas"   (Note, there is also a Great Lakes Mega Report)

Excerpts from Chapter V.  This chapter is a must read

V. FORGING A NEW FEDERAL-MEGA AGENDA FOR THE INTERMOUNTAIN WEST

And so, as the approaching 2008 election decides upon a new administration in Washington, the time is right for leaders around the Intermountain West to propose a compact with the federal government that will allow the region’s
pivotal megapolitan areas to overcome their common challenges and assert their leadership in the nation and world.

What should this new compact or partnership look like? To begin with, it should revolve around securing a young region’s standing on the four core drivers of future prosperity—efficient and strategic infrastructure links, potent innovation capacity, high-potential human capital, and sustainable, quality places—as well as on regional governance. But beyond that, the new partnership should be characterized by a new tone and stance—a fresh and pragmatic style that is more catalytic than commanding, more empowering and facilitating than micromanaging.

...Now is the time for the region’s leaders to ask that the federal government become a more constructive partner with state and local governments and
the private sector in helping the region make crucial investments in the region’s infrastructure and resource systems. Help with direct investment will be critical, but so will related policy and attitudinal adjustments aimed at setting up a more supportive federal policy framework within which all parties can work together to improve surface and air transport and address pressing water and energy issues. Along these lines, the Intermountain West has a particular interest in helping work out new federal-state-mega partnerships through which Washington will more constructively help to:

•  Bring the transportation network to scale, smartly
•  Proactively address enormous resource needs