Principles of Smart Growth

Encourage Community and Stakeholder Collaboration
Reports

From the Margins to the Mainstream -- Federal Transportation Law and Community Mobility Needs

The Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) and its partners have released two new reports on the federal transportation law: A Guide to Transportation Opportunities in Your Community and Using the Federal Transportation Law to Meeting the Mobility Needs of Your Community: Report on Workshop Discussions, Findings and Next Steps.

2004 American Community Survey

Smart Growth America and the National Association of Realtors® prepared this survey in October 2004 on Americans’ preferences for the type of communities they want to live in and the policies they support for creating those communities. The preferences and other opinions expressed in the survey suggest a direction for solving the conflicting pressures of the desire to develop and the wish to preserve communities.

2004 Most Endangered Sites

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has named eleven historic areas in the United States to its Most Endangered Sites list for 2004. From Utah's Nine Mile Canyon to New York City's Columbus Circle, this year's list calls attention to the natural and cultural landmarks of the United States that are at risk.

2007 Walk to School Survey Findings

The 2007 Walk to School Survey Findings report provides a brief background on Walk to School events in the U.S.; summarizes findings from the 2007 Walk to School Organizer survey; proposes implications of the findings; and recommends actions that would likely strengthen the conduct of future events and increase capacity and demand for SRTS programs.

A Bridge to Somewhere: Retooling the U.S. Transportation System

A Bridge to Somewhere is a report from Brookings that analyzes the current state of the U.S. transportation system, identifies weaknesses, and outlines crucial points of action to build a transportation policy that works on the federal, state, and local levels.

A Call to Farms

A Call To Farms: A Mid-Decade Review of Connecticut’s Agricultural Lands, a report prepared by The Working Lands Alliance, features a summary of key farmland data in the state of Connecticut, including land prices, land use, and farmland loss.

A Civic Gift

This report documents how entrepreneurs, investors, and insightful communities across Michigan are preserving historic assets and reaping greater economic activity and a higher quality of life.

A National View of Agricultural Easement Programs

The American Farmland Trust has released its third report in the series A National View of Agricultural Easement Programs: Easements and Local Planning. Examining the planning connections of 46 easement programs in 15 states, this report is based on the perceptions knowledgeable persons collected in extensive phone interviews and on more objective information from other sources.

A New Path Forward: Action Plan for a Sustainable Washington
Achieving Long-Term Economic, Social, and Environmental Vitality

From the Executive Summary:
Governor Gary Locke convened the Sustainable Washington Advisory Panel in September 2002 because of the widening gap between our state’s current reality and a Washington that is equitable, healthy, and prospering. The Panel concluded that it is imperative to initiate significant changes now if we want Washington’s quality of life to improve, not diminish, over the next generation.

A Roadmap to Revitalizing Urban Neighborhood Business Districts

This report describes methods that the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have used to successfully revitalize urban neighborhood districts.

A Toolkit for Tomorrow’s Schools

This analysis examines how schools and development can be planned together using common population projections, facility budgeting, comprehensive plans, and even common review staff.

Access to Safe Parks Helps Increase Physical Activity Among Teenagers

Access to Safe Parks is a brief from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research that presents policy recommendations aimed at improving neighborhood environments and access to parks to encourage physical activity by California adolescents.

Across Local Borders

This 45-page report documents some of the conditions under which local governments have found regional coordination of brownfields redevelopment to be strategic, the different forms of regional coordination that are taking place, and case study examples describing why and how communities are meeting brownfields challenges through regional approaches.

Active Living and Social Equity

Active Living and Social Equity describes how local managers, department heads and local government staff can design healthy communities for all residents, regardless of income, race or ethnicity, age, ability or gender.

Affordable Housing and Smart Growth: Making the Connection

This report identifies a range of policies and approaches that help achieve both smart growth and affordable housing objectives. The report provides case studies of towns, cities, and states that have benefited from linking these two interrelated goals.

Aging Americans: Stranded Without Options

This report from The Surface Transportation Policy Project presents new findings based on the National Household Transportation Survey of 2001 and places them in the context of other research on mobility in the aging population.

Aging and Smart Growth: Building Aging-Sensitive Communities

This report posits that the sprawling, automobile-dominated landscape so prevalent throughout the United States seriously limits the continued mobility and independence of older people, a reality that is of enormous consequence to the aging experience.

Agriculture and Farmland Protection Programs

This report to the New York State Advisory Council on Agriculture summarizes results from six regional round table discussions on Agriculture and Farmland Protection held between May and September, 2003. These discussions were held to obtain informed stakeholder views on current State programs designed to promote the agricultural industry and maintain the agricultural land base.

Agriculture and Smart Growth

There is a growing recognition that the protection of farmland around cities and towns -- urban-influenced farmland -- contributes to smart growth and the livability of our communities. Not only does agricultural protection further smart growth, integral to smart growth is the protection of urban-influenced farmland. Sustainability begins -- although it does not end -- with the land that feeds us.

Alternatives for Coastal Development

NOAA Coastal Services Center offers an extensive online library of information and tools for coastal development, mapping, and restoration. In Alternatives for Coastal Development: One Site, Three Scenarios, the Center examines design scenarios in terms of Smart Growth.

America’s Best: Profiles of America’s Best Energy Efficiency Programs

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) conducted a national review and assessment of current utility-sector energy efficiency efforts in order to identify exemplary energy efficiency programs that might be replicated by those in other jurisdictions.

American Metropolis: Divided We Sprawl

This presentation given by Bruce Katz to the Land Use Coalition at Yale (LUCY) presents the major trends affecting cities and metropolitan areas, the forces driving these trends, and the policy solutions available to affect positive change.

An Alternative Future: Florida in the 21st Century 2020 2040 2060

An Alternative Future is a comprehensive look at an alternate trend for development that would accommodate the predicted doubling of Florida's population by 2060 without changing the character of the landscape. By creating an efficient transportation infrastructure, a significant cost-savings can be realized -- up to $526 billion dollars -- over the current development trends.

APA Releases Report on Regional Affordable Housing Programs

The American Planning Association's new report, Regional Approaches to Affordable Housing, evaluates 23 programs across the nation to find out if they actually resulted in housing production and, if so, how. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Fannie Mae Foundation, and APA funded the study.

Arlington Carshare Program -- 2006 Report

The Arlington Carshare Program 2006 Report provides a summary of the program and provides a second-year evaluation of the Carshare Program based on member surveys conducted by Arlington in March 2005 and 2006.

Baltimore County Forest Sustainability Project

Baltimore County's Forest Sustainability Project is the latest report in The Conservation Fund's Green Infrastructure Case Studies series. The project engages stakeholders to ensure the long-term health and vitality of Baltimore County's diverse forest resources.

Beltway Burden: Housing and Transportation Costs Squeeze Working Families

Housing located far from transit and employment centers places a heavy financial strain on working families in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region, according to a 2009 publication from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing. Beltway Burden: The Combined Cost of Housing and Transportation in the Greater Washington, DC Metropolitan Area, documents the challenges faced by area working families who are forced to ''drive 'til they qualify'' for housing, incurring higher transportation costs that eventually erode their housing cost savings. It finds that area families are victim to combined housing and transportation costs that constitute, on average, nearly 47 percent of the area median income.

Best and Worst Developments in the Bay Area

The Transportation and Land Use Coalition (TALC) has produced this report that rates 18 projects in nine counties of the San Francisco Bay area.

Best Practices in the Production of Affordable Housing

Best Practices in Producing Affordable Housing, an Urban Land Institute/Fannie Mae Foundation Policy Forum held in Washington, D.C., in March 2005, sought to identify and explore current best practices and learn from companies that are doing an exemplary job of providing affordable housing. This document reports on the initial findings from that event.

Better Models for Urban Supermarkets

Better Models for Urban Supermarkets shows how neighborhood groups and supermarket chains can work in partnership to plan an urban store that complements the historic fabric of the streetscape while meeting the bottom-line needs of the retailer.

Beyond the Fence, A REALTORS® Guide to Military Base Closure

Beyond the Fence, A REALTORS® Guide to Military Base Closure, Realignment and Encroachment, takes a look at the Department of Defense's Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process so that REALTORS® can know how to get involved to help communities cope with the substantial economic challenges that arise when bases are proposed for closure or expansion.

Biodiversity and Smart Growth

This paper discusses the relationship between biodiversity conservation and smart growth, the work that is being done, and suggests promising strategies and explicit collaborations for consideration by philanthropic and public funders and other key actors.

Blueprint Buffalo

Blueprint Buffalo is a report from the National Vacant Properties Campaign (Campaign) and Local Initiatives Support Corporation -- Buffalo (LISC-Buffalo) that outlines a strategy to rebuild the Buffalo, New York region using smart growth development principles, with an emphasis on reclaiming and reusing vacant and abandoned properties.

Boston Indicators Report

The Indicators Report provides high quality data and information about Boston by engaging hundreds of participants and experts in presenting data in 10 categories, drawn from the wealth of research and information generated by public agencies, civic institutions, researchers, think tanks and community-based organizations.

Breaking the Codes

Breaking the Codes is a report from Good Jobs First that documents the ways that states are revising their building codes to encourage more rehabilitation of existing structures, especially in urban areas.

Briefing Papers on Benefits of City Parks

To demonstrate the benefits of city parks and the varied positive affects they can have on a community, the City Parks Forum is producing a series of briefing papers on ''How Cities Use Parks For…''

Brookings Greater Washington Research Program Outlines Vision for Capital Renewal

''Revitalizing Washington's Neighborhoods: A Vision Takes Shape,'' a new discussion paper by Alice Rivlin and others, provides a roadmap for revitalizing the District of Columbia and boosting its population by targeting development resources on key neighborhoods.

Brookings Institute Releases Reports on Vacant Properties, Urban Land Reform

The Brookings Institute Center on Urban and Metropolitan Studies has released several reports on vacant properties and policy reforms.

Brownfields Redevelopment: Best Practices Report

The NGA Center for Best Practices examines innovative state practices in brownfield redevelopment that encourage urban cleanup and revitalization. Two PDF files included as resources on this site.

Brownfields: State of the States

Elected officials and program staff across the country have endeavored to make certain that their programs reflect local brownfield project needs, run smoothly, and take advantage of opportunities to tie brownfield cleanup and redevelopment assistance with regulatory incentives. This updated report highlights their successes and challenges over the past year.

Building a Better Urban Future

Building a Better Urban Future: New Directions for Housing Policies in Weak Market Cities, from Local Initiatives Support Corp., looks at how U.S. cities have not shared equally in the economic gains of the past decade.

Building Better: A Guide to America's Best New Development Projects

Building Better: A Guide to America's Best New Development Projects from the Sierra Club reports on the current state of development in the United States and highlights some of the best new developments that are producing healthy neighborhoods and livable communities.

Building Florida's Future

Building Florida’s Future: Strategies for Regional Cooperation, a report from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Florida Initiative on Regional Collaboration, outlines how the state's communities can benefit economically and in maintaining a high quality of life by working closely together during the substantial growth expected in the next 15 years.

Building the Line to Equity

PolicyLink and Action! offer Building the Line to Equity: Six Steps for Achieving Equitable Transit Oriented Development in Massachusetts, a report that lays out a set of principles for achieving transit development without displacement.

Campus Sustainability Report -- Indiana University 2007

The Indiana University Task Force on Campus Sustainability has released the Campus Sustainability Report, a collective work of more than 100 IU faculty, staff, and students who have been engaged, over the past six months, in developing a sustainability plan for the IU-Bloomington campus.

Campus Sustainability Report -- Michigan State University 2007

The Michigan State University Committee for a Sustainable Campus (UCSC) has released the 2007 Campus Sustainability Report, a collective work that builds on the initial report from 2003. The report presents the latest trends in interdependence between the social, environmental and economic components of the campus -- and adds several new indicators.

