Thursday, November 13

Smart Growth Summit on Long Island

On November 13, LGS students attended the Smart Growth Summit of 2008. It was an opportunity to meet with entrepreneurs, architects, engineers, politicians and other college students to talk about the current challenges and solutions on Long Island. The Summit was held at the Melville Marriot in Suffolk County. We spent the first half of the day at the plenary and in workshops of our choice.  The workshop on community design focused on Smart Growth planning for Long Island. Representatives of different companies at this workshop advised and shared ideas as to how to improve the environment. Other workshops covered topics on economy, diversity, conservation, globalization, and so on.

After lunch, we had the opportunity to participate in the Youth Summit led by Dowling College. Students were divided into four small discussion groups which were be led by four Long Island leaders. The first group will focus on environmental issues such as global warming and clean energy. The second group discussed civic participation and the role of community leaders in shaping the process of local community development. The third group discussed issues of local governance, while the fourth group focused on community design. These group discussions were definitely informative and inspired us to take action. As the summit came to an end, all the college students got together to discuss our results. Each group presented their own plan for improving Long Island, and after the summit, all of the plans were merged into a "Youth Vision" document. The Smart Growth Summit was an enriching experience that encouraged LGS students to take action and find alternative solutions to obstacles that come our way.

For more information about the summit, please see http://www.visionlongisland.org/summit.html

To read the policy outcomes of the Youth Summit, please click here (PDF 124KB).

Written by Roshini Givergis, LGS freshman