One of the best places to learn about free-market approaches to land use, transportation, planning, and other urban policy issues is the annual conference organized by the American Dream Coalition. This is the only national conference that focuses on the nuts and bolts of addressing urban planning and transportation issues from a free market, pro-property rights perspective.
This year, the conference will be in Orland, Florida, from June 10-12.
From the ADC web site:
Mobility and homeownership are under attack. The Secretary of Transportation says the goal of the Obama administration is to “coerce people out of their cars.” The House Transportation Committee wants to require all rural areas to conduct land-use planning to prevent “sprawl” — and make single-family housing unaffordable to most people.
Now more than ever, it is time to come together to fight these threats to the American Dream. The 2010 Preserving the American Dream conference in Orlando on June 10-12 is your opportunity to meet dozens of experts and compare notes with activists from all over the world.
Speakers who have so far agreed to attend include:
- David Hartgen, author of The Performance of State Highway Systems
- Steven Polzin, Center for Urban Transportation Research
- Steven Greenhut, Pacific Research Institute
- Clyde Hart, American Bus Association
- Joel Schwartz, Blue Sky Consulting Group
- Doug Guetzloe, Ax the Tax
- George Siler, former executive director, Knoxville-Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission
- Sam Staley, Reason Foundation
- Robert Poole, Reason Foundation
- Alan Pisarski, author of Commuting in America
- Wendell Cox, author of War on the Dream
- Randal O’Toole, author of Cato Institute
- Ron Utt, Heritage Foundation
- Ed Braddy, American Dream Coalition
- Tom Rubin, transit expert
Conference registration is just $259. We also offer a student and low-income rate of $175. The optional Thursday tour of Tampa and Orlando transportation and land-use projects is $49.
The conference will take place at the Orlando Doubletree Resort on International Drive, a beautiful hotel just minutes away from SeaWorld, Universal Resort, and Walt Disney World. To make reservations at the conference rate of $99, good for any time between June 6 and June 15, call 1-800-327-0363 and ask for the American Dream Coalition rate.