Canada's Sustainable Cities 2009

Corporate Knights Magazine has issued its 2009 Sustainable Cities Report, the third annual report detailing which Canadian cities have the smallest environmental footprint.

Case Studies for Transit-Oriented Development

Case Studies for Transit-Oriented Development, a report prepared for Local Initiatives Support Corp. by Reconnecting America, is a short summary of the TOD tools that are used by communities all across the country.

Central Florida Regional Indicators Report 2005

The Central Florida Regional Indicators Report 2005 establishes a regional key indicator system that not only measures progress in the myregion priority areas but indicates the region’s success in becoming less fragmented and more coordinated.

Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida

The Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida was established by the Governor and Legislature of Florida to envision the future of Florida -- to help citizens and state leaders prepare for a continued increase in population and to craft a plan that meets the challenges and opportunities this presents. This First Annual Report lays the foundation for the creation of a sustainable Florida.

Charting the Course for Rebuilding a Great American City

A special volunteer six-member team of planners assembled by APA visited New Orleans October 23 to October 28 to assess the city's needs for developing and implementing plans to guide redevelopment in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The team has put its findings and recommendations into a report, Charting the Course for Rebuilding a Great American City.

City Parks Forum Briefing Papers

The City Parks Forum, a special initiative of the American Planning Association (APA), has published a second series of briefing papers that show mayors, city managers, planners and others how to use healthy parks to create safer neighborhoods, protect and enhance urban environments, improve learning among children, and improve public health.

City/County Collaborations on Brownfields

The Joint Center for Sustainable Communities and the National Association of County Organizations (NACo) offer City/County Collaborations on Brownfields, a report on how cities and counties have cooperated to reclaim brownfield properties.

Civic Participation and Smarter Growth

The Funders' Network's updated translation paper Civic Participation and Smart Growth describes how ongoing decisions about what, where, and how to grow represent opportunities to increase civic participation and decrease social isolation, for the public at large and especially for populations traditionally excluded from decision-making.

Clean Energy and Climate Policy for U.S. Growth and Job Creation

The new study Clean Energy and Climate Policy for U.S. Growth and Job Creation concludes that a robust climate bill could boost the U.S. economy by about $111 billion by 2020 and create as many as 1.9 million jobs.

The report is by David Roland-Holst and Friedrich Kahrl of the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with Madhu Khanna of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Jennifer Baka of Yale University. The authors’ findings run contrary to claims made by opponents of climate legislation in the U.S. Senate.

The team's analysis issued in late October 2009 offers a state-by-state look at the economic implications posed by comprehensive federal climate policy.

The study's key findings are:

• All 50 states can gain economically from strong federal energy and climate policy, despite the diversity of their economies and energy mixes.
• Contrary to what is commonly assumed, comprehensive national climate policy does not benefit the coasts at the expense of the heartland states.
• A strategy for public education about the conservation effort is in place.
• The country as a whole can gain 918,000 to 1.9 million jobs, and household income can grow by $488 to $1,176, by 2020 under comprehensive energy and climate policy.

Clearing the Air

Nearly half of all Americans are breathing unhealthy air, and air quality in dozens of metropolitan areas has actually gotten worse over the last decade according to a new report from the Surface Transportation Policy Project.

Collaboration for Change: A Practitioner's Guide to Environmental Nonprofit-Industry Partnership

This report provides decision-makers in business and environmental nonprofits with the practical tools required to launch or improve effective partnerships.

Commentary Links Economic Vitality to Growth Management

This commentary in the Springfield (MO) News-Leader argues that Springfield's economic resilience depends on the city setting a statewide example of growth management in the Show Me State.

Community Building: How to Do It, Why It Matters

Building a stronger community leads to a higher quality of life—higher educational performance, lower crime, and better physical and mental health. Community building develops trust between residents and governments, and generates a partnership between them.

Community building creates an environment in which there is almost no issue that cannot be resolved, leads to better ideas and solutions, encourages people to be responsible for and committed to improving the quality of life in their communities, and makes the job of the local government manager easier.

In this IQ Report, Ed Everett, former city manager of Redwood City, California describes how we are currently stuck in the “vending machine” form of government, with the public viewing themselves as customers, and why this has caused the public to lose their sense of being responsible citizens and accountable for their community. He describes how local governments need to change the way we view our residents to move them from being customers to being citizens. Discover the various roles of local government in building community and get concrete examples of those roles, and lessons learned. Through this report, you will come to understand not only the power of community building but also the way that community building relates to the reasons why many of us were drawn to the profession of local government management in the first place.

Community Empowerment Program: Nurturing Public Involvement in the Transportation Planning Process

Results of pilot study conducted by the Surface Transportation Policy Project and Federal Transit Administration highlighting successful public involvement in transportation decision-making and public-non-profit partnerships.

Community Forest Report

Community Forests is a report from the Community Forest Collaborative on the potential role of community ownership and management of forestland. It's based on research that includes GIS analysis, interviews, surveys, input from two workshops, and five case studies of Community Forests in northern New England that illuminate particular aspects of the Community Forest Model.

Community Housing Partnership Annual Report 2009

Community Housing Partnership (CHP) is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that develops and operates permanent housing for formerly homeless people with on-site support services, job training, leadership development and employment opportunities.

Community Indicators

This report by Rhonda Phillips for the American Planning Association's Planning Advisory Service reviews the use of indicators in planning practice and explores their relationship to citizen participation, quality of life, and sustainability.

Community Involvement in Brownfield Redevelopment

Community participation and stakeholder involvement play an essential role in successful brownfield development, as dozens of success stories attest. Yet historically, community participation in federally influenced redevelopment activities has been adversarial.

Complete Streets Report

The Thunderhead Alliance, national coalition of state and local bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations, has published the first nationwide analysis of policies designed to create complete streets that routinely accommodate bicycle and pedestrian travel.

Conserving the Green Network

Conserving the Green Network is a joint effort by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and American Farmland Trust to assess the condition of the Washington-Baltimore region’s open space assets, past and present attempts to conserve them, and the effects that a coordinated green network might have on future growth.

Conserving the Washington-Baltimore’s Green Network

Conserving the Washington-Baltimore’s Green Network is the result of a joint effort by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and American Farmland Trust to assess the condition of the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore area's open space assets; past and present attempts to conserve them; and the effects that a coordinated green network might have on future growth.

Context-Sensitive Signage Design

Signs exist to communicate information, but in many communities the sign industry and planning profession currently do not have an effective means of communicating with one another. The core of any relationship between two interests is understanding each other's motivation.

Corporate Citizenship and Urban Problem Solving

Corporate Citizenship and Urban Problem Solving: The Changing Civic Role of Business Leaders in American Cities, a paper from The Brookings Institution, traces the shifting landscape of business-civic organizations in 19 U.S. metropolitan areas.

Counties and Local Food Systems

Counties and Local Food Systems from the National Association of Counties (NACo) contains four methods and case studies for how county governments can support their local food systems. Written with a focus on obesity prevention, this publication will also appeal to readers interested in the links between agriculture and economic development, environmental protection, and food security will also find the content useful.

County Government Approaches to Combating Youth Obesity, Encouraging Physical Activity, and Creating Healthy Communities

This report from NACo reviews what county officials have done to promote physical activity and provide healthy eating choices for their citizens, and what future steps need to be taken to assist officials to create healthier communities.

Creating Communities of Learning: Schools and Smart Growth

This report describes two exemplary projects seeded by New Jersey's Community School Smart Growth Planning Grant program: A national design competition for a new high school in Perth Amboy, and an effort to engage large scale public engagement in a community school master planning process Plainfield.

Creating Great Neighborhoods: Density in Your Community

Creating Great Neighborhoods highlights the success of nine community led efforts to create vibrant neighborhoods through density. Building great dense places with good design is not just an abstract theory -- it is a practical approach to growth that is being used in diverse places across the country.

Crossroads Hamlet Village Town

Crossroads Hamlet Village Town broke new ground by offering specific design guidance to planners, developers, and others involved in laying out, regulating, and reviewing proposals for “traditional neighborhoods.'' This new 2004 edition addresses many particulars of residential site design and the use of open space, parks, squares, greenways, and greenbelts.

Cross-Sector Dialogue on the Impact of Housing/Land Use and Mobility

On June 22, 2006, the Center for Civic Partnerships organized and hosted a facilitated cross-sector dialogue in Glendale, California on land use, mobility and public health. The purpose of the meeting was to identify promising strategies and resource opportunities involving multi-sectored collaboration. Cross Sector Dialogue on Impact of Housing/Land Use and Mobility on Physical Activity and Older Adults is the final report from this event.

Decisions for the Earth

This issue of World Resources focuses on environmental governance -- the processes and institutions used to make decisions about the environment.

Design for Health Summit Report

The primary goal of the Design for Health Summit for Massachusetts Health Care Decision Makers was to bring together leading health care facility decision makers, discuss the arguments for and evidence supporting ''healthy design,'' and brainstorm initiatives and implementation strategies to achieve healthier hospitals—healthier for patients, healthier for staff, healthier for the environment and community, and healthier for hospital financial security.

Designing Activity into Our Lives

A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded study reports on the links between active living and health issues. Includes interactive features.

Designing Schoolyards & Building Community

Designing Schoolyards & Building Community is a report on the Boston Schoolyard Initiative, an effort dedicated to transforming Boston's schoolyards into dynamic centers for learning and community life.

Dollars and Sense II: Lessons from Good, Cost-Effective Small Schools

KnowledgeWorks Foundation's Dollars and Sense reports outline the economic and social arguments in support of small schools, and demonstrate that the true costs of large schools are enormous and the benefits dubious.

Draft Report on the Environment

The U.S. EPA's Draft Report on the Environment is a report that describes current national environmental conditions and trends using existing data and indicators. The report identifies data gaps and research needs, and discusses the challenges government and our partners face in filling those gaps.

Ecological Design Manual for Lake County, Florida

The goal of this manual is to illustrate how development objectives and natural resource protection needs within a high-growth area can be addressed through the physical design of residential projects.

Published December 2001. 42 pages; available online as a PDF document at the resource link below.

Eco-Municipalities: A Model for Sustainable Communities in Wisconsin

The Ecomunicipality: Model for Sustainable Community Change describes a systems approach to creating sustainable communities. Written by Torbjörn Lahti and Sarah James, and adapted and updated by Lisa MacKinnon, this document provides an overview of what an ecomunicipality is, how it functions, and what it can achieve.

Emergency Response and Street Design

The Congress of New Urbanism, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and fire marshals from across the country have come together to produce a new report on designing streets that are both safe for all modes of travelers and allow emergency responders to quickly get to their destinations. These two goals have traditionally been at odds with one another: safe streets for emergency responders are often wide and unsafe for pedestrians and other vehicles. Emergency Response and Street Design seeks to find a common ground between these two groups of road users, reducing fatalities while increasing the ability of emergency responders to get where they need to be.

The report opens with statistics about how narrower neighborhood-oriented streets, most often found in traditional and new urbanist communities, contribute to a host of positive externalities including reducing storm water runoff, requiring less energy to construct, and facilitating other modes of transportation like walking and bicycling. The report goes on to note that fire-related civil deaths have declined from 7,395 in 1977 to 3,430 in 2007 and that the majority of emergency calls are not related to fire but rather responding to traffic accidents and medical emergencies. More than 41,000 people were killed in traffic collisions in 2007 and more than 2 million were injured.

