This excerpt of Daniel Lerch's presentation at the Spirit of Red Hill Valley 2007 lecture in Hamilton, Ontario, categorizes some of the short and long term challenges that peak oil will present to local governments. A good introduction for colleagues who may have heard of peak oil but don't associate it with local issues.

If you're struggling with how to fund the development and maintenance of environmental systems--like drinking and waste water systems--the How To Pay: Challenges and Solutions Of Environmental Protection is for you and your local government team.

This "Vision Plan for the City of Buenaventura" analyzes probable implications of Peak Oil on the City of San Buenaventura, California, and the surrounding region, and describes a vision for post-Peak Oil planning that responds to these implications by building upon positive trends that are already taking place. This vision is supported by planning and design guidelines, as well as a phased implementation plan. The regional vision emphasizes preservation of natural resources, concentration of the developed footprint, and intra-regional collaboration.

Some are reducing paving; others reverting some roads to gravel. Cities pool purchasing power, raise bond money, try new techniques to stretch their road repair budgets as the price of asphalt, a petroleum product, rises.

Three reports created by the National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders seek to better explain alternative mechanisms that governments can use to finance and manage infrastructure, and offer examples of how these alternatives have been applied successfully by state and local governments.

Created through a collaboration between the UK's Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and the Town and County Planning Association, Climate change adaptation by design outlines how built environment professionals can adapt our towns and cities to the effects of climate change at the conurbation, neighbourhood and building scale.

As the price of oil goes up, we've seen the demand for transit rise as well. But the capacity to fill this demand doesn't just appear when needed; it requires prior planning. Daniel Lerch writes about the dilemmas facing cities and their transit systems in the face of sudden popularity.

Here's a simple test you can apply to every new public works project, building plan or government land purchase: Will it increase the region's total greenhouse-gas emissions, or reduce them? That test is courtesy of King County, Washington's Executive Ron Sims, but state, regional, and city governments across the country are taking action to make sure development doesn't undermine their energy and emissions goals.

The mayor of a global metropolis, elected to his first term in 2001, set out to reduce driving and promote greener modes of transportation in his city. Congestion pricing turned out to be unfeasible, because influential political forces in the suburbs believed, rightly or wrongly, that charging people to drive into the urban core was regressive. Undaunted, the mayor found other means to achieve his transportation agenda.

The world is starting to be affected by the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil, but many involved in transportation planning are looking the other way. Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl say that planning around airport development is folly for cities.