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The New Face of U.S.-China Relations: "Strategic Reassurance" or Old-Fashioned Rollback?
Peter Lee
The Obama administration took office in 2009 determined to move beyond might-makes-right-makes-might unilateralism of the Bush years, and reassert America's global influence as the most principled and powerful guarantor of rule-based multilateralism.
With respect to China, this approach was presented as a doctrine of "strategic reassurance".
However, the policy has not yielded the systemic breakthroughs that the Obama administration hoped to achieve on climate change, non-proliferation, Middle East security, still less on U.S.-China relations.
Instead, increasingly acrimonious exchanges between Beijing and Washington reveal the contradictions inherent in attempting to shoehorn an authoritarian, mercantilist, and suspicious nation into a refurbished world system that ostensibly promotes democracy, open markets, multilateralism, while forcefully advancing American interests.
Now the Obama administration seems to have accepted a world of lowered expectations and strives for the more achievable goal of advancing U.S. power at China's expense. Friction with China has emerged as a regular feature of U.S. diplomacy—a means to score points in the game of international diplomacy at the expense of an unpopular, uncooperative, and, at least for the moment, diplomatically and militarily weaker regime. Indeed, U.S. China policy today looks a lot like good old-fashioned rollback, isolating China instead of incorporating it into a win-win multi-polar system.
The Western press, distracted by individual issues such as Iran sanctions, Google, and the Cheonan sinking, seems oblivious to the fact that the U.S.-China relationship has lurched into zero-sum territory and relations are in the deep freeze, largely as the result of the willingness of the Obama administration to confront China in pursuit of its agenda. The Chinese media, on the other hand, talks about nothing else.
Observers who believe that China will yield to U.S. pressure as long as its access to world markets is assured are ignoring unmistakable signs that Beijing has decided that, while its economic interests are vital, it must be prepared to downplay short-term economic gain in order to ensure its geopolitical position and national future.
Even in its inception, U.S. demands for "strategic reassurance" were inherently unequal, framed as something that China had to provide up front before the U.S. would reciprocate. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg described the doctrine at a Center for a New American Security conference on China in September 2009. The onus for reassurance was put on China in a way that Beijing undoubtedly found grating. (1)
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg with Lee Myung-bak |
Strategic reassurance rests on a core, if tacit, bargain. Just as we and our allies must make clear that we are prepared to welcome China's "arrival", as you all have so nicely put it, as a prosperous and successful power, China must reassure the rest of the world that its development and growing global role will not come at the expense of security and well-being of others. Bolstering that bargain must be a priority in the U.S.-China relationship. And strategic reassurance must find ways to highlight and reinforce the areas of common interest, while addressing the sources of mistrust directly, whether they be political, military or economic.
Steinberg proceeded to list five areas of "impressive" cooperation: reviving the global economy, denuclearizing North Korea, dealing with Iran's nuclear program, mitigating climate change, and anti-terrorism and anti-piracy.
In retrospect, it is clear that in only two areas–the global economy and anti-terrorism/piracy–do the U.S. and China share a genuine identity of interests, while with respect to North Korea, Iran and climate change, among other issues, U.S. and Chinese positions remain fundamentally at odds. And in the key area of the global economy, agreement is by no means absolute.
While appreciating the massive Chinese domestic stimulus program (and the equally massive Chinese purchases of U.S. sovereign debt), U.S. plans for the new economic order clearly include a stronger Chinese currency—a situation that Mr. Steinberg alluded to when he described the three "continued areas of mistrust and disagreement": China's military expansion, global resource competition, and the economic relationship.
Indeed, in mid-2010, a bleak but accurate gloss on "strategic reassurance" might be that the only area of genuine mutual reassurance concerns China's willingness to sail around the Horn of Africa in a cautious and responsible manner in search of pirates.
The aggravated US-China relationship is compounded by the Obama administration's difficulty in making compromises.
At first, the administration's initiatives looked promising. They made no easy accommodation to habitual U.S. claims to national exceptionalism, and even had some international appeal.
Indeed, they were designed to repudiate the arrogant American me-firstism that had seen the U.S. turn its back on the Kyoto climate treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the International Criminal Court, and the Law of the Sea Treaty. In short, rather than deploying the rhetoric of national interest, the Obama administration presented itself as a promoter of global norms—and sought to impose those norms on China.
Yet the full brunt of U.S. intentions often only become clear in the foreign policy-making fine print, such as the somewhat obscure speeches of U.S. deputy secretaries. As Steinberg put matters with respect to China:
Now, strategic reassurance does not only apply to the relationship between China and the United States. Our partners, particularly in Asia, must have the same certainty that China's expanding role will not come at the expense of their interests. And this not only requires that the United States bolster its own bilateral relationships, especially with key allies like Japan, South Korea and Australia, but also that we lead in updating and strengthening the regional and international institutions that shape the context in which China's development occurs, so that change is constructive rather than destabilizing.
When it comes to the international system, we must ensure that new powers like China – and there are others as well, of course – can take their rightful place at the table without generating fear or mistrust. … As we pursue these policies, we will be open to China's growing role, but we will also be looking for signs and signals of reassurance from China. If China is going to take its rightful place, it must make those signals clear.
So, when U.S. initiatives collided with Chinese interests, there was no graceful way to negotiate between Obama universalism and Chinese particularism or, as it is usually framed in the Western press, U.S. principle vs. Chinese selfishness. The situation has not been helped by the fact that many of the Obama administration's grand strategic initiatives have fizzled in practice (or in the case of something like economically crippling Iran through sanctions, the outcome may be years in the future).
Complex Rubik's cube diplomacy involving interlocking initiatives and delicate sequencing on much tougher Iran sanctions, climate change, and nuclear non-proliferation have yielded few breakthroughs. The reasons are numerous, but in each case, China is part of the story. China has challenged the U.S. on a number of these issues. For example, Beijing earned the Obama administration's ire for its high-profile role in opposing U.S. initiatives in the Copenhagen climate debacle and as a result of its hard bargaining on UN sanctions against Iran.
Partly as a result of Chinese resistance, the climate and NPT treaties and Iran sanctions have, after immense expenditures of prestige and energy by the United States, degenerated into little more than unproductive can-kicking down the road of futile multilateral initiatives. In short, strategic reassurance is not forthcoming in areas of potential cooperation, a situation that the Obama administration blames on China, and not on any shortcomings of its own policies.
Frictions, on the other hand, are persistent and apparently structural. It appears that, in response, the Obama administration has chosen to interpret "strategic reassurance" as the simple and emotionally satisfying strategy of rollback—attacking Chinese interests instead of trying to accommodate them.