Currently, the International Fire Code, a document used by municipalities across the United States to determine street width for emergency vehicle access, requires an unobstructed width of at least 20 feet. This requirement forces streets to be wider than necessary and prevents developers, planners and engineers from creating well designed streets. Wide streets, the report shows, increase automobile speeds causing collisions that occur to be more deadly. Reducing the width of a street reduces the speed and frequency of vehicle collisions—a traffic study cited by the report revealed a 485 percent increase in accident rates per mile as street widths increased from 24 feet to 36 feet.

The solution presented in this report is reconnecting streets to allow multiple routes for emergency vehicles and reducing the width of streets to decrease the number and severity of accidents. Case studies are used to show how communities that have gone back to a traditional connected street pattern have actually seen both a decrease in accidents and a decrease in emergency vehicle response times. Neighborhoods built with a high rate of connected streets and densities are not only cheaper to provide emergency services for but also that service often has a better response time. The report advocates that communities work with local fire departments instead of following the International Fire Code to come up with street widths that create the best combination of accessibility and livability.

Energy and Smart Growth (Translation Paper #15)

This translation paper from the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities contends there is much to be gained by expanding the smart growth movement to include greater attention on energy. Through greater use of energy efficient design and renewable energy sources, the smart growth movement could better achieve its goals of environmental protection, economic security and prosperity, and community livability.

Energy Efficiency Program Options for Local Governments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

Washington, D.C. (December 23, 2009): In a new report released today, ACEEE presented profiles of over 40 municipal energy efficiency programs as a guide for cities and counties preparing to implement federally-funded energy efficiency and conservation plans.

''The passage of the ARRA economic stimulus package was the largest single investment in energy efficiency to date, and the first time federal money has been directed specifically to municipal energy efficiency efforts,'' said ACEEE policy researcher Michael Sciortino, referring to the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) program included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). ''It is essential that local governments use proven program models like those featured in this report to ensure success.''

Cities and counties have long been active developers of successful energy efficiency programs, and with the release of EECBG funds, local governments are poised to further their critical role. ACEEE's new report, Energy Efficiency Program Options for Local Governments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 examines a number of innovative energy efficiency programs implemented by American towns and cities prior to the passage of ARRA. The EECBG program will dispense more than 3 billion dollars to cities and states, creating jobs while improving U.S. energy efficiency through a variety of initiatives, including building retrofits, incentives, and audit programs. Some block grant recipients have already received funding to execute their chosen ''shovel-ready'' projects; however, many cities and towns are still waiting to put project plans into action. 

''The EECBG program is an opportunity for all municipalities to become leaders in energy efficiency,'' said Sarah Black, report lead author. ''This report provides concrete examples of how American towns and cities can take action now to launch innovative and meaningful programs that save energy and create jobs.''

Enterprise at Home for Progress at Large: The Economics of Sustainability

This new report focuses on economies in transition—economies that are threatened by the consequences of environmental changes. The report explores how key civic leaders, faced with the challenge of ensuring the future strength of their economies, have employed creative new agendas that not only help reverse the effects of environmental degradation but also leverage the occasion for valuable economic gain.

While national debates rage over which production methods will lead to a stronger, more sustainable environment, and while research and development teams struggle to produce the next revolutionary technology, it is on the local level that incredible progress is being made in advancing sustainability measures beyond rhetoric. City governments and grassroots activists are often the most obvious players, but there is a powerful—and perhaps unexpected—player in the green arena that is leading the charge in cutting emissions and conserving energy while boosting regional economies: the business community.

These activities are not wild expansions of their mission, but are essential to fulfilling it. Businesses that emit little emissions and consume fewer resources are the stronger, leaner and more agile businesses of America’s future and as the organizations that work to support economic development and improve local quality of life, many chambers of commerce have dedicated themselves to aiding in the success of green businesses. The ingenuity and forward thinking exemplified by the chambers highlighted here are the first bold steps toward a more sustainable and robust American economy.

The report provides tells stories of entrepreneurship and success—stories of chambers of commerce throughout the country instituting green business recognition programs, working to attract clean industries, creating green jobs, and providing resources to local businesses to implement more sustainable practices.

Environmental Characteristics of Smart Growth Neighborhoods

This new study (also conducted for NRDC in cooperation with EPA) continues that research by comparing two neighborhoods in Nashville, Tennessee, and suggests that the combination of better transportation accessibility and a modest increase in land-use density can produce measurable benefits even when both sites are automobile-oriented and suburban in character.

Environmental Justice, Urban Revitalization and Brownfields

''Environmental Justice, Urban Revitalization, and Brownfields: The Search for Authentic Signs of Hope'' is a report on equitable development endorsed by the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) at its May 29-31, 1996 meeting in Detroit, Michigan.

Environmental Research and Education Needs

Environmental Research and Education Needs: An Agenda for a New Administration is report from the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), published in December 2008, that organizes the recommendations relating to research and education policy from NCSE's first eight national conferences (2000-2008). It identifies research needed to improve scientific knowledge, and education needed to improve public understanding, professional capacity and a strong workforce.

Equitable Renewal: Ten Points to Guide Rebuilding in the Gulf Coast Region

Equitable Renewal: Ten Points to Guide Rebuilding in the Gulf Coast Region is an outline of steps from PolicyLink to help ensure that restoration of hurricane-damage communities is fair and just.

Essential Smart Growth Fixes for Urban and Suburban Zoning Codes

Across the country, local governments are searching for ways to create vibrant communities that attract jobs, foster economic development, and provide attractive places for people to live, work, and play. But many are discovering that their own land development codes and ordinances often get in the way of achieving these goals, and they may not have the resources or expertise to make the specific regulatory changes that will create more sustainable communities.

In response to this need, EPA's Smart Growth Program convened a panel of national smart growth code experts to identify the topics in local zoning codes that are essential to creating the building blocks of smart growth. The resulting document, Essential Smart Growth Fixes for Urban and Suburban Zoning Codes, presents the panel's initial work. This document explores 11 ''Essential Fixes'' that address the most common barriers local governments face in implementing smart growth. These actions are organized as modest adjustments, major modifications, or wholesale changes -- giving communities options based on their political will, financial resources, and organizational capacity.

This tool does not include model language, codes or ordinances. It can, however, help communities evaluate their existing codes and ordinances and apply that information to create more sustainable comunities. It is an evolving document that will be regularly revised and updated, and is intended to spark a larger conversation about the tools and information local governments need to revise their land development regulations.

Estimating the Jobs Impact of Tackling Climate Change

The new report Estimating the Jobs Impact of Tackling Climate Change suggests that tackling climate change will be a major net job creator for the U.S. economy. According to the report, aggressive deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency can net up to 4.5 million new U.S. jobs by 2030 and provide the greenhouse gas emission reductions necessary to tackle climate change.

According to the analysis, renewable energy and energy efficiency deployment costs would be revenue neutral (or better), as costs to implement the technologies are offset by savings from lower energy bills, making total net costs near zero.

“The twin challenges of climate change and economic stagnation can be solved by the same action—broad, aggressive, sustained deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency,” said Brad Collins, ASES’ Executive Director, “the solution for one is the solution for the other.”

This jobs report offers the most detailed analysis yet on the potential role of the new energy economy in tackling climate change. It suggests that policy can play a significant role in both generating jobs and mitigating carbon emissions.

“For job growth the status quo is no match for innovation,” said Mr. Collins. “Congress can help get the economy back on track with smart energy policy - reduce energy consumption in buildings by 50%; adopt an aggressive national renewable portfolio standard; commit to end dependence on foreign oil by 2025; and implement an upstream cap and auction system to manage greenhouse gases at the points where they first enter the energy economy.”

This report analyzed the job potential of improving energy efficiency in buildings, transportation, and industry, and assessed six renewable energy technologies: concentrating solar power, photovoltaics, wind power, biomass, biofuels, and geothermal power. Estimates in this report refer to net jobs since advancing new energy technologies can both create new jobs and displace jobs from less efficient industries. This report suggests that, in total, more than 4.5 million more jobs can be created by tackling climate change than would be lost.

Fair and Healthy Land Use

Fair and Healthy Land Use, a report from the American Planning Association's (APA's) Planning Advisory Services, explains how the principles of environmental justice can be incorporated into land-use planning processes.

Fannie Mae’s Annual Housing Survey

Fannie Mae's 2003 National Housing Survey finds that, while most Americans view homeownership as a safe investment with a lot of potential, four critical ''gaps'' must be addressed in order to reach the underserved and close the minority homeownership gap.

Federal Policy Ideas for Community Revitalization

Federal Policy Ideas for Community Revitalization is a report from the Northeast-Midwest Institute that explores ways that federal policy can help older core cities and close-in suburbs with community revitalization challenges.

Fertile Ground

Fertile Ground is a report on the first year of Green Communities, a five-year, $555 million initiative to build more than 8,500 environmentally healthy homes for low-income families. The report states that the initiative exceeded expectations in its first year, as a diverse array of partners embraced the initiative’s holistic, cost-effective approach to sustainable development in low-income communities.

Fever of Development, Frontier of Recovery: Securing the Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Region

Fever of Development, Frontier of Recovery: Securing the Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Region is a July 2007 report from the Michigan Land Use Institute (MLUI) and the Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance that provides guidance in understanding and responding to the purchase of 402 acres of Lake Michigan shoreline at the mouth of the Kalamazoo River in Saugatuck Township by an Oklahoma City energy company executive.

Florida Parks in the 21st Century: 2008 Report

Florida Parks in the 21st Century 2008, a report from Trust for Public Land (TPL) that is based on data provided directly from city and county park departments, suggests that the need for local parks in Florida is growing. Local park departments have documented $10.5 billion they'll need to acquire land for new parks and maintain existing parks.

Food, Markets, and Healthy Communities

Food, Markets, and Healthy Communities, a new report from the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), discusses how food markets can affect low-income neighborhoods and provides several strong case studies that illustrate their significant impact, emphasizing that the presence of a high-quality food market is a critical component to a community’s physical and economic health.

From Brownfields to Housing

Brownfield redevelopment -- the cleanup and reuse of abandoned properties with real or suspected contamination -- offers communities a range of housing opportunities, especially where market factors or a property's size or location restrict possibilities for commercial and industrial reuse.

From Rags to Riches: Innovations in Petroleum Brownfields

Almost every city and town contains a site with an underground storage tank (UST) that is affected by petroleum contamination or impacted by the perception that contamination exists. From Rags to Riches: Innovations in Petroleum Brownfields from the Northeast/Midwest Institute, describes the progress states and communities have made in addressing UST situations.

From Wall Street to Your Street: New Solutions for Smart Growth Finance

Commissioned by the Funders' Network, From Wall Street to Your Street: New Solutions for Smart Growth Finance reassess the current methods for smart growth finance and sketches out two different ''fixes'' for the problem of financing smart growth.

Funders' Network Publishes Health and Smart Growth Translation Paper

The Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities has published its most recent translation paper: Health and Smart Growth: Building Health, Promoting Active Communities.

Getting It Together: Connecting Local Neighborhoods and National Advocates

Getting It Together: Connecting Local Neighborhoods and National Advocates highlights the experience of organizations that have built complementary relationships between local practitioners and national advocates.

Getting Smart about Climate Change

Addressing climate change is a key component of creating more sustainable communities, and smart growth offers practical guidelines for communities looking to develop sustainably: it addresses new growth and development in a way that reduces their impact on the environment and their contributions to global climate change while supporting economic development and social equity–related goals.

This report outlines nine strategies for successfully applying smart growth principles to climate concerns on the local and regional levels.

The report can be downloaded free at the link below.

Getting to Work: Reconnecting Jobs with Transit

Getting to Work: Reconnecting Jobs with Transit from New Jersey Future reports that New Jersey residents spend more time getting to and from work than their counterparts in 48 of the 50 states -- but the state could reduce the stress and frustration of commuting, and advance several important public policy goals, by employing strategies to link job sites with public transportation, according to a research report released today by New Jersey Future.

