Letter from the Editor
During 2010, Environmental Practice (ENP) focused issues on sustainability, the 40th anniversary of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and water. Last year was an active period for the ENP editorial office at DePaul University. These journal issues were produced by lead editor Dr. James Montgomery in conjunction with Dan Carroll as managing editor and an editorial board with several new members committed to participating in journal operations. The editorial office implemented a revised ENP format for manuscripts and a new cover that has been well received by the readers.
As you may know, ENP has a coeditor management structure at DePaul University in Chicago, which accomplishes two major goals for the journal. First, one editor is completely dedicated to the current publication year while the other editor is planning for the following year. This system has enabled the editors to reach out to more authors, organizations, and guest editors to become involved with the journal both domestically and internationally. The ENP coeditors and managing editor actively seek out the top researchers and experts in the field, in addition to building bridges to major (including international) conferences and professional organizations to acquire some of the best manuscripts for publication in ENP. Thus, while one editor is working on the current year of publication, the other editor is focused on strategic planning for the next year. This enables the journal to be published in a timely manner, as well as provide the high-quality contributions that our readers expect. For instance, my planning for ENP's 2011 issues began in January 2010 and included results from an electronic survey conducted over several months with the assistance of National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP) and discussions with consultants, agency regulators, scholars, and policy makers. As a result, the editorial office is pleased to bring to its readers in 2011 important themes in the field with some of the best-quality articles. The other important goal that can be accomplished in this coeditorship is the interdisciplinary voice of the journal. This can be seen in the diversity of authors on a variety of environmental topics. Recent themes of issues have ranged from brownfields and sustainability to water and now transportation with this March issue. As lead editor in 2011, I invite readers to contact me any time with feedback and ideas regarding the journal.
This March 2011 issue kicks off the publication year of the journal by looking at a salient and global issue for urban societies—transportation. After the review of the electronic survey conducted last year, and discussing with researchers as well as policy makers what the most salient issue is globally for highly developed as well as emerging urban centers, transportation was at the forefront. It is an issue that impacts the movement of people and goods not just within a large urban area but across geographic areas for increasingly global transit. Thus, the unit of analysis in this type of policy fluctuates from the mile to the hemisphere. Transportation is one of the pathways and sources that most pollutes the planet. It has the added policy dimension of having to update aging technology as well as demand function for growth that outpaces the implementation of the policy locally and can shift over time spatially as people fluctuate movement patterns of goods, service and housing. In November 2010, I had the opportunity to be an invited guest lecturer at Tongji University, one of the largest universities in China, with over 70,000 students. This invitation stemmed from a guest lecture on my research regarding international environmental cooperation at the University of Chicago's Sustainable Development Conference on Earth Day 2010. Tongji University is located in Shanghai, which is now moving close to a population of just under 20 million people and has the sixth largest stock market exchange in the world. Shanghai was the host of the World Expo in 2010, with over 64 million in attendance, where it showcased its modern city with urban planning and transit systems. This urban city is experiencing tremendous pressures from growth. However, Shanghai has strong centralized planning and recognizes the need for sustainable development as part of this growth process.
While presenting my lecture on international environmental treaties and organizations, I also met with the United Nations Environmental Programme's Tongji Institute for Sustainable Development. My visit included outreach for the journal as well as bringing concepts for curriculum and research back into the university. Tongji University has been taking the lead in building a resource-efficient campus nationwide since 2003. The university seeks consensus through the participation of faculty, students, and staff on what it calls resource saving as a guide for their sustainable development, growth, and management. The resource-saving solution has been approached through three prongs of implementation: technology, management, and education, and with the participation of all in every stage. This approach is being realized on the university's campus and in its curriculum. As an aside, I was also fortunate enough to experience the magnetic levitation train called the Maglev that operates in Shanghai. It is notable for being the first commercial high-speed Maglev line in the world. It reaches speeds of over 300 miles/h (483 km/h). The mass-transit train was designed to connect Shanghai Pudong International Airport to the city center of Shanghai. These experiences are examples of how large urban centers around the planet need to focus specifically on transportation as a priority in their planning and development work. Thus, transportation is a timely theme for the March issue of 2011.
The editorial office of ENP recognizes the work of two invited guest editors for this issue who are experts in the transportation policy field: Dr. Joseph Schwieterman and Lauren Fischer. Dr. Schwieterman is a professor in the School of Public Service at DePaul University and director of the DePaul University's Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development. He serves as the president of the Chicago chapter of the Transportation Research Forum (TRF) and board member of the national TRF organization. He is also the board president of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association. His research includes Beyond Burnham: An Illustrated History of Planning for the Chicago Region (2009), a book that presents extensive historical analysis of planning for the Chicago region. Before coming to DePaul University, Dr. Schwieterman served as a transportation specialist with eight years of management experience with national transportation companies. As a policy expert in the field of transportation, he has testified on transportation issues (rail, highway) before subcommittees of Congress on three occasions. Lauren Fischer is the associate director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development, and an adjunct faculty member in the School of Public Service and the Department of Public Policy Studies at DePaul University. As the associate director of Chaddick, she is responsible for organizing various symposia and events related to transportation projects (current and historic) in the Chicago region for urban planning professionals. She has also been a guest lecturer on transportation and urban planning topics at the Art Institute of Chicago and Illinois Institute of Technology. She has coauthored annual studies on the intercity bus sector (2007–9; December, 2010). Currently, Lauren Fischer and Dr. Schwieterman embarked on research on how rising traveler use of portable electronic technology is encouraging more bus and train travel. Their research has been featured on National Public Radio and other outlets.
Readers will find stimulating the upcoming ENP issues this year, which include research on energy that includes a broad range of topics, such as sustainable energy, nuclear cybersecurity, and solar energy transitioning. The coming year promises to be as interesting and exciting for ENP as 2010, with a broad range of topics that will be of interest to the environmental practitioner.