From the Chinese perspective, the Obama administration's China policy increasingly looks, walks, and quacks like containment. Apparently, the United States prefers a different term: "preempting China's monopoly status".
On his blog, the Washington Note, foreign policy insider Steve Clemons reported on a conversation he had in early June with senior administration officials involved in the international realm.
One of the most interesting comments made to a question I posed probing the administration's strategy in Asia, was "Steve, don't watch the hand!"
What this person was saying was 'don't get lost in everything going on at the surface' in US-China relations or US-Japan relations, but rather look at the other many bits and pieces of America's engagement in the Asia Pacific that are enhancing US leverage and generating a greater sense among Pacific Rim countries that America is there, engaged, and preempting China from enjoying monopoly status. (2)
Either by accident or design, U.S. public diplomacy campaigns involving climate change, nuclear proliferation, Internet freedom, Iran, and the Cheonan sinking, while yielding few concrete gains, have succeeded in one key respect. They have placed China at a geopolitical disadvantage, forcing it to line up with pariahs or near pariahs like Iran, Burma, and North Korea in opposition to the Western democracies, Japan, and South Korea.
The antagonistic US-China relationship shows signs of becoming institutionalized, especially with the Obama administration's efforts to establish a solid strategic, legal, and diplomatic foundation for sustained and successful third-country sanctions on the issue of Iran, with the EU and Japan ready as always to lend a hand. The administration's overwhelming desire to isolate Iran virtually assures a confrontational posture against China.
Even as the UN resolution on the fourth round of Iran sanctions wound its way uncertainly through the Security Council, it was an open secret that China would water it down. The U.S.-proposed solution was follow-on national sanctions that, if not "crippling" as desired by Israel, would hit Iran where it hurt–in the energy sector. The perceived flaw to that solution would be that China would honor the UN resolution, impose no follow-on national sanctions, and scoop up Iran contracts while the U.S. and Europe stood on the sidelines.
U.S. national and EU sanctions are useless if all they do is drive Iran–and its energy investments, petroleum products, and import/export and financial dealings–further into China's arms, as Glenn Kessler reported for the Washington Post:
U.S. and European officials acknowledge that the administration's gambit faces uncertainties.
China, for instance, could swoop into Iran to replace Western investors. "China is the elephant in the room," one diplomat said, but the hope is that China will face political pressure not to appear to profit from an international pullout. Officials also say China cannot replicate some of the technologies and products produced in Europe. (3)
Both Russia and China have insisted that, in return for their support of the UN resolution, they received assurances that follow-on national sanctions by the U.S. and Europe would not damage their energy and economic interests.
However, the obsessively forward-thinking Obama administration would certainly have a plan for addressing the underlying weakness of a massive geostrategic effort that has consumed the energies of the U.S. administration for the last six months.
Perhaps the Obama administration gave Russia and China the desired assurances with the caveat (perhaps implied or unspoken) that, if Iran's behavior didn't change, then promises to lay off Russian and Chinese interests would have to be honored, as they say, "in the breach".
The enabling U.S. legislation on Iran sanctions–H.R. 2194, the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010–was signed by Obama in early July and provides ample justification for imposing third country sanctions, whether in sorrow or in anger: (4)
The proposed bill, announced in a joint statement by Representative Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), would bar non-U.S. financial institutions dealing with Iran's Revolutionary Guard or targeted Iranian banks from also doing business with the U.S. banking sector. The bill would also penalize firms selling gasoline to Iran through restrictions on their U.S. bank transactions, property transfers and foreign exchange in the United States.
As one analyst observed, "The act presents foreign banks doing business with blacklisted Iranian entities a stark choice — cease your activities or be denied critical access to America's financial system," an outline of the bill states, adding that it would address problematic moves taken by international branches of U.S. financial institutions. (5)
President Obama made a show of asking for explicit waivers for "cooperating countries", understood to be Russia and China, in return for their support on the UN resolution, as a demonstration of good faith. He didn't get the blanket waivers, but he is perhaps not unhappy that he didn't. He will be able to grant one-year exemptions for individual corporations, albeit with a "name and shame" requirement to put the recipients on the public record.
Therefore, if China exploits Western and Japanese sanctions to entrench itself in Iran's energy sector or is excessively dilatory in supporting the initiatives of the Obama administration, financial sanctions can be deployed against its banks, as they were earlier with respect to North Korea in the famous case of the 2005 sanction of Banco Delta Asia, a small bank in the Chinese territory of Macao.
The Obama administration's carefully-constructed legal and diplomatic edifice of third-country sanctions gives the United States a weapon that it can wield against China, not only on Iran, but also to advance US interests in the myriad other areas of friction that bedevil the relationship. The other key area of friction between the United States and China today is the Korean peninsula.
In a development that China affects to find increasingly suspicious, U.S. exchanges with China in Asia have grown progressively more confrontational, thereby playing to America's primary strength—its overwhelming military superiority while highlighting a key Chinese vulnerability—regional fears (albeit voiced mostly by Japan and more recently South Korea) concerning the geopolitical ambitions of its burgeoning military.
In particular, it appears that the temptation to exploit China's geopolitical vulnerabilities—and take advantage of South Korea President Lee Myung-bak's enthusiasm for using U.S. support to challenge Chinese hegemony in Northeast Asia—were irresistible to the Obama administration.
The result is a destabilization of the Korean peninsula that has, by U.S. design, achieved the exact opposite of reassurance.
Things started to come to a nasty head over the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan near North Korean waters on March 26. The way South Korea and the United States have allowed the issue to play out seemed designed to put China in an ugly light.
South Korea turned to the United States and its allies—and passed over China and Russia—to conduct the investigation into the sinking. Then the United States took center stage to endorse the findings, and South Korea's call for UN action, unequivocally. Secretary of State Clinton visited China to encourage it to support the ROK/US position. To date, China has declined. The United States and South Korea profess to believe that China prefers to protect its feckless and dangerous ally, North Korea, instead of standing with justice, security, the international community, and its key economic partner, South Korea. China's statements in favor of peace on the peninsula and greater diplomatic efforts by the North and South to settle their differences get no respect.
Senator James Webb, the Democratic Party's most influential spokesman on Asia in Congress, put it this way, in a Korea Times news article posted on his official website:
Webb said China's position on the Cheonan incident when it reaches the UNSC will be a barometer of its willingness to cooperate with the international community.