Going to Town: New Urbanism Arrives in Northwest Michigan

Going to Town: New Urbanism Arrives in Northwest Michigan, a new report from the Michigan Land Use Institute (MLUI), discusses a new approach to residential and commercial development that is saving tax dollars, protecting the environment, and increasing prosperity and quality of life in northern Lower Michigan.

Golden Lands, Golden Opportunity: Preserving Vital Bay Area Lands

Ridges and farms, watersheds and forests in the San Francisco Bay Area provide vital public benefits -- but many are still unprotected. Golden Lands, Golden Opportunity is a landmark report on the region's green infrastructure by hundreds of Bay Area land use leaders that calls for action to fully protect its greenbelt.

Good Design: The Best Kept Secret in Community Development

Good Design, from Local Initiatives Support Corp., describes what good design is, why it’s essential to affordable housing that works, and who’s responsible for making it happen.

Greenfield Development Without Sprawl

Greenfield Development Without Sprawl: The Role of Planned Communities is the second in a series of papers by noted authors on land use policy and practice issues of pressing concern to ULI members and the broader real estate and land use community.

Greening the World's Capital Cities

How do some of the world's best-known national capitals contribute to creating an environmentally and socially sustainable world? And how do they build successful support for sustainable development? Learn what capital cities are doing to lead the way to a greener planet in this report from the Capitals Alliance.

Growing by Choice or Chance

Growing by Choice or Chance details how South Carolina communities have an opportunity to direct their growth through more efficient land use that decreases the amount of land developed to accommodate population growth, and offers more variety in how people live, work and shop.

Growing Economy, Shrinking Emissions: A Transit-Oriented Future for Connecticut's Capital Region

This new report illustrates a strategy for growth in Greater Hartford that expands housing and transit options while reducing our transportation-related carbon emissions. At the May 2009 Redesigning the Edgeless City workshop, a diverse group of planners, environmentalists, community advocates, and business people met in Hartford to discuss the link between transportation and development and to test how coordinated land use and transportation policies could impact Greater Hartford. RPA has analyzed existing zoning regulations of each town in the CRCOG region and found that housing and commercial development produced by current policies would raise emissions by 22% without even meeting the anticipated needs of our residents or supporting pending public transit investments. The report documents alternative transit-based scenarios developed at the May meeting which would reduce the projected growth in emissions by 11% and provide access to transit necessary to reduce our dependence on automobiles, saving the average household in the region approximately $360 each year in gas cots alone.

Growing Economy is a template for the type of regional planning that will be supported by the recently announced HUD/DOT/EPA Sustainable Communities initiative--planning which combines economic development, housing supply and demand, environmental quality, and transportation needs of a region into an integrated and achievable vision. As Tisha Ferguson of Connecticut Fund for the Environment tells us, Growing Economy is ''a blueprint for making the right choices to reconnect the urban and outlying communities, creating a vibrant urban hub and realizing Hartford's potential for regional economic leadership.''

The report was prepared in recognition that the Hartford region is about to invest in two transformative transit projects: the New Britain-Hartford busway, expected to receive a full-funding grant agreement later this year from the federal New Starts program, and the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield commuter rail, now completing its environmental assessment. RPA estimates that transit-oriented development can reduces miles driven by the average Hartford-area household by 2,400 miles per year, reducing the need for a second or third car. Given the challenges faced in shifting to renewable energy, more efficient cars, and more efficient buildings, transit-oriented development represents a strategy to harness private investment to achieve the State of Connecticut's carbon emissions reduction goals of 10% below 1990 levels by 2020.

Growing Economy was produced with the support of Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in cooperation with Capitol Region Council of Governments.

Growing Smarter at the Edge

Growing Smarter at the Edge, a new publication from the Sonoran Institute, reviews and evaluates urban edge development associated with large-scale planned communities, or master-planned communities.

Growing with Less Greenhouse Gases

This National Governors Association report cites expanding transportation choices, conserving greenspaces, and promoting new community designs as effective smart growth strategies for reducing greenhouse gases.

Guides and Manuals of “Better Practice” -- UK

This three-part essay discusses the general national planning situation in Britain, specifically dealing with that in force in England. Urban Design Issues, Planning Tools, and Planning Guidelines are discussed in the context of recent British development trends.

Hard Lessons: Michigan’s School Construction Boom

The Michigan Land Use Institute (MLUI) presents this report on new school contruction in Michigan. Hard Lessons asks whether building bigger, newer schools is always best for students and communities. The report concludes that new school construction is raising tax, economic, and community stability issues with long-term consequences.

Healthy Communities Initiative

The Regional Plan Association Healthy Communities Initiative, supported by the Centers for Disease Control, the Milbank Memorial Fund, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, restores the historic relationship between the disciplines of town planning and health science.

Healthy Community Design

Healthy Community Design: Success Stories from State and Local Leaders profiles the notable efforts of elected and appointed government leaders who are supporting healthy community design across the nation. Some of these efforts stem from a desire to support economic development, others to decrease environmental degradation or improve residents’ quality of life. But all of the policy changes and programming efforts have a positive effect on health because they support community design that provides more opportunities for people to engage in routine physical activity.

Healthy Food, Healthy Communities

Healthy Food, Healthy Communities: Improving Access and Opportunities through Food Retailing, is a PolicyLink report that outlines how the lack of local access to healthy, affordable food affects what people eat, and ultimately threatens both individual and community vitality -- residents risk obesity and other poor health conditions, and communities suffer. this issue and provides solutions. Healthy Food, Healthy Communities highlights three of the most promising strategies: developing new grocery stores, improving the selection and quality of food in existing smaller stores, and starting and sustaining farmers’ markets.

Heritage Dividend

English Heritage (with EEDA & the HLF) has recently launched the results of research into the regeneration impact of heritage investment in the East of England. Included in the report are 11 case studies showing local success stories.

Hidden in Plain Sight: Capturing the Demand for Housing Near Transit

Hidden in Plain Sight: Capturing the Demand for Housing Near Transit, a new study by Reconnecting America’s Center for Transit Oriented Development, shows that demand for compact housing near transit is likely to more than double by 2025.

Historic Neighborhood Schools Success Stories

Preservation success stories are crucial tools for Americans trying to keep historic schools as vital parts of their communities. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, supported in part by the National Center for Preservation Training and Technology, has compiled Historic Neighborhood Schools Success Stories, showing how people across the country are preserving architectural landmarks, holding onto neighborhood anchors, and creating uniquely enriching educational settings.

Housing Affordability

Housing Affordability is the focus of ICMA's October 2007 Management Perspective white paper. It includes tools, resources, and strategies that local government leaders can use to expand and support home ownership in their communities.

Housing Strategies for Houston

Houston, one of America’s largest and fastest growing cities, faces a daunting challenge: by 2025, the city’s population is expected to double with an additional two million citizens. Housing Strategies for Houston: Expanding Opportunities outlines recommendations of a team of national experts for realizing a new vision.

How Cities Use Parks

The City Parks Forum has begun an initiative to produce a series of briefing papers on ''How Cities Use Parks For ...'' to provide information on how healthy parks are fundamental to many aspects of community prosperity.

How Have Recent Rezonings Affected the City's Ability to Grow?

In the fall of 2009, the Bloomberg Administration celebrated its 100th rezoning, a significant milestone in an unprecedented series of rezoning actions that have affected more than one fifth of New York City. Despite the intense scrutiny that has accompanied many individual rezonings, no analysis had been done to look at the cumulative impact that these actions have had on the City's capacity to accommodate new residential growth. A new report by NYU's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy fills that gap.

The report examines the rezonings that took place between 2003 and 2007, and finds that of the 188,000 lots that were included in a City-initiated rezoning action, 23 percent were downzoned, 14 percent were upzoned, and almost 63 percent were subject to a contextual-only rezoning (a term for a rezoning that does not significantly change the buildable capacity but otherwise limits the kind of building allowed). Despite the small share of upzonings, on net, these actions increased the City's capacity for new residential building by 1.7 percent, or roughly 100 million square feet of residential capacity.

''Given the scale of rezoning activity during this time, it is critical to take a step back and ask: 'what is the net impact on the City’s capacity to accommodate new growth?''' said Vicki Been, faculty director of the Furman Center. ''While we find that on paper, the upzonings have added more capacity than the downzonings have taken away, we also find reason to doubt that all of this new capacity will be built out for residential use, and it remains unclear whether we are on track for creating enough new residential capacity to accommodate the one million new New Yorkers that are expected to live in the City by 2030.''

The report finds that different areas of the City have not received equal shares of the new capacity for future growth: Queens and Manhattan had the biggest increases in residential capacity (2.8 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively); Staten Island and Brooklyn had more modest gains (1.4 percent and 1.2 percent gains, respectively); and the Bronx had no net change. The report also finds that capacity changes from rezonings varied widely from neighborhood to neighborhood.

Because there are competing development pressures in the mixed-use areas where new residential capacity has been added, the report questions how much these rezonings will result in new housing units, and cautions that these rezonings alone will not be enough to generate housing to accommodate expected growth.

The report also looks at the distributional implications of where capacity was added and where it was lost. First, it looks at the socio-economic characteristics of rezoned neighborhoods. The report finds that upzoned lots tended to be located in neighborhoods with a higher proportion of black and Hispanic residents than the median neighborhood in the City. On the other hand, downzoned and contextually-only rezoned lots were more likely to be located in tracts with a higher share of white residents, and smaller shares of black and Hispanic residents than the City median. In addition, the report finds that contextual-only rezoned lots tended to be in areas with much higher median income than that of the City as a whole, while upzoned and downzoned lots were in areas with median incomes lower than the City.

''There is no general agreement on whether it is good or bad for one's neighborhood to be upzoned or downzoned,'' commented Been. ''On the one hand, upzonings can bring needed investment and economic development. On the other, they can lead to congestion and additional strain on a neighborhood’s infrastructure. The variation in the pattern of rezonings among communities with different socio-economic characteristics calls for a larger conversation about how the benefits and burdens of development should be shared across the City. We hope this analysis will spur new discussions about ways to ensure the City’s land use processes result in efficient, sustainable and fair zoning changes.''

The report also looks at the relationship between the rezonings and the transit accessibility of the neighborhoods that gained and lost capacity. Consistent with the City’s announced goal of channeling growth to transit rich neighborhoods, it finds that the vast majority of new residential capacity was added in transit rich areas (those within a half-mile walk of a rail entrance). However, the report also finds that a majority of downzoned lots were located in transit rich areas, raising questions about whether rezoning decisions are sufficiently coordinated with infrastructure planning. Accordingly, the report encourages enhanced coordination between the Department of City Planning and the agencies responsible for the City's infrastructure and neighborhood planning.

Finally, the report points to the need for a better understanding of the impact of contextual-only rezonings. A large majority of all rezonings enacted over this time period were contextual-only, yet little is known about the effect these rezonings will have on the cost of building or the kind of development that will take place in rezoned communities. The Furman Center plans to tackle these questions in future research.

How Shall We Grow: Creating a Shared Vision for Central Florida

As Central Florida faces the opportunities and challenges associated with the projected doubling of our population from 3.5 million citizens in 2006 to 7.2 million in 2050, the region has been given the opportunity to be the first in Florida to create a shared vision to answer the question, ''How Shall We Grow?''

Improving Economic Health and Competitiveness through Tax Sharing

Improving Economic Health and Competitiveness Through Tax Sharing from the Environmental Law Institute assesses the experience of local governments with schemes that share portions of tax revenues in order to get better development results and avoid sprawl.

Improving Indoor Air Quality in Rental Dwellings

This report reviews state and local policies that address indoor air quality-related problems in residential rental housing, and describes the government programs charged with carrying out those policies.

