The Geography of the Anti-Agenda 21 Movement

By now the story of Agenda 21 and its raging opposition is familiar to most people who follow cities or Cities. In 1992, the United Nations passed a nonbinding (and obscure) action plan called Agenda 21 that encouraged cities to pursue sustainable development. In recent years it's come under attack by Tea Party activists (among others) who see it as a heavy-handed effort to limit property rights and force urban lifestyles on Americans — all in the name of supposedly dubious climate science.

It's easy to cast this opposition as conspiracy fear-mongering, since that's largely what it is. But planners and urbanists and city residents dismiss the movement at their own peril, because it's having a considerable impact on their ability to prepare U.S. metro regions for the 21st century. As Josh Voorhees explained earlier this week at Slate, anti-Agenda 21 groups have produced "a series of smart-growth-blocking victories at the state and local levels in nearly every corner of the country."