'It is a good opportunity for the rest of the world to observe and comment on whether China is proceeding in a mature fashion as a member of the international community,' he said. 'It's a test of whether it can participate among the leadership of the world community.' (6)
James Webb with Barack Obama |
The Chinese government may feel that the South Korean/international investigation contains enough evidentiary and procedural shortcomings that it can be safely disregarded. A recent report by the South Korean Board of Audit and Investigation, while calling for the removal of 25 ROK military officers for their failings in responding to the disaster, also highlighted at least two instances of falsification of official records of the incident.
The South Korean military was further embarrassed by the revelation that it had displayed the schematic of the wrong North Korean torpedo when it rolled out its case on May 20.
However, China's ambivalence on the issue of the Cheonan probably has more to do with the growing suspicion that the U.S. definition of "strategic reassurance" now involves, above all, not just the maintenance but the attempted enhancement of U.S. strategic advantage in China's backyard.
The Cheonan incident and the U.S. response did not occur in a vacuum. They took place at a time of considerable uncertainty concerning the U.S. forward position in the Pacific. In late 2009/early 2010 the Obama administration was busy ostracizing the Democratic Party of Japan government in Japan, which was attempting to establish a more equal and independent role for Japan within the U.S.-Japan-China triangle. The DPJ government's unwillingness to accept the U.S. position on a key issue was its campaign promise (recently abandoned) to renegotiate the deal made by the outgoing Liberal Democratic Party to build a new U.S. Marine Air Station at Oura Bay on Okinawa.
At the same time, the conservative government of South Korean president Lee Myung-bak was determinedly burnishing its pro-American credentials by backing away from the independent security policy and "sunshine" engagement of North Korea favored by its two predecessor governments.
The United States decided to reward President Lee–and South Korea's ambitions as a regional power and security partner, placing it virtually on a par with Japan–by endorsing several moves designed to enhance the nation's stature. These included supporting South Korea as the host for two prestigious summits: the G-20 confab in November 2010, and the next Nuclear Security Summit–President Obama's keystone diplomatic initiative–in 2012. Part of the deal apparently included a coordinated response on the Cheonan sinking, extending beyond participation in the investigation and support of its findings to agreement to support a call for UN Security Council action.
The cost of this deepening of the ROK-US security relationship was China's feeling that the two countries were ganging up on China on matters Northeast Asian. To Beijing, the U.S. clearly showed the cloven hoof by endorsing the UN Security Council as an appropriate venue for the Cheonan sinking. This implied that the United States' idea of "strategic reassurance" involves good relations only if China repudiates its North Korean ally and acquiesces to sidelining the Six Party Talks—a diplomatic initiative that granted China a central role in regional and global affairs.
It also indicated that the U.S. was promoting a new, destabilizing security paradigm in North Asia—promoting an enhanced role for South Korea while pushing the future of North Korea into the U.S.-friendly UN Security Council at the expense of the Six Party Talks. As the North Korean regime approaches a leadership transition that might plunge it into chaos, Beijing is surely sensitive to the fact that America seems to be sidelining the PRC from the consultations that may decide the future of the Korean peninsula.
These issues received an airing at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a think-tank sponsored confab of defense ministers held annually in Singapore. At the 2010 iteration, held from June 4-6, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak carried his campaign to exploit the geopolitical implications of the sinking of the corvette Cheonan to a major Asian forum. His call for a united anti-North Korea front by the civilized world was overshadowed by a conspicuous spat between U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and China's delegation to the conference, led by General Ma Xiaotian.
Lee Myung-bak with Robert Gates at the Shangri-La Dialogue |
Secretary Gates dismissed China's Taiwan arms sales-related anxieties with a condescension that China's official opinion found infuriating, especially when contrasted with a high-profile tripartite meeting between Gates, Lee Myung-bak, and Japan's Defence Minister that pledged to "deter further provocation" in the region.
During the conference, it transpired that Secretary Gates was not welcome to visit Beijing. This was construed, perhaps inaccurately, as a further, high-profile expression of Chinese displeasure at Taiwan arms sales. The Taiwan arms sale matter had been thoroughly hashed out earlier in January and had already triggered the tit-for-tat Chinese response: cancellation of scheduled military exchanges and some US-China diplomatic exchanges at the Vice Foreign Minister level.
It is more likely that by June Beijing was sending a message concerning the overall health of the military and political relationship with the U.S.—a message that Secretary Gates was perhaps not ready to share with the Western journalists covering the conference.
In the Q&A subsequent to Secretary Gates' speech, Chinese Major General Zhu Chenghu, took the U.S. to task for working with Israel to slow walk the investigation on the assault on the Gaza aid flotilla, while demanding full speed ahead on censure of North Korea. Zhu concluded with a remarkably straightforward statement of dissatisfaction: "The Chinese are taking the Americans as a partner, as friends, and Americans take the Chinese as enemies." (7)
In his official remarks to the forum, General Ma criticized the traditional military mindset of relying on zero-sum alliances that weaken an adversary. He also made the pointed remark, "We should not treat only the symptoms but not the causes, still less try to put out a fire with a hammer." (8)
This can be construed as a reference to America's preference for casting all regional problems within a security template simply because military might is America's last remaining trump card in Asia. Matters have not improved since Singapore.
Previously, mindful of the objections of the Democratic Party's union base, President Obama had resisted pushing Congress to ratify the South Korea—US Free Trade Agreement. However, the U.S. yielded to South Korean strategic blandishments—President Lee had openly stated that he wanted to stall the ROK-PRC Free Trade Agreement until after the agreement with the U.S. went into effect, so the U.S. could gain the greatest benefits—and President Obama confirmed the pro-ROK/anti-China tilt of his administration by coming out in support of ratification of the South Korea—U.S. Free Trade Agreement. President Obama then used the public forum of the G20 summit in Toronto to pointedly insult President Hu Jintao by accusing China of "wilfull blindness" in refusing to publicly endorse the results of the investigation into the sinking of the Cheonan.
Chinese perceptions of U.S. hypocrisy and hostility were undoubtedly reinforced by the observations that a) no public insults were directed at Russia which has also declined to endorse the Cheonan findings as yet; and b) the U.S. stepped forward to reject a North Korean call for a joint investigation of the Cheonan sinking under the auspices of the UN—an investigation that might reveal additional embarrassing holes in the "compelling" case that the US claimed China was exercising "wilfull blindness" in disregarding.
Criticisms of U.S. China policy in the Chinese media have become less oblique and markedly more strident. Chinese media characterized President Obama's "wilfull blindness" rebuke as "irresponsible and flippant".