Improving the Pedestrian Environment Through Innovative Transportation Design

Improving the Pedestrian Environment, a report from the Institute of Transport Engineers, features samples of how transportation professionals and citizens have brought walking back into focus, not only in the capital budgets of government agencies but also in the lives of citizens.

Innovative Bicycle Treatments

This report identifies and shares information on approximately 50 bicycle treatments including shared bike/bus lanes, bicycle boulevards, raised bike lanes and colored bike lanes.

Integrating Schools into Healthy Community Design

The National Governor's Association (NGA) has prepared this Issue Brief that examines state policies on school siting, school construction financing, and Safe Routes to School programs focusing on how policies can benefit communities, improve children's health, and reduce the need for infrastructure expansion.

Integration of Planning, Public Health Builds Active Communities

The American Planning Association (APA) has released preliminary findings of a nationwide survey to measure how communities can create opportunities for citizens to be more physically active.

Investing in Transportation

The Pennsylvania Economy League (PEL) presents Investing in Transportation: A Benchmarking Study of Transportation Funding and Policy, a report commissioned by a diverse coalition of organizations and intended to supplement and complement the ongoing work of the Pennsylvania Governor's Transportation Funding and Reform Commission, which is completing a statewide investigation of Pennsylvania’s transportation policies and funding challenges.

Katrina Index: Tracking Variables of Post-Katrina Reconstruction

The Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program offers the Katrina Index: Tracking Variables of Post-Katrina Reconstruction. This publication provides a benchmark for reconstruction progress, indexing nearly 50 economic and social indicators that measure the impact of rebuilding efforts in Orleans Parish, the New Orleans metropolitan area, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Land Use and the California Economy: Principles for prosperity and quality of life.

This report, commissioned by ''Californians and the Land,'' a group of leaders from California's business, government, and environmental sectors, addresses three major issues: How much growth should California expect and why?; How are land use and quality of life issues related to the California economy?; and, What are the principles that must be addressed if Californians are to combine economic growth and a high quality of life­ now and for future generations?

Land Vote 2003

This report from the Trust for Public Land and the Land Trust Alliance monitors new conservation funding measures nationwide, and provides an annual ballot measure history for all conservation-related ballot measures that have been voted on since 2000.

LandVote 2002 Is Available On-Line

LandVote 2002, the annual publication of the Trust for Public Land and the Land Trust Alliance that documents American voters' continued support for parks and open space funding, is available on-line or can be order on-line.

Learning from Abroad

This paper is designed to help further the understanding of and contribute to learning from international approaches to smarter growth policies and sustainable development.

Living Streets

ICMA has posted on its website the Living Streets report from the Colorado Municipal League. The Denver Living Streets Initiative is a citywide initiative and regional partnership to educate professionals, community and elected leaders as well as the public at large about the benefits of living streets.

Local Government and Schools: Creating Community-Oriented Schools

Local Government and Schools is an IQ report from the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) that provides local government managers with an understanding of the connections between school facility planning and local government management issues. The report offers strategies for how local governments and schools can bring their respective planning efforts together to take a more community-oriented approach to schools and reach multiple community goals: educational, environmental, economic, social, and fiscal. Eight case studies illustrate how communities across the U.S. have already succeeded in collaborating to create more community-oriented schools.

Making Environmentalism More Urban

This news briefing from the Congress for New Urbanism describes how a group of New Urbanists is bridging the gap between traditional New Urbanism concepts and the principles of green building. The result is an ''enhanced sustainability'' combining the benefits of urbanism and environmentalism.''

Making the Connection: Transit-Oriented Development and Jobs

Making the Connection: Transit-Oriented Development and Jobs is a national study completed by Good Jobs First honoring 25 exemplary transit-oriented development (TOD) projects that provide increased transit access, good jobs, and affordable housing to low and moderate-income people, including many who cannot afford to own a car.

Managing Growth in Minnesota’s Growth Corridor

1000 Friends of Minnesota produced this report on growth in Minnesota's Growth Corridor: an area beginning north of Brainerd that runs south through St. Cloud, rings the seven-county Twin Cities region, and continues south through Rochester.

Measuring the Economic Value of an Urban Park System

Measuring the Economic Value of an Urban Park System from The Trust for Public Land identifies seven attributes of city park systems that provide economic value and can be measured. The report is based on a 2003 TPL Center for City Park Excellence event held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Measuring the Health Effects of Sprawl

Obesity has reached epidemic levels, and diseases associated with inactivity are also on the rise. What is creating this public health crisis? This report presents the first national study to show a clear association between the type of place people live and their activity levels, weight, and health.

Metropolitan Recovery and Spending Priorities

On the heels of signing into law a $787 billion economic stimulus and recovery package, President Obama has delivered a 10-year budget plan that could fundamentally reshape the nation's priorities. Brookings experts suggest how the budget plan and recovery package might affect the metropolitan drivers of national prosperity, including innovation, human capital, infrastructure and sustainable places.

Michigan’s Critical Assets: An Atlas for Regional Partnerships and Placemaking for Prosperity in the Global New Economy

The Land Policy Institute at Michigan State University has announced the release of Michigan's Critical Assets: An Atlas for Regional Partnerships and Placemaking for Prosperity in the Global New Economy. The Atlas maps statewide assets categorized as New Economy; green infrastructure; quality of life; renewable energy; and knowledge.

The Atlas is a key tool of the Michigan Prosperity Initiative, which MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon announced on March 22, 2010. This initiative has the backing of Governor Granholm's Office, key state agencies and multiple partners. The initiative's first undertaking is 100 trainings in 60 days, beginning in April 2010, around the state for citizens and local leaders interested in new strategies for economic development.

Mississippi Renewal -- Summary Report 2007

The Mississippi Renewal Forum's Final Report in summary format is now available online. This report summarizes the 18 individual reports crafted to guide the rebuilding of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Model State Land Use Legislation

Model State Land Use Legislation for New England discusses the background of growth and sprawl in the New England area, and how municipalities and the state have both separate and combined responsibilities and functions in managing growth.

Models and Guidelines for Infill Development

This publication from the Maryland Department of Planning addresses infill development and includes model zoning codes, examples of existing zoning codes from jurisdictions throughout the country, and a list of minimum requirements that jurisdictions must meet in order to qualify for certain state incentives.

Modest Progress: The Narrowing Spatial Mismatch Between Blacks and Jobs in the 1990s

This analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data reveals that blacks' physical isolation from jobs improved slightly in the 1990s, though it remains significant.

Montana Transportation Choices

This summary report presents an overview of the conclusions and recommendations resulting from the Montana Transportation Choices Study, an evaluation of the state's transportation program.

Mothballed Sites and Local Government Acquisition

Mothballed Sites and Local Government Acquisition, a report from the Northeast-Midwest Institute (NEMW), discusses the role of local governments in addressing contaminated and mothballed property -- defined as brownfields held off the market by property owners.

Moving Toward a Shrinking Cities Metric: Analyzing Land Use Changes Associated With Depopulation in Flint, Michigan

Cities around the globe have experienced depopulation or population shrinkage at an acute level in the last half century. Conventional community development and planning responses have looked to reverse the process of depopulation almost universally, with little attention paid to how neighborhoods physically change when they lose population.

This article presents an approach to study the physical changes of depopulating neighborhoods in a novel way. The approach considers how population decline creates different physical impacts (more or less housing abandonment, for example) across different neighborhoods.

Data presented from a detailed case study of Flint, Michigan, illustrate that population decline can be more painful in some neighborhoods than in others, suggesting that this article’s proposed approach may be useful in implementing smart decline.

The paper can be downloaded at the link below.

National Bicycling and Walking Study

The U.S. Department of Transportation has released a 10-year Status Report on its activities to achieve the two goals set forth in the original 1994 National Bicycling and Walking Study.

National Summit on School Design

Report from the National Summit on School Design is a 70-page report intended to help communities make better decisions about the approximately $30 billion spent annually on building and renovating school facilities in the United States.

National Trust Post-Katrina Hurricane Recovery Updates

The National for Historic Preservation's work to assist in the recovery of the Gulf Coast continues to expand as it brings new resources, staff, and expertise to the region. This web page provides details on their efforts, including reports from the field, resources for returning homeowners, and legislative action.

Neighborhood Street Design Guidelines

This report from the Institute of Transport Engineers provides guidance in the overall layout and design of transportation elements for new neighborhood developments, where neighborhoods can comprise both residential and mixed residential/commercial subdivision development.

New Communities for a New Economy

1000 Friends of Wisconsin offers their ''New Communities for a New Economy: Land Use Strategies to Excel in the New Digital World'' report on their website. The purpose of this report is twofold. First, it examines land use strategies to attract high-tech workers and industries to Wisconsin communities. Second, it examines planning strategies to ensure new industries do not compromise the integrity of Wisconsin's landscape and quality of life.

New Data for a New Era: A Summary of the SMARTRAQ Findings

''Linking Land Use, Transportation, Air Quality and Health in the Atlanta Region'' is the subtitle of New Data for a New Era: A Summary of the SMARTRAQ Findings, a report that summarizes the results of one of the largest, most comprehensive planning studies yet undertaken for a large metropolitan areas.

New Study Ranks 83 Metropolitan Areas on Sprawl Components

Measuring Sprawl and Its Impact, based on research conducted by professors at Rutgers and Cornell universities, ranks 83 metropolitan areas on the basis of twenty-two measurable components of sprawl.

New Urbanism: Comprehensive Report and Best Practices

New Urbanism: Comprehensive Report & Best Practices Guide by Robert Steuteville and Phillip Langdon, is the definitive reference for new urban ideas, practices, and projects. This wire-comb bound edition is available directly from the publisher, New Urban News, with a special price for students.

New Zealand Urban Design Protocol

The New Zealand Urban Design Protocol provides a platform to make New Zealand towns and cities more successful through quality urban design. It is part of the Government's Sustainable Development Programme of Action and Urban Affairs portfolio.

No Place to Play

No Place to Play, a new report by the Trust for Public Land, finds that two-thirds of children 18 and under in Los Angeles do not live within walking distance of a public park.

North America's Environment: A Thirty-Year State of the Environment and Policy Retrospective

This report is published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as a regional product of the UNEP Global Environmental Outlook (GEO 3) process. It was produced in collaboration with the World Resources Institute (WRI), the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the Commission for Environmental Cooperation of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation.

North America's Environment: A Thirty-Year State of the Environment and Policy Retrospective indicates that the United States and Canada's success in improving local environments where its people can live with clean water and air and enjoy green spaces has come at the expense of global natural resources and climate.

Northeast Farms to Food 2006 Update

The Northeast Farms to Food 2006 Update focuses on the federal Farm Bill, due for reauthorization in 2007. This Update contains some ''snapshots'' of the Northeast that relate to the role and impact of federal farm policy on the region, and can provide an informative peek into this complex legislation.

One Fifth of America: A Comprehensive Guide to America’s First Suburbs

One Fifth of America: A Comprehensive Guide to America’s First Suburbs is a report from The Brookings Institution that presents a range of demographic, market, and economic changes in first suburbs over the past 50 years.

Opportunities for Advancing Environmental Justice

Opportunities for Advancing Environmental Justice: An Analysis of U.S. EPA Statutory Authorities from Environmental Law Institute (ELI) looks at environmental justice activities of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). While there are numerous public institutions whose activities bear directly on issues of environmental justice, EPA has jurisdiction over many of the core issues, especially the prevention and control of industrial pollution, that have given rise to the environmental justice movement.

Opportunities for County Government and the Affordable Housing Challenge

Opportunities for County Government and the Affordable Housing Challenge is based on the National Association of Counties survey of nearly 800 county officials to learn the challenges they face in creating affordable housing in their communities and what steps need to be taken to assist them in doing so.

