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TULSANOW “Passing the ‘Popsicle Test’: A Better Tulsa By Design” How livable is your neighborhood? Can an 8-year-old walk to the store, buy a popsicle and be home safely in just a few minutes? The ‘Popsicle Test’ is offered by leading-edge urban planners nationwide to highlight the negative effects of current zoning practices that isolate people and often alienate neighborhoods. TulsaNow will hold a Public Forum on Wednesday, April 27th at 6:30pm in the OSU-Tulsa Auditorium: Land Use policies affect every aspect of our daily life. Tulsa’s land use policies were conceived in the world of the 1920s: The Brookings Institution and the American Farmland Trust argue they are wasteful and damaging. They are certainly the underlying source of Tulsa’s political tensions these last two years. TulsaNow believes our ‘zoning’ codes require urgent and fundamental change. At the upcoming Forum we shall propose a new ‘form’-based planning approach now flourishing in many U.S. municipalities, and highlight the differences between the two strategies. The Forum features guest speaker Mr. Russell Claus. Australian by birth, Russell is Director of the Office of Economic Development with the Oklahoma City Planning team, and an MIT graduate. He oversaw the City’s recovery efforts following the 1995 Murrah Building bombing and has participated in the city’s MAPS projects as they took root, flourished and, recently, gave birth to new ‘Design Districts’. Mr. Claus, Tulsa-based speakers, and an invited panel will take written questions from the audience – and we anticipate a lot of them. We believe this Forum will be a landmark in re-shaping a more livable Tulsa: its neighborhoods, the City, and the surrounding region’s economic prospects. We urge you to cover and participate in this important event. The April 27th Forum begins at 6:30pm in the Auditorium at OSU-Tulsa at 700 N. Greenwood. Admission is free.
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