The next, inevitable area of friction concerns the joint U.S.-ROK naval exercises scheduled for early July in the Yellow Sea between the Korean peninsula and China, which may or may not feature an appearance by the U.S. aircraft carrier George Washington. With good reason, China has chosen to interpret these exercises as a deliberate provocation, whose purpose is not to overawe North Korea; it is to humiliate Beijing by demonstrating that the U.S. fleet can sail the oceans of East Asia in disregard of China's sensibilities and openly expressed objections.
The USS George Washington |
A June 12 People Daily Online editorial entitled, "US Must Restrain Provocative Military Actions" predictably adopted the framing favorable to China, calling for "peace" instead of "provocation" and made it clear that it expects that it is China and not the United States that should be "reassured":
The United States may believe that since it conducted military drills in the Yellow Sea in the past, it can do that now and in the future. But the United States should understand, with China's increasing national strength, Chinese nationals will get more sensitive to the provocative actions the U.S. navy takes in a place so close to their home.
No one would allow its competitor with guns in hand to wander in front of their home or keep a close watch staring through their windows, and the Americans would not too.
China does not object to the U.S. navy's presence in the western Pacific and even shows understanding that some countries in this region still need the U.S. military to provide a sense of security. And no country has the capability to replace the United States in this capacity. But, this does not mean the United States can ignore China's self-esteem and drive their aircraft carrier straight to the front of China's doorstep to flex their muscles.
Only when the United States learns to respect the western Pacific countries and adapt to the changes of their politics, economies and, in particular, public opinion, can its authority in this region be recognized. The United States should make people feel that the U.S. military presence in this region is peaceful and necessary, not vice versa.
Furthermore, the United States needs to take into account these countries' moods if it wants to become a peacemaker, not a troublemaker. Otherwise, the United States will have difficulties in staying in the region for a long time and its interests here will be difficult to effectively protect. (9)
People's Daily's international affairs mouthpiece, Global Times, ran an editorial with a similar theme—and wording—under the title "Yellow Sea No Place for US Carrier":
Many Chinese are tired of the abrupt changes in US posture. The US just stressed the importance of partnership between the two countries at the second Strategic and Economic Dialogue at the end of last month. Now, it looks as if the US could try to incite China with military aggression. (10)
China's expression of displeasure moved from words to munitions, as China announced its navy would conduct live fire drills in the East China Sea for the duration of the U.S.-ROK maneuvers.
On July 6, Global Times ran a blunt editorial titled, US has to pay for provocation.
The US provocation on the western Pacific is a typical act born out of the Cold War mentality.
This will only further isolate the US in these parts, as no East Asian country would like an outsider to mess up the region, and its neighborhood.
Developments in East Asia over the past 10 years contributed significantly to the economic boom of the United States in the decade before it suffered a setback from its own financial trouble.
As commander in chief, Barack Obama needs to rethink his role in East Asia, as to whether he is squandering the invaluable political heritage left behind by George W. Bush. It will be a tragedy if the US upsets the prevalent situation and turns the clock back on East Asian relations by decades.
Considering the growing economic, diplomatic, political and cultural ties the US has with China, the price the US has to pay for its irresponsible decision will be higher than it can envision now. If the US does not pay for this "adventure" now, it will pay in the future.
These are not the opinions of a strategically reassured–or reassuring–China. These are the words of a threatened regional power that regards U.S. hostility as dangerous and growing.
Scheduling the George Washington to avoid the Yellow Sea in early July is not going to allay Chinese concerns about America's hostile intentions. By now, suspicion has probably hardened into certainty.
It's a worrisome reflection on the Obama administration's China policy that U.S. interactions with Beijing are now apparently driven by frustration, rancor, inertia, and opportunism—and the acrid residue of new American ambitions for regional leadership that China is determined to contest.
Peter Lee is the moving force behind the Asian affairs website China Matters which provides continuing critical updates on China and Asia-Pacific policies. His work frequently appears at Asia Times. He wrote this article for The Asia-Pacific Journal.
Recommended citation: Peter Lee, "The New Face of U.S.-China Relations: 'Strategic Reassurance' or Old-Fashioned Rollback?" The Asia-Pacific Journal, 29-1-10, July 19, 2010.
On related subjects see Rick Rozoff, "U.S. Risks Military Clash With China in the Yellow Sea, Global Research, July 16, 2010.
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Saint Ange Tourism Report – 29th October 2018
Victoria, Mahe (Seychelles) – October 29, 2018 (travelindex.com) – Sunday the 28th October saw the World of Creoles celebrate their International Creole Day. From the Indian Ocean Vanilla Islands, to the Caribbean and even to New Orleans in Louisiana USA and Cabo Verde it is all proud Creoles who has the right to celebrate their identity and culture.
A question on this historic Creole Day is "Where does the International Creole Day come from?" An article posted by ARCHIPEL MEDIA on SEPTEMBER 30, 2017 October 28th: INTERNATIONAL CREOLE DAY «BANNZIL KREYOL» says it all.
In 1979, an international conference of Creole studies bringing together linguists from around the world took place in Seychelles. Subsequently, in 1981, scientists whose mother tongue was Creole began to ask questions about methods that could promote the Creole language, after a symposium organized by the International Committee of Creole Studies, where the theme of reflection was: "Creole, creoles, continuity and creativity in the Creole world. " On October 28, 1981, at the third conference, at the Old Port in Saint Lucia, the Creole speakers decided to join together to create a movement that took the name of: BANNZIL KREYOL. And it was decided to hold October 28 because this date had previously been retained by the Dominicans to celebrate a "Creole Day". In 1982 the Seychelles government organized a Creole week, the same year the movement BANNZIL KREYOL wrote its founding texts in a quarterly bulletin. October 28, 1983 was the first day of BANNZIL KREYOL.
The first "International Creole Day" was celebrated in 1983, in a rather haphazard way. However, from year to year, the implementation of this day has improved and is, in some countries, the occasion of quite significant and interesting events. Since then, the day of October 28 is celebrated in all the countries of the Creole world. Many countries today are celebrating this day for a week, highlighting the highlight of the day on October 28th.
Seychelles is currently in the middle of its Festival Kreol 2018, a celebration that sits annually on the island's calendar of National Events. Last Saturday it staged its Laserenad (Festival Parade) in Victoria, an event that continues to be the highlight of the Festival.