Our Built and Natural Environments: A Technical Review of the Interactions between Land Use, Transportation and Environmental Quality

In recent years interest has grown in Smart Growth as a mechanism for improving environmental quality. In Our Built and Natural Environments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) summarizes technical research on the relationship between the built and natural environments, as well as current understanding of the role of development patterns, urban design, and transportation in improving environmental quality. Our Built and Natural Environments is designed as a technical reference for analysts in state and local governments, academics, and people studying the implications of development on the natural environment.

Parks for People

Parks for People, from Trust for Public Land, outlines how desperate the need is for city parks -- especially in inner-city neighborhoods -- and describes the social, environmental, economic, and health benefits parks bring to a city and its people.

Parks, Public Greenspace, and Smarter Growth

Parks, Public Greenspace, and Smarter Growth: Opportunities for Linking Land and People is a second edition of the Translation Paper commissioned by the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. First written in 2000, this publication was updated in 2007 by the collaborating author, Kathleen Blaha, formerly of The Trust for Public Land.

Partnering for Smart Growth Success

The Urban Land Institute's (ULI) California Smart Growth initiative offers this report on how local and regional leaders in the San Francisco Bay area are teaming up with the public and private sectors to make smart growth a reality.

Partnerships for Smart Growth: University-Community Collaboration for Public Spaces

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, in conjunction with the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy, has released Partnerships for Smart Growth: University-Community Collaboration for Better Public Spaces. Written under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. EPA, the report profiles 13 university-led collaborations on smart growth initiatives.

Philadelphia Parks Value Report

In How Much Value Does the City of Philadelphia Receive from its Park and Recreation System?, TPL reports that parks provide Philadelphians with so many joys and benefits that many residents would not want to live in the city without them, and that the city's parks provide hundreds of millions of dollars of value.

Planning for Quality Schools

Planning for Quality Schools is a report representing the first phase of a three-part project to help the District of Columbia create a firm analytical basis for planning for quality schools to meet the needs of the city's families. While the city's overall population is growing, the number of school-age children living in the District is actually in decline. The availability of quality public schools, especially near housing that is appropriate for and affordable to families, will help determine how successful the city can be in attracting and retaining families with children.

Planning for Street Connectivity

Planning for Street Connectivity from the APA Planning Advisory Service takes a close look at the debate over street connectivity and offers research results and studies of 14 communities' efforts to incorporate greater connectivity.

Planning with Nature: Biodiversity Information in Action

Poorly planned land development is a prime contributor to the loss of America’s natural heritage of animal and plant diversity. But a new report by the Environmental Law Institute finds that simply utilizing existing biodiversity information may help remedy this problem.

Plugging in Renewable Energy: Grading the States

This report assigns grades to each of the 50 states based on their commitment to supporting wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources.

Poll on Walking, 2002

As policymakers and the public debate the different aspects of transportation issues, the Surface Transportation Policy Project asked Belden Russonello & Stewart to measure the public’s attitudes toward one aspect of this debate -- walking.

Preserving and Promoting Diversity Near Transit

Preserving and Promoting Diverse Transit-Oriented Neighborhoods is a report from the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Reconnecting America, and Strategic Economics -- working together as the Center for Transit-Oriented Development. The study reveals the significant diversity -- economically and racially -- currently present in transit-served neighborhoods, and suggests that additional development of mixed-income, mixed-race housing in these areas would respond to growing demand for affordable and livable communities while also providing numerous benefits to cities, regions, and the environment.

Priming the Pump: Assessing a Brownfield Redevelopment Tool

Priming the Pump is an urban revitalization case study report prepared for the Michigan State University Land Policy Institute that examines the investment impacts of the State of Michigan's Site Assessment Fund (SAF, or Fund), a brownfield redevelopment tool.

Project for Public Spaces Greatest Hits

In celebration of 30 years of work, the Project for Public Spaces (PPS) offers their ''Greatest Hits, Volume I'' -- stories of their work over the past three decades.

Promoting Public Health through Smart Growth

SmartGrowthBC offers this report that explains how our built environment shapes our transportation choices, and in turn, human health. It reviews the existing research for a range of transportation-related health impacts on seven public health outcomes: Physical Activity and Obesity, Air Quality, Traffic Safety, Noise, Water Quality, Mental Health, and Social Capital.

Protecting the Working Landscape of Agriculture: A Smart Growth Direction

Protecting the Working Landscape of Agriculture: A Smart Growth Direction for Municipalities in British Columbia, a report from West Coast Environmental Law, details the range of tools local governments are using to protect the agricultural working landscape, and directs readers to specific examples of local government bylaws and policies.

Protecting Water Resources with Higher Density Development

Protecting Water Resources with Higher Density Development is a new report from the U.S. EPA designed to help communities better understand the impacts of high- and low-density development on water resources.

Protecting Water Resources with Smart Growth

Protecting Water Resources with Smart Growth is intended for audiences already familiar with smart growth, who now seek specific ideas on how techniques for smarter growth can be used to protect their water resources.

Public Deliberation: A Manager’s Guide to Citizen Engagement

This report from the IBM Center for The Business of Government documents tools and techniques developed largely in the nonprofit world in recent years to increase citizens’ involvement in their communities and government. It also highlights ways in which public managers can develop an active approach to increasing citizens’ involvement in government at all levels.

Public Schools and Economic Development

KnowledgeWorks Foundation is pleased to announce publication of Public Schools and Economic Development: What the Research Shows.

Public Transport Consumes 3.7 Times Less Energy Than Private Modes in Western Europe

Public transport consumes 3.7 times less energy per passenger than private modes of transport, according to the ''Millennium Cities Database of Sustainable Development,'' an International Association of Public Transport (UITP) study of 100 cities worldwide.

Putting Smart Growth to Work in Rural Communities

This new report focuses on how to adapt smart growth strategies to rural communities. Funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Sustainable Communities, the report examines the challenges rural communities face, including rapid growth at metropolitan edges, declining rural populations, and the loss of working lands. It highlights smart growth strategies that can help guide rural growth while preserving the unique rural character of existing communities.

The report focuses on three central goals: 1) support the rural landscape by creating an economic climate that enhances the viability of working lands and conserves natural lands; 2) help existing places to thrive by taking care of assets and investments such as downtowns, Main Streets, existing infrastructure, and places that the community values; and 3) create great new places by building vibrant, enduring neighborhoods and communities that people, especially young people, don’t want to leave. Featuring case studies from across the country, the report highlights how local governments, states, and non-profits have successfully implemented smart growth strategies to support rural lands, revitalize existing communities, and create great new places for residents and visitors.

To read the full report, visit the link below.

Putting the Pieces Together: State Actions to Encourage Smart Growth Practices in California

This report contains a set of recommendations to improve the economic and social well-being of California’s communities through better growth patterns.

Rebuilding New Orleans

After a number of unsuccessful attempts, New Orleans is close to approving a blueprint for rebuilding that finally unites the city behind common priorities. The Unified New Orleans Plan, developed in just five months, brought thousands of citizens together with planners and officials in an unprecedented grassroots effort that engaged the full diversity of the city. Rebuilding New Orleans provides an overview of how this process unfolded.

Reconnecting Schools and Neighborhoods

Reconnecting Schools and Neighborhoods: An Introduction to School-Centered Community Revitalization is a paper from Enterpise that presents the case for integrating school improvement into community development, drawing on the academic research linking school and neighborhood quality as well as early results from school-centered community revitalization projects across the country.

Recycling America's Land: A National Report on Brownfields Redevelopment

Recycling America's Land: A National Report on Brownfields Redevelopment is the sixth Brownfields report from the United States Conference of Mayors. This report documents the problems of brownfields redevelopment faced by local communities throughout the U.S. and identifies the opportunities lost when properties remain idle and abandoned. Recycling America's Land quantifies some of the benefits from brownfields redevelopment efforts across the country with cities responding their positive results from land recycling and the return of brownfields to productive uses.

Recycling Returns: Ten Reforms for Making New York City’s Recycling Program More Cost-Effective

After suspending glass and plastic recycling in the summer of 2002 due to record budget deficits, New York City has restored its full recycling program. This April 2004 report recommends strategies to make recycling more economically stable, while helping to expand New York's recycling program.

Reframing the Work of Rural Development

Rural markets are often the emerging markets for expanding regional economies. This report from NeighborWorks America documents the compelling attributes of six business strategies that are successfully transforming diverse rural markets across America.

Regional Commuter Rail Connectivity Study

The Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) is undertaking a comprehensive regional commuter rail connectivity study. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the feasibility, accessibility, and connectivity requirements of implementing commuter rail service along selected corridors in the eight-county H-GAC region.

Report on Agricultural Conservation Easement Programs

The National Assessment of Agricultural Easement Programs, a joint project of American Farmland Trust and the Agricultural Issues Center of the University of California, Davis, has released its first report reviewing the progress and experiences of 46 leading agricultural conservation easement programs in 15 states.

Report on The Revitalizing Older Cities Capitol Hill Summit

300-plus stakeholders from older industrial cities throughout the Northeast and Midwest region attended the Revitalizing Older Cities Capitol Hill Summit, February 11-12, 2009. This report from the Northeast-Midwest Institute recounts their work to develop a federal agenda that would change federal policies that contribute to sprawl development, and to encourage investment in and support for the nation’s core cities and towns.

Residential Construction Trends in America’s Metropolitan Regions

This report analyzes trends that are reshaping downtowns and inner city suburbs in metropolitan areas throughout the United States. “Parking lots, underutilized commercial properties, and former industrial sites are being replaced with condos, apartments and townhouses… Do such examples add up to a fundamental shift in the geography of residential construction?” The primary goal of this report is to clarify if there has been a shift toward infill redevelopment of established urban areas, and to determine in which regions the shift has been most significant.

To answer these questions, residential building permits for the 50 largest metropolitan areas were examined over an 18 year period (1990-2007) to determine the percentage of residential building permits issued by central cities and core suburban communities compared to suburban and exurban areas. This data shows that in several regions there has been a dramatic increase in the share of new construction in central cities and older suburbs. In 15 regions the central city more than doubled its share of residential construction including New York City (15 percent to 44 percent), Chicago (7 percent to 23 percent), Portland (9 percent to 22 percent), and Atlanta (4 percent to 13 percent).

In addition, the shift of residential construction inward has been particularly dramatic over the last five years. Although the housing market has slowed, the report believes that this shift will continue after the economic downturn ends. The report states that this represents a fundamental change in the real estate market as people seek homes in walkable communities closer to where they work. Demographic changes are also play a role with empty nesters and young professionals moving away from the suburbs to smaller homes in the city. This trend is most prevalent in mid-sized cities that are often thought of as being leaders in smart growth polices (Portland, Sacramento, and Denver) and large diverse cities with strong ties to the global economy (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami).

However, the report cautions that despite the increases in the number of residential permits in established urban areas, a large share of residential construction still takes place on previously undeveloped land on the urban fringe. Urban areas still account for less than half of all new residential units in most areas. The report also states that further research should be done to determine which policies have worked best to attract development into urban areas and discourage green field development.

Residential Construction Trends in America’s Metropolitan Regions

WASHINGTON – An updated U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report shows a continuing shift in development toward urban neighborhoods in the United States, despite a slow a real estate market.

This trend, described in EPA’s 2010 report, Residential Construction Trends in America’s Metropolitan Regions, shows that redevelopment continues in many urban neighborhoods. Taking advantage of opportunities to reuse land and to redevelop underused sites is a key smart growthstrategy. It helps communities protect natural lands from being developed, strengthens the local economy, and puts new homes, stores, and jobs within easy reach of surrounding neighborhoods.

