ABSTRACT
Environmental planning has become a mature field of practice. For instance, the American Planning Association offers an Advanced Specialty Certification in Environmental Planning. Planning in America has traditionally meant "planning for development." But residents in hundreds of communities and regions have recognized that it is also necessary to plan for the preservation of land, sustainable water supplies, and air quality to provide healthy places to live and work. There are several actions governments, businesses, and individuals could take that would improve environmental quality, the conservation of natural resources, and the environmental planning process. The federal government continues to play an important role in environmental planning but has enacted little environmental legislation in years because of political gridlock. States have varied widely in their environmental planning, from California's efforts to address climate change to North Carolina's coastal management program to hardly any action in the Great Plains states.