Next on the calendar of Creole Festivals are the ones of Mauritius, Rodrigues and Reunion
Didier Robert, Regional President of Reunion opens an economic office of Reunion in Seychelles
Reunion Island is the only Indian Ocean Island opening economic offices in Member States of their Vanilla Islands Grouping. President Didier Robert, the Regional President of Reunion must be congratulated for working hard to open doors for the business community of Reunion and in so doing create employment for the Reunionais. This drive by Didier Robert is an example because Reunion products, their know how and also the promotion of Reunion Island as a tourism destination in its own right cannot just happen by itself. It is such endeavours where the island's presence is seen and remains visible that Reunion can be relevant.
Reunion Island has inaugurated its regional antenna office of Seychelles, in Victoria. This is the fourth antenna office in the Indian Ocean which ensures a presence of Reunion in the countries of the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC). The Réunion Region office is located in an office on the third floor of the Espace Building in Ile du Port. Its role remains to facilitate the links between the Reunionais companies and the Seychellois actors, either in the public or private sector. The inauguration of the Seychelles office took place in the presence of Mr Vincent Meriton, Vice-President of the Republic of Seychelles, President Didier Robert, Regional President of the Réunion, and Mr Lionel Majesté-Larrouy, Ambassador of France to Seychelles. Also present were Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Barry Faure, ministers and members of the diplomatic corps. The installation of this antenna Réunion Region in Seychelles is within the framework of a program of European territorial cooperation – INTERREG V Indian Ocean. Among the objectives, the antenna will host Reunionais companies on a prospecting mission and who wish to set up or form partnerships in Seychelles. With the opening of its antenna in Seychelles, the community now covers the entire Indian Ocean Commission, because similar antennas were established in Madagascar, in Mauritius and in the Comoros.
Seychelles will prioritise local tourism players to stimulate growth?
Seychellois businesses in the field of tourism have been urging the Government of the Seychelles to efficiently identify and harness the tourism resources of the islands to create sustainable development for Seychelles. This call is not new, but recently the tourism industry players have been meeting leaders to put their case on the need to consolidate tourism, the industry that remains the pillar of the Seychelles economy. Meetings with VP Meriton by some, and with Heads of Government Authorities by others and even going as far as having recourse to the Judiciary by a company are all taking place with the aim of stimulating growth in the Seychelles Tourism Industry instead of stifling the industry that Seychelles and the Seychellois people so depend on. The 5-Room limit set for La Digue some years ago is being questioned as it is seen as an "economic strangulation" of establishments. The vertical integration regulation is seen as the blow now referred to as the "coup de grace" Seychellois entrepreneurs did not need over and above continuing rising costs in operation, shortage of staff and the bureaucracy that it entails to recruit foreign workers (one establishment citing up to a three months waiting period), and the waiting time for necessary authorisations for new developments even when the Authorities in Seychelles know that they should be on their knees to push for more local investments and also FDIs (Foreign Direct Investments).
Seychellois entrepreneurs in tourism such as Joe Albert and his son Guillaume, Kathy Mason and her son Alan, Mary Geers, Guy Savy of Bird Island, Gilbert Frichot and his partner Corola among others seem to have made the decision to task themselves with the commitment to continue to work for Seychelles to help prioritise the development of tourism in all its facets. In Seychelles today abandoned and untapped tourist sites, properties and facilities are not improving the different villages' economy and help Seychellois build a future for themselves and grow the country's economy. Other serious investments and investors in the Seychelles such as the Raffles Seychelles of Praslin, H-Hotel of Beau Vallon Mahe, Club Liberte Casino at Four Seasons Seychelles and Avani Seychelles Barbarons Resorts and Spa among others are seen as examples of marrying foreign participation in an industry that is the pillar of a country's economy. They are working hard and are being innovative and pro-active, but know that Seychelles has but one tourism industry and it is together (private & public sector) that the islands will make the difference in the competitive world of tourism.
I was recently speaking within an interview on "improving facilities, opening tourism opportunities & relooking at the word facilitator when the island's government is involved to ensure a better tourism management approach" and can say that I appreciate the seriousness of the situation on hand in Seychelles.
The tourism industry players ought never to be quite happy with the obstacles, with the lack of understanding by the facilitators, with limited infrastructure and below accepted level of services coming with today's over the top rates, fees and licenses. The tourism industry players and their staff need to sit together to propose bold making and sound policy framework which will continue to make tourism THE essential component of the Seychelles development agenda.
Advocating a solid vibrant policy framework to reenergise the sector as mandated by the people who are always the first to feel the effects of any downward trend in the island's tourism industry. It is this that is now needed by Seychelles for the development, management, regulation and marketing of sustainable tourism and tourism related services and for connected services.
Praslin and La Digue Islands has a need to seek to mobilise revenue collected by the state on their island's Parks and Gardens to implement their development agenda. It is important they find innovative methods to be part of and to then fully exploit their island treasured resources to assist development of their island by their island. The same can be said for other business groups and associations. in the different parts of the main islands of Mahe.
It is time to challenge stakeholders in the tourism industry especially, and their district business committees to look to work more together to accomplish more to greatly help raise their island visibility and make the islands more relevant as tourism destinations. In so doing see the reflection of the contribution of their sector to national development will be better recognised.

subset: commoncrawl


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Here's my form.
Now, I'm curious if I could remove the 'Continue' button and just have the form move to the next stage when someone correctly fills everything in.
This is a bit different than When is an auto-saving form appropriate?- because there's more questions to answer.
Here is another, similar, question but is a different context: Auto Advance to Next Field


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Instructables user [janw] is a big fan of nixie clocks, but he had never built one before. He decided he would rather start small and build a clock using numitron tubes first, before moving to nixies. He preferred the simpler tubes due to their much lower voltage requirements and the fact that he would not have to use any specialized power supply for his project.
His clock serves double-duty, functioning as a thermometer as well. Timekeeping is regulated with a DS12307, and temperature is monitored using a DS18B20 single wire sensor – both of which are pretty common in these sorts of projects. Both are wired to an Atmega48 MCU which serves as the brain of the clock.
The numitrons were mounted in a handsome 5-layer milled acrylate stand with a pair of buttons mounted on the bottom which allow him to set the time. It really is a spectacular looking timepiece, and a great first effort on [janw's] part.
Be sure to stick around to see a video of the clock in action.


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Al Sabaah reports Nouri al-Maliki -- prime minister and chief puppet of the ongoing occupation -- is insisting that it's time to push national reconciliation (after, please note, he's bullied his way into getting everything he wanted). Monday State of Law (Nouri's political slate) is scheduled to meet with Iraiqya (headed by Ayad Allawi). Monday is also May 23rd. That makes the meeting and the p.r. spin from it highly important to Nouri. Come Monday, he has less than 15 days until he has to spin an impasse into progress -- June 7th is when the 100 days to fix corruption ends. If you missed it, Nouri's got damn little to show for the 100 days. But he may be hoping to circumvent that bad news by insisting that progress has been made in relations between factions. That might distract from no end to corruption or maybe Friday's prison break.