The data show that compared to the early 1990s, the share of construction in urban neighborhoods was up 28 percent in mid-sized metropolitan regions that have promoted redevelopment of underused sites and development around transit, such as Portland, Ore; Denver, Colo.; and Sacramento, Calif. For example, in 2008 Portland issued 38 percent of all the building permits within its region, compared to an average of 9 percent in the early 1990s; Denver accounted for 32 percent, up from 5 percent; and Sacramento accounted for 27 percent, up from 9 percent.

The latest report shows that an even stronger trend toward urban redevelopment in the largest metropolitan regions continued in 2008. New York City accounted for 63 percent of the building permits issued within its region. By comparison, the city averaged about 15 percent of regional building permits during the early 1990s. Similarly, Chicago now accounts for 45 percent of the building permits within its region, up from just 7 percent in the early 1990s.

The original report, issued in February 2009, examined building trends in the 50 largest metropolitan areas from 1990 to 2007. The update incorporates data for 2008, which included several months of national economic downturn.

Residential Construction Trends in America's Metropolitan Regions

Residential Construction Trends in America's Metropolitan Regions is a report from the U.S. EPA that examines urban infill projects and seeks to identify if recent emphasis on such development adds up to a fundamental shift in the geography of residential construction.

Restoring Prosperity: Report on America's Cities

The evidence is clear. On the whole, America's central cities are coming back with growing employment and increasing numbers of young people, empty-nesters, and others choosing city life over the suburbs. Unfortunately, not all cities are fully participating in this renaissance. Many cities are lagging behind their peers, especially older industrial communities that are still making the transition from manufacturing-based economies to more knowledge-oriented activities.

Retaining Our Sense of Place by Managing Our Highway

How can a coastal community best manage growth and guide development along an expanding highway? Pamlico County, North Carolina, asked the U.S. EPA and the NOAA to help the community produce a stakeholder-based plan for the county's growth. This report presents a vision of equitable development that was informed by the views and comments of Pamlico County citizens.

Rethinking Local Affordable Housing Strategies

This report aims to help state and local leaders meet the modern realities of the affordable housing challenge by looking back at the lessons of the past 70 years of housing policies.

Safety, Growth and Equity: School Facilities

Safety, Growth and Equity: School Facilities is a brief from PolicyLink that looks at America's aging school infrastructure. Across the country, aging infrastructure and a growing population have led to a massive need for modernizing old schools and constructing new ones. School construction costs reached an all-time high in 2004: nationally, over $29 billion was spent on K–12 school construction, and almost $51.4 billion is projected to be spent during 2007–2009.

San Francisco Foodshed Report

The San Francisco Foodshed Report is a 48-page document that emphasizes a ''Think Globally, Eat Locally'' ethic, focusing on the opportunities and challenges for increasing both the production of food for local consumption and local consumption of locally grown food

Schools, Community and Development

Schools, Community and Development: Erasing the Boundaries describes how four neighborhoods in three cities worked to connect community-based revitalization initiatives with school reform programs in the same neighborhoods, and the remarkable results of their efforts.

Second Nature: Improving Transportation Without Putting Nature Second

Because transportation infrastructure necessarily precedes development, current transportation planning will shape future urban growth. But mobility does not have to come at the expense of biodiversity. Second Nature: Improving Transportation Without Putting Nature Second profiles innovative programs that seek to improve transportation infrastructure while protecting biodiversity.

Shared Destinies: A Smart Growth Agenda for Massachusetts

The Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance offers Shared Destinies: A Smart Growth Agenda for Massachusetts. This document lays out action steps to sustainable planning for the Commonwealth, including modernizing the way the state plans for growth, building a balanced transportation system, and ensuring that all residents can afford homes.

Shared Equity Home Ownership

Shared Equity Homeownership: The Changing Landscape of Resale-Restricted, Owner-Occupied Housing by John Emmeus Davis, Research Fellow at the National Housing Institute, looks at how shared equity homeownership provides housing options for low-income households throughout the United States.

Shared Prosperity, Stronger Regions

This report explores the opportunities and challenges confronting older core cities by looking closely at five of them: Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh and answers questions about how older core cities can become economically competitive and socially inclusive places where all residents can participate and prosper.

Signs of Promise: Stories of Philanthropic Leadership in Advancing Regional and Neighborhood Equity

Signs of Promise: Stories of Philanthropic Leadership in Advancing Regional and Neighborhood Equity is a new publication from the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities that documents the diverse ways foundations can support better planning and decision-making to improve communities and regions.

Smart Coastal Growth

Smart coastal growth maintains a balance among environmental, social, economic, and quality of life issues. NOAA Coastal Services Center projects assist communities in their efforts to incorporate smart growth concepts into their planning and decision-making processes.

Smart Communities: Curbing Sprawl at its Core

This report offers examples of how community development interests and smart growth proponents can work together to achieve their goals. Examples from Chicago, Minneapolis, Oakland, Philadelphia, and Richmond, Virginia are included.

Smart Growth and Public Sector Leadership

Public Sector Leadership: The Role of Local Government in Smart Growth, from the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, is designed to improve understanding of the role that local government can play regarding smart growth development patterns and highlight opportunities for partnership with philanthropy.

Smart Growth at the Frontier: Strategies and Resources for Rural Communities

Northeast-Midwest Institute has released a report, Smart Growth at the Frontier: Strategies and Resources for Rural Communities. The report illustrates promising rural growth strategies that revitalize small towns; link natural resource protection with resort and residential development; maintain farm and forest land; and coordinate regional development.

Printed copies of this report may be purchased by calling 202/544-5200; download the PDF version by clicking the link below.

Smart Growth Audits

This report describes the concept of a smart growth audit and provides methods to implement one in your community.

Smart Growth in New York State

This discussion paper from the New York State Office of the State Comptroller is intended to help stimulate a vigorous debate on smart growth in New York State by providing a general background and helping to define major issues.

Smart Growth in the San Francisco Bay Area

This report reviews recent smart growth practices that could have the greatest impact and potential for success in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Smart Growth in the States

Smart Growth in the States, a report by Keith Schneider, Writer-In-Residence at the Michigan Land Use Institute, reports on recent smart growth developments in more than a dozen states. The smart growth package -- environmental protection, transit investments, urban revitalization, curbing sprawl, collaborative planning and land conservation -- is steadily being embedded in new executive orders, legislative policy and new state law across the country.

Smart Growth is Smart Business

A new groundbreaking report called Smart Growth is Smart Business profiles how business leaders are supporting smart growth policies and projects, and puts forth five key smart growth business actions.

Smart Growth Transportation Guidelines

This report provides information and suggestions as to how to support smart growth objectives and concepts with transportation facilities and services.

Solar Powering Your Community: A Guide for Local Governments

Several years ago, the U.S. Department of Energy established the Solar America Communities program in an effort to speed up the nationwide deployment of solar technologies. Working through partnerships with 25 American cities, DOE's program helped to jumpstart new programs and initiatives in each of these locations and paved the way for even greater adoption by other localities in the future.

TheSolar Powering Your Community guidebook offers local governments proven examples of how to get started and move forward with a solar program. The guidebook is available for download at the link below.

Southwestern Pennsylvania Citizens’ Vision for Smart Growth

Citizens’ Vision is based on expressions of concerned citizens and on past regional planning efforts. It provides policy recommendations on challenges and opportunities for the southwest Pennsylvania region.

Spending the Stimulus

Spending the Stimulus is a report from Smart Growth America that lays out 20 ways that state officials can and should spend the federal funding on ready-to-go projects that will address long-neglected transportation priorities while providing speedy and robust job creation and economic recovery.

Starting Point: Louisiana Recovery and Rebuilding

More than 650 citizens, community leaders, architects, planners, engineers, business people, and public officials gathered in New Orleans November 10–12, 2005 for the Louisiana Recovery and Rebuilding Conference, the starting point for the planning and the rebuilding of damaged parts of the state that have fallen victim to the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

State Brownfield Financing Tools and Strategies

State Brownfield Financing Tools and Strategies, a report from the Northeast-Midwest Institute, notes successful examples of state tools and strategies for filling capital gaps in brownfield cleanup and redevelopment projects.

State Brownfields and Voluntary Response Programs

The State Brownfields and Voluntary Response Programs: An Update from the States, published by the U.S. EPA, explores the evolving landscape of state environmental, financial, and technical programs, including the incentives designed to promote brownfields cleanup and redevelopment.

State Brownfields Tax Incentives

The Northeast-Midwest Institute offers this report on State Brownfields Tax Incentives. The report describes how states have built the financing foundation that communities rely on to advance their brownfield efforts, and provides an over of tax incentive programs in four states: Florida, Michigan, New York, and Wisconsin.

State of the Fraser Basin Report

Sustainability Snapshot 4: The Many Faces of Sustainability is the 2009 edition of the State of the Fraser Basin Report, released February 19, 2009. The report flags progress in British Columbia's Fraser River Basin towards social, economic and environmental sustainability.

State Policies and School Facilities: How States Can Support or Undermine Neighborhood Schools and Community Preservation

The existence of a good school in the middle of an old or historic neighborhood, even if the school is brand new, can, and often does, help to preserve the entire neighborhood, including its historic housing stock.

Stormwater Strategies: Community Responses to Runoff Pollution

Natural Resources Defense Council. 1999. This report documents some of the most effective strategies being employed by communities around the country to control urban runoff.

Strategy for a Sustainable Rockville

Strategy for a Sustainable Rockville, a report by the City of Rockville, Maryland's Environmental Management Division, Department of Public Works, was created to answer the 2006 call by the Mayor and Council, who committed to making Rockville a sustainability leader among Maryland communities. Since that time, the Mayor and Council and staff have been working to fulfill the ambitious vision for the City by 2020.

Strengthening Rural Pennsylvania

Strengthening Rural Pennsylvania: An Integrated Approach to a Prosperous Commonwealth is a brief from The Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program developed to shed light on the problems and opportunities confronting the more rural parts of the state.

Superfund Liability: A Continuing Obstacle to Brownfields Redevelopment

Superfund Liability: A Continuing Obstacle to Brownfields Redevelopment is a report from NALGEP and the Brownfield Communities Network that examines obstacles such as liability concerns that local governments face in acquiring property for brownfields redevelopment.

Sustainable Community Practices

Sustainable Community Practices from the AIA Center for Communities by Design is a draft document that offers a general overview of how-to guidelines, community indicators/benchmarks, and other similar sources as a reference starting point to understand the very broad and wide-ranging field of community sustainability.

Sustainable Philadelphia: Clean and Green by 2016

The Philadelphia Urban Sustainability Forum, a unique coalition of groups working to make Philadelphia the greenest, most livable city in America, has produced the report Sustainable Philadelphia: Clean and Green by 2016, which outlines how the city can meet sustainability goals within the next ten years.

Sustainable San Mateo Sustainable Indicators Report 2009

Sustainable San Mateo County's (SSMC's) annual Indicators Report provides fact-based information about local trends over time. SSMC has identified approximately 30 indicators that represent the foundation for a sustainable community, ranging from air quality and energy use to education and affordable housing. These indicators represent SSMC's core belief that a truly sustainable community maintains a healthy environment, social equity and a vibrant economy for the long term.

Sustaining Agriculture in Urbanizing Counties

Sustaining Agriculture in Urbanizing Counties, released by the American Farmland Trust (AFT) on December 16, 2008, sought to identify conditions under which farming may remain viable in agriculturally important areas that are subject to substantial development pressures. The report is comprised of 15 county level case studies from 14 different states, and is arranged into chapters covering production inputs, marketing, farmland protection and outlook for the future.

Ten Principles for Successful Development Around Transit

What does it take to make transit stations work? The principles presented here can serve as reminders for communities, designers, and developers who may have forgotten them.