From Friday's snapshot:
Alsumaria TV reports, "An Iraqi informed security source revealed on Friday that five chiefs of the Mehdi Army managed to escape from Taji prison, north of Baghdad. Three detainees were reported missing while transferring them to Karkh central prison, the Justice Ministry said. A special force from Prime Minister's office headed on Thursday night to Taji Prison, nothern Baghdad, to transfer detainees to one of the capital's prisons, the source told Alsumarianews. Five chiefs of the Mehdi Army including senior leader Saad Sowar managed to escape during the transfer, the source said." New Sabah states that 182 detainees were being transferred when the escape took place.
Dar Addustour reports that the Justice Ministry has announced it is signing a contract with the US to install devices that will allow them to jam cell phones within prisons. Al Mada reports that the Taji prison escape has resulted in numerous "conflicting statements" about the prison break. But the announcement regarding jamming cell phones appears to be a response to (if not an acknowledgment of) the veracity of the rumors that the prisoners used cell phones to stay in contact with helpers outside the prison. Cell phones may have also been used to organize and execute a prison riot which provided some cover for the prison break.
No progress by Nouri on ending corruption and a prison break that appears to have been presentable? You'd be spinning too. New Sabah quotes Nouri stating that "There is no minority that can control Iraq." Al Rafidayn reports that Nouri made the statement while speaking with Salahuddin Province tribal sheikhs and, with his statements regarding sections and factions, he may also be laying the groundwork for an all State Of Law Cabinet -- or possibly just a Shi'ite one.
Meanwhile US troops may or may not be leaving Iraq anytime soon. As that is explored behind the scenes, Jack Healy (New York Times) notes the following Americans remain missing in Iraq: Jeffrey Ake, Aban Elias, Abbas Kareem Naama, Neenus Khoshaba, Bob Hamze, Dean Sadek, Hussain al-Zurufi and Staff Sgt. Ahmed Altaie. "
We'll close with this from Sherwood Ross' "HISTORIAN: AMERICANS' IGNORANCE OF THEIR OWN HISTORY CRIPPLES U.S. FOREIGN POLICY" (American Pendulum):
Americans are so woefully ignorant of their own history that they cannot apply the lessons of the past to guide their foreign policy, the Dean of America's only college of history says.
"When one considers our profound lack of knowledge of our own past, combined with our unparalleled military might as the world's only superpower, it is easier to understand why countries as different as Mexico and Canada, Pakistan and New Zealand, look at us with wary eyes," says historian Michael Chesson, dean of the American College of History and Legal Studies in Salem, N.H.
"We are the thousand pound gorilla," Chesson continues. "Unfortunately, we can lash out as if we were both drunk and blind when provoked, whether by pesky foreign powers, or terrorists."
Chesson cites the best-seller "Imperial Hubris"(Potomac Books) by Michael Scheuer about the early fighting in Afghanistan to support his argument that the U.S. needs a more informed citizenry.
"Americans will have to read more books, journals, newspapers, and online commentary from a variety olf sources, written from different points of view," Chesson says. "Then we have to think about what it all means, and make decisions based on that information."
The e-mail address for this site is email@example.com.
al sabaah
dar addustour
al mada
new sabah
al rafidayn
the new york times
jack healy
sherwood ross
8 hours ago


text:
Commercial Mason
DISCLAIMER: The foregoing contractors shall not be held or deemed in any way to be agents, employees, or representatives of Kearney Crete and Block Co., Inc. The contractors are independent contractors and have sole control of the manner and means of installing the products of Kearney Crete and Block Co., Inc. which shall be completed according to their own means and methods of work. The contractors direct the performance of all workers and sub-contractors, and all work is done at the contractors' risk. The liability of Kearney Crete and Block Co., Inc. shall not extend to any kind of claim for loss, damage or expense of any kind arising out of or resulting from the work of the contractors. Kearney Crete and Block Co., Inc. makes no warranties regarding the quality of work or fiscal responsibility of the contractors.


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Ebook: 5 Lessons Learned from Remote Working During the Pandemic
The shift to remote work was driven by short-term necessity. But forward-thinking businesses are embracing remote work as a long-term change. This ebook provides insights that will help every business and I.T. team prepare for the future of remote work.
Global insights on remote working habits before, during, and after the pandemic
Key areas of improvement for long-term remote working strategies
Actionable takeaways for organizational leaders and IT Teams


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27 September 2017
Just like perpetual fog, twisting hills and creative thinking, coffee has long been an integral part of the San Francisco experience. This has been true since the mid-19th century when the city was first introduced to the exotic bean via companies such as Folgers coffee company and hills brothers, who set up shop there to sell readymade caffeine fix to weary gold miners. The city's infatuation with coffee was born. Ever since, it has been the beverage of choice for countless generations of San Franciscans, from the beat poets and counter-cultural figures of the 1950s and '60s to the futuristic tech entrepreneurs of the present. Along the way, it's been the city's spirit of innovation that's helped to define its role in the broader narrative of coffee, and today San Francisco's coffee scene is more vibrant than ever, thanks to a new established order of local roasters who are exploring, challenging and changing the very definition of what it means to enjoy a really good cup of coffee. "What defines San Francisco's coffee scene? Innovation," says Eileen Hassi Rinaldi, the owner and co-founder of ritual coffee roasters. She opened her first shop, on 1026 Valencia street, in 2005 and brought with her an attitude towards coffee that she developed while working as a barista in Seattle. That attitude was in line with what is commonly referred to as the "third wave" of coffee consumption, a contemporary way of looking at coffee that follows a hypothetical narrative charting a course through the beverage's popularity in America. The first wave equates to appreciation of coffee as a quick caffeine delivery device – imagine the bitter swill of roadside American diners or the bland brew created with mysteriously everlasting synthetic crystals of instant coffee. The second wave loosely coincides with a shift in perspective towards coffee as a gourmet – yet still proletarian – drink. A vast stretch of time that begins somewhere in the mid-20th century, it includes such developments as the introduction of Italian espresso, the rise of dark roast speciality coffee, a broader awareness of ethical coffee sourcing practices such as fair trade, and the mass popularisation of speciality coffee via global chains like Starbucks. And in fact, although purists might balk, it was Starbucks in particular that set the groundwork for the current generation of roasters by introducing casual drinkers to the idea of ordering and paying a premium for speciality coffee. So what is the second wave? Imagine the rich chocolate and burnt graham cracker taste of a cup of French roast or the forgivingly soft milkiness of a latte. The third wave builds off the second, but re-imagines coffee as a complex craft beverage with a full spectrum of sometimes delicate and sometimes bold flavours dependent on a variety of factors such as growing region, freshness, type of roast, brewing method and brewing time. Roasters of this generation develop relationships with farmers around the world to directly source unroasted beans to showcase specific varietals from specific lots. There's a sense of terroir to third wave coffee, which is brought out in the roasting process by applying a lighter touch that often leaves the finished beans a muted matte brown as opposed to an oily black. The flavour profile created by this process can be quite surprising to new initiates. Order an espresso at ritual and you might find yourself with a mouthful of unlikely flavours; its espressos reveal a remarkable amount of fruity acidity with offbeat notes such as sweet lime, ripe plum and almond praline, all of which might be otherwise blunted by a longer roasting time. In San Francisco, third wave coffee has emerged during the past 10 years through the efforts of ritual's Rinaldi and other roasters who apply a similarly obsessed mind towards their morning cup of joe. These include four barrel coffee, started by Jeremy Tooker (who helped co-found ritual) and James Freeman's blue bottle coffee. Although all three differ in their respective missions, they're similar in sharing a modern San Franciscan outlook towards innovation, or as Rinaldi puts it, "in a lot of other coffee towns there's this mentality of 'good enough'. Once they've found something good – like an espresso blend or the right roast – they stick with it. Here, you're always asking yourself, 'how can i make this better? What can i do differently?'" One of the ways in which Rinaldi and other bay area coffee shops do things differently is by focusing on the craft of brewing coffee itself and the different ways in which it can be prepared. And one of the most iconic San Franciscan preparations is also one of the plainest: old-fashioned drip coffee, served black. But you won't find any automatic coffee machine, percolator or other bulk-batch contraption hidden away behind these counters, and while you might find a stray French press, it'd hardly be the most exotic gadget on display. Over the past 10 years, San Francisco has embraced a whole range of previously unusual brewing methods that allow the barista to make single-serving cups of drip (or "pour over" as it's commonly known) coffee with a degree of control that rivals the near-algebraic variable complexity of espresso. "It was really the clover that did that," Rinaldi says referring to the clover s1, a supremely high-tech brewing machine she once featured in her cafe that provided digitally precise control over every essential step of the brewing process with computer controlled temperature, brewing time and water ratio. This produced a cup of coffee that's like a high-tech americano, albeit with the tangible body of a French press brew. However, the clover company was bought by Starbucks and repairs to the machine proved too costly for continued use. "we don't have ours any more," Rinaldi says, "but i think that machine really opened a lot of people up to what brewed coffee could be, and that brought us to where we are now." So now a new potential for what brewed coffee could be was revealed, and it could be every bit as controlled and carefully made as a masterfully pulled shot of espresso. In the clover's wake, San Francisco roasters began looking to other novel forms of brewing that, though less high-tech, employed a similar variable-controlled mentality. This included everything from the classic – like the chemex, a design piece from the 1940s recognised by the museum of modern art that looks like a broken hourglass and creates a delicate, tea-like coffee – to the unusual – the aeropress, a sort of french-press-in-reverse made by aerobie, a company more popularly known for its Frisbees – to the foreign – the hario v.60 from japan, a single serving glass pour-over filter system that, though it requires a deft touch, produces a cup that's clean, transparent and completely free of sediment. Some of the most unique and innovative brewing methods can be found at James freeman's blue bottle coffee roasters' locations. Freeman started brewing coffee in 2002 at a farmers' market stand across the San Francisco bay bridge in Oakland, and has since expanded his business to include multiple shops in the bay area and beyond. In 2012, and again in 2014, he received rounds of venture capital funding that in total amounted to us$40 million. This has helped him expand outside of San Francisco to locales including New York, Los Angeles and even Tokyo. Between the Us and Japan, there are now a total of 38 stores. Though blue bottle's location in six Tokyo branches might seem unusual at first, a cursory glance at the equipment on use in San Francisco reveals an obvious love for Japanese gear like the aforementioned hario v.60 pour over dripper, which has since become ubiquitous. "i have this friend in Japan named Jay Igami," freeman says. "When i first went over there in 2007, he took me to all these old-fashioned coffee houses and i was knocked out by the preparation and dedication and all the tastes and textures. How i started was putting hot water in a steaming pitcher and here was jay talking about measuring grams of coffee and putting it in proportion to grams of water. It blew my mind at the time, but now that's just how people talk about coffee. We started using v.60s and kettles in 2007; jay worked at this Japanese coffee company and he could get me all this gear." Fittingly, the blue bottle location at 66 mint plaza looks more like a minimalist 1960s science laboratory than a conventional coffee shop, with high ceilings, white walls and very little else in the way of decoration. Instead, the focus is on the coffee preparation itself, which features baristas tending to a few other notable contraptions imported from japan. The first is a us$20,000 lucky cremas bonmac 105 siphon bar that uses precisely controlled halogen lamps to heat and create a vacuum within glass baubles that results in a complicated cup of coffee whose flavours – which, depending on the beans used, can be anything from citrus fruit to graham cracker – unfold as the beverage cools. "It's expensive and impractical, but i like expensive and impractical," says freeman. Similarly impractical, though perhaps less expensive, is a Japanese cold-brew iced coffee dripper that takes up to 12 hours to make a batch of blue bottle's signature Kyoto iced coffee. It runs water, drip by drip, through a network of five glass globes and a filter to create an earthy and almost smoky concoction with a dense body and a tough caffeinated kick. If that doesn't scream accessible, then freeman also offers another iced beverage at his cafes. One of blue bottle's signature drinks is its New Orleans iced coffee, an interpretation of a Louisiana classic that mixes its cold-brewed coffee with spicy chicory and sweetened milk. This beverage, popular since its inception, represents freeman's attempt to bring his coffee to an even wider audience – he's used his funding to create and sell a mass marketable, milk carton-encased version of the drink. "It's not a connoisseur's drink," he says. "But it gives people a step up. If people never want to drink anything else for the rest of their lives, that's fine, but maybe with this they'll be curious. It's something with a real napoleonic historical imperative – they used to ration coffee with chicory – that's also personalised and delicious, and it seems people mostly agree." And while all this is high-tech and flavourful, another area of innovation comes in the form of the coffee shop experience itself. San Francisco's third wave coffee shops might attract a tech-savvy crowd, but almost all uniformly do not provide free Wi-Fi, or Wi-Fi at all. In this way they create a kind of public oasis and counterfoil to the extremely busy and connected life of today's San Franciscans. Nowhere is this more felt than at four barrel on 375 Valencia street. Always bustling with conversations, co-owner Jeremy Tooker went to great pains to create a space that's not sterile, quiet and dominated by the glare of laptops. "For us, it's about innovative service and providing the customer with something special if they want it and really being a hub for the local community," says Tooker. There beneath walls clad in taxidermy, vintage audio equipment and small brown bags of beans, you can choose to enjoy the relaxing and informative experience of four barrel's 'slow bar', which lets patrons choose from a selection of coffees – a Guatemalan chuito or Ethiopia bulga, perhaps? – and preparation methods along with an informative conversation about the process and coffee in general with a barista. "It's a learning experience for the barista, too. The slow bar is for people who want to ask questions and just nerd out about coffee. I love it." Naturally, with such a leap forward, there's bound to be something of a backlash. After all, the coffee we're discussing here doesn't come cheap: a cup of pour over can run between us$4 and us$6, beans between us$14 and us$22, and some of the more extravagant brewing methods can get dizzyingly expensive for a beverage that can otherwise be acquired for quite cheap. You might even be tempted to say, "what's the big deal? It's just coffee," but James Freeman of blue bottle sees it differently. "What kind of olive oil was in people's cabinets 20 years ago? What kind of olive oil is in people's cabinets now? It's much better, it tastes better and it's a little more expensive," he says. "People know where the farm is, they know whether it's extra virgin, but it tastes better and people don't go back. People can tell the difference between something that's delicious and something that's not. They can even tell the difference between an olive oil from Greece and one from Petaluma and you don't have anyone shaming anyone saying, 'c'mon, it's just olive oil!'" And with that mentality, who knows? You might begin to see cues from San Francisco's third wave of coffee at a cafe near you.


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text:
We are dealing with very large TIFF image files that are imported, processed and exported using Mathematica 9.0.1. Many of our algorithms only work with an array representation of the images, where pixel values are stored in the form of nested lists. For this, we are currently using the function ImageData
to directly convert images into an array representation.
I am struggeling with the increase in memory usage when converting images to the array representation using ImageData
. What I am wondering about is that when I convert images with ImageData
the allocated memory is four times higher compared to having only the images in memory.
Consider the following example: I first create a stack of 50 images that is exported to a TIFF file. Then I import the file again with the option "Data"
. I check the memory before and after Import
. Compared to importing the file without any option, this takes up four times more memory.
Export["testFile.tif", ConstantArray[Image[ConstantArray[0, {1024, 1024}], "Bit16"], 50]];
imgData = Import["testFile.tif", "Data"];
9037228760 - 8617736552
If I import the file without the option, the memory used is about 104905128 bytes. This gives a factor of about 4 (3.99) more memory needed. I repeated this several times and I have to admit I do not have any explanation.
- Is there a simple explanation for the increase of memory usage?
- How can I reduce the amount of allocated memory when using the array representation?
After reading about the function Developer
ToPackedArray` in What is a Mathematica packed array? I tried to convert the data array hoping that this would give me a decrease in memory usage. Nevertheless, I am not really sure if I am using the function correctly in this case. The code I tried is the following:
packed = Developer`ToPackedArray[Import["testFile.tif", "Data"]];
System specifictation
- OS: Windows 7 Professional, Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
- Processor: Intel Xeon CPU E5630 @ 2.53 GHz (2 Processors)
- Installed memory: 96 GB
- Mathematica 9.0.1
- Java version 1.7.0_07
Additional question
Still one problem remains: Is their a clean way in Mathematica, how I could reduce the number of bits used for Integer to change the amount of memory used for the array representation (ImageData
) without losing information? Or do I have to stick to Image
in that case?


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The Environmental Law Institute's Sustainable Use of Land Program recognizes that wasteful and unsustainable land uses often result from perverse incentives in our existing laws and policies. ELI's approach to sustainable land is "smarter laws, better choices." ELI focuses on the laws that influence development activities, recognizing that changes in the areas of tax, finance, infrastructure investment, subsidy, housing, land-use planning and regulation, governmental land management and acquisition, and liability can profoundly affect land-use choices and environmental protection. We develop and apply new legal approaches to assure that the additional 95 million people representing the projected increase in U.S. population by 2040 will have choices about places to live, work, and enjoy while sustaining the nation's ecosystems, farmlands, forests, and open spaces, and reviving our cities and suburbs.
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Managing Shale Gas Development in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale: ELI and the Washington & Jefferson College Center for Energy Policy & Management have produced a study that examines the gas boom in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale, and explores best practices to forestall or mitigate a subsequent economic downturn or "bust." ELI and the W&J Center have also produced a practical guidebook to inform local officials and community organizations of some of their options.
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Ending Sprawl-Law: This long-term project reviews how policy tools other than comprehensive planning and zoning can be used to curb sprawl, revive older suburbs and cities, provide choices in affordable housing, and conserve farms, forests, and open space. In 2007, ELI published Ten Things Wrong With Sprawl, an issues paper describing ten negative effects of exurban sprawl.
Sustainable Use of Land in the Chesapeake Bay Region: ELI works throughout the Chesapeake Bay region to promote new tools that support smart growth and reinvestment across the Bay states. Although the Institute has focused extensively on Pennsylvania and Maryland, we have also engaged in Chesapeake Bay-wide research on smart growth, such as the 2000 study Chesapeake 2000 Tax Policy Study, which examines ways in which tax laws affect implementation of the 2000 Chesapeake Bay Agreement.
Sustainable Water and Sewer Infrastructure: ELI works to integrate the rehabilitation and extension of water and sewer infrastructure with a larger vision for a sustainable landscape, demonstrating new techniques for intergovernmental coordination. Using Pennsylvania as a case study, ELI examined how sewage infrastructure affects land use planning in Planning For Development and Sewage Infrastructure: Can We Be Consistent?
Reforming Tax Policy: ELI works in several states to identify how state and local tax policies can be made more supportive of sustainable land use, including conservation and community revitalization. In 2008 ELI published an issue paper on this topic, Improving Economic Health and Competitiveness through Tax Sharing.
National Environmental Policy Act: NEPA provides a basis for decision-making that considers alternatives, involves the public, and allows application of new and updated information. ELI's work on NEPA shows how this statute can help support better decisions in the areas of resource use, land management, climate change, and development.
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