Ten Principles for Successful Public/Private Partnerships

Ten Principles for Successful Public/Private Partnerships is a new publication from the Urban Land Institute that presents principles to guide community leaders and public officials, together with private investors and developers, through the development process and highlights best practices from partnerships around the country.

Ten Things Wrong with Sprawl

Ten Things Wrong with Sprawl is a report from the Environmental Law Institute that considers the future of America if the U.S. population continues its expected growth rate while development follows a general sprawl pattern.

The Arts and Smart Growth --The Role of Arts in Placemaking

The Arts and Smart Growth --The Role of Arts in Placemaking is the twelfth in the series of translation papers sponsored by the Funders’ Network to translate the impact of sprawl upon issues of importance to our communities and environment and to suggest opportunities for progress that would be created by smarter growth policies and practices.

The Built Environment and Health

This report from the Prevention Institute profiles eleven projects in predominantly low-income communities ''where local residents mobilized public and private resources to make changes in their physical environments to improve the health and quality of life for their citizens.''

The Case for Mixed-Income, Transit-Oriented Development in the Denver Region

The Denver, Colorado, region is the focus of this study that reviews the demand for housing near transit; explores the benefits of mixed-income, transit-oriented neighborhoods; analyzes the barriers to creating such communities; offers an array of tools for overcoming those barriers; and applies those tools in the context of four planned transit station areas in metro Denver.

The Case for Multi-Family Housing

The Urban Land Institute's (ULI) latest policy paper, ''The Case for Multi-Family Housing'' is now available for free on the web.

The Case for Sustainable Landscapes

The Case for Sustainable Landscapes provides a set of arguments—economic, environmental, and social—for the adoption of sustainable land practices, additional background on the science behind the performance criteria in the guidelines and performance benchmarks, the purpose and principles of the Sustainable Sites Initiative, and a sampling of some of the case studies the Sustainable Sites Initiative has followed.

The Case for Sustainable Landscapes is a companion to The Sustainable Sites Initiative: Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009, which represents more than four years of work by a diverse group of experts in soils, hydrology, vegetation, materials and human health and well-being. It is expanded and updated from the Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks – Draft 2008, which was released in November 2008. The Sustainable Sites Initiative developed criteria for sustainable land practices that will enable built landscapes to support natural ecological functions by protecting existing ecosystems and regenerating ecological capacity where it has been lost. This report focuses on measuring and rewarding a project that protects, restores and regenerates ecosystem services – benefits provided by natural ecosystems such as cleaning air and water, climate regulation and human health benefits.

The publication includes a rating system for the credits which the pilot process will test for refinement before a formal release to the market place. The Rating System contains 15 prerequisites and 51 credits that cover all stages of the site development process from site selection to landscape maintenance.

If you are interested in becoming a pilot project to test this Rating System apply here. Feedback from the pilot projects will be used to create a reference guide which will provide suggestions on how projects achieved the sustainability goals of specific credits.

The Chesapeake Bay and the Myth of Endless Growth

In Growing! Growing! Gone! The Chesapeake Bay and the Myth of Endless Growth, an August 2008 report funded by the Abell Foundation, author Tom Horton describes how the once-acclaimed program to restore the Chesapeake Bay, now in its 25th year, has been a failure.

The Costs and Financial Benefits of Green Buildings

This October 2003 report is an extensive cost benefit analysis of green building. It demonstrates conclusively that sustainable building is a cost-effective investment, and its findings should encourage communities across the country to “build green.”

The Environmental and Economic Impacts of Brownfields Redevelopment

The Environmental and Economic Impacts of Brownfields Redevelopment, from the Northeast-Midwest Institute, seeks to summarize established quantifiable impacts of brownfields redevelopment in the areas of environmental, economic, community, and fiscal effects. This Executive Summary is a working draft of the report.

The Environmental and Energy Conservation Benefits of the Maryland Historic Tax Credit Program

Preservation programs have long been aligned with smart growth because of the obvious benefit of investing in existing communities and accommodating growth without sprawl. However, the literature in this area tends to make assertions without a great deal of quantification. The Environmental and Energy Conservation Benefits of the Maryland Historic Tax Credit Program, a report from the Northeast-Midwest Institute, attempts to fill that gap for the Maryland historic tax credit program.

The Future of Livable Communities

The Future of Livable Communities is one part of a project commissioned by the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities designed to help nonprofit groups envision how today's decisions can create effective long-term changes. The document asks readers to stretch their thinking ten years out, and imagine futures that raise a series of hypothetical questions.

The Making of Missoula's Green Team

Creating a green team can be easy. This report from Cities Go Green describes how a staff member in Missoula, Montana did it, along the team's 25 top ways to save money, energy and resources.

The New American City

The Noisette Company, designers of the Noisette 3,000 acre city-within-a-city in North Charleston, South Carolina, is now making plans for the ''New American City'' available through its website free of charge.

The Path to Healthy Communities

The Path to Healthy Communities: Mapping California's Priorities is a report by California's Having Our Say Coalition that calls on the state to prioritize improving the health of central valley communities.

The Returning City: Historic Preservation and Transit in the age of Civic Revival

The Returning City examines how historic preservation efforts have shifted over the past decade to focus more on the livability and mobility of city centers and residential areas.

The State of the Commonwealth: Is PA Moving Toward a Sustainable Future?

This report by the Pennsylvania Consortium for Interdisciplinary Environmental Policy identifies positive trends toward sustainability in Pennsylvania in a few areas, but also recognizes some trends that indicate the state is experiencing a decrease in the resilience of its environment, economy, and communities.

To Be Strong Again: Reviewing the Promise of Smaller Industrial Cities

Our nation's smaller industrial cities can be attractive, welcoming places to live. Despite challenges, they possess tremendous assets and amenities and deserve coordinated attention and action, according to the PolicyLink report, To Be Strong Again: Renewing the Promise in Smaller Industrial Cities.

Too Many Homes on the Range

Too Many Homes on the Range: The Impacts of Urban Sprawl on Ranching and Habitat is a report from 1000 Friends of Oregon that reviews how rural sprawl -- the increasing fragmentation and conversion of ranches into ranchettes and vacation homes -- threatens both the ranching economy and rural ecosystems.

Toolbox on Intersection Safety and Design

The Institute of Transportation Engineers offers this informational report on designing safer intersections for traffic and pedestrian movement.

Towards a Climate-Friendly Built Environment

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change released this report from 2005 that identifies a number of technologies and policy options for greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions in the building sector.

Travel and Environmental Implications of School Siting

Travel and Environmental Implications of School Siting is the first study to empirically examine the relationship between school locations, the built environment around schools, how kids get to school, and the impact on air emissions of those travel choices.

Uncle Sam's Rusty Toolkit

Uncle Sam's Rusty Toolkit: How Proven State and Local Reforms Can Make Federal Economic Development Programs Better for Taxpayers, Workers, and the Environment is a report from Good Jobs First that describes a new opportunity to reform federal economic development policy using best practices used at the state and local levels for the past 20 years.

Understanding Climate Change: An Equitable Framework

As the world grapples with the massive effects of climate change and global warming, the need to understand the embedded issues associated with these complex ecological transformations becomes clear. PolicyLink commissioned Understanding Climate Change: An Equitable Framework to contribute to a deeper understanding of the issues and to encourage everyone to participate in the discussion and to weigh in on proposed solutions.

Unlocking Brownfields

Unlocking Brownfields: Keys to Community Revitalization, the newest report from NALGEP and the Northeast-Midwest Institute, represents the culmination of a decade of research and experience focused on brownfields reuse, and includes more than 50 profiles of successful brownfields projects and programs.

Urban Institute Releases Neighborhood Change in Urban America Report

The Urban Institute, a nonpartisan economic and social policy research organization, provides fresh perspectives and research of record on vital national issues. Neighborhood Change in Urban America is part of a growing series of papers that advance knowledge about neighborhood change in America's urban areas.

Urban Redevelopment Success Stories

Urban Redevelopment Success Stories features a series of case studies that examine seven redevelopment projects across the country that have served as catalytic projects for urban revitalization in their communities.

Vacant Properties: The True Costs to Communities

Vacant Properties: The True Costs to Communities from the National Vacant Properties Campaign, summarizes research on the costs that vacant and abandoned properties impose upon communities. It also highlights local programs successfully recapturing the value in these properties.

Value of Urban Design

The Value of Urban Design, a new publication from the Ministry for the Environment of New Zealand, aims to establish whether there is a persuasive case for urban design -- the design of the buildings, places, spaces and networks (both public and private) that make up our towns and cities, and the ways people use them.

Valuing America's First Suburbs: A Policy Agenda for Older Suburbs in the Midwest

Older, inner-ring (or ''first'') suburbs have their own unique set of assets and challenges that set them apart from newer suburban areas further out from the core of metropolitan areas, but also from their center cities. Despite their assets, many first suburbs are beginning to experience challenges normally associated with age and disinvestment. In many places, the stresses they face are beginning to hamper their ability to remain, or become, economically competitive.

This April 2002 Brookings Institution report by Robert Puentes and Myron Orfield can be downloaded as a 4.7mb pdf.

Vision for Broadway: Gary, Indiana

Using smart growth and equitable development principles, Vision for Broadway is a plan developed by APA's Planning and the Black Community Division that charts a resurgent path for Gary, Indiana.

Water and Smart Growth

Water and Smart Growth is a translation paper from the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities describing how sprawl has become the second largest and fastest groing source of pollution to our nation's water system, and how land use reform can help protect our watersheds.

When Investors Buy Up the Neighborhood: Strategies to Prevent Investor Ownership from Causing Neighborhood Decline

In response to the growing trend of investor ownership in neighborhoods with high foreclosure rates in the Twin Cities and across the country, PolicyLink, Northwest Area Foundation and Family Housing Fund has issued When Investors Buy Up the Neighborhood: Strategies to Prevent Investor Ownership from Causing Neighborhood Decline, a research report aimed at helping communities hit first and worst by the foreclosure crisis.

Based on dozens of interviews in the Twin Cities and secondary research, the report describes three dozen strategies communities can use to reclaim foreclosed properties, encourage positive reinvestment, and stabilize their neighborhoods. The study also details how many of these approaches are already at work in Minnesota and across the country.

The report recommends three major approaches:

• Encouraging homeowners and responsible investors to buy, rehab and maintain foreclosed properties;
• Strategically gaining control of foreclosed properties; and
• Holding property owners accountable for property conditions.

Many homes in African-American and Latino communities previously targeted by predatory lenders, and now suffering from increased foreclosures due to the recession, are now being bought up by investors. While some investors contribute to local neighborhood stabilization efforts, others rent to unsuspecting tenants and become slumlords – or abandon the properties completely. Such scenarios result in the displacement of entire families and severely destabilize local neighborhoods.

''While the housing and mortgage crisis has been far-reaching, it has quickly become an urgent equity issue for low-income people and communities of color,'' said Kalima Rose, Director of the PolicyLink Center for Infrastructure Equity. ''Through strengthened regulations and vital resources like the Twin Cities Community Land Bank and First Look program of the National Community Stabilization Trust, the Twin Cities has already taken swift action to drive out predatory investors and help residents reclaim their neighborhoods. We must continue to build upon these efforts and encourage positive investment in low-income, high-foreclosure communities.”

The means by which cities can incentivize home buyers and responsible investors to purchase, rehab and maintain properties continue to expand. Arizona, for example, provides forgivable, zero-interest loans to homeowners buying foreclosed properties; Portland offers free landlord training; St. Louis charges vacant property owners a $200 fee every six months; and Chicago requires vacant property owners to maintain liability insurance coverage of at least $300,000.

Using the research study and these successful examples as a guide, other cities can develop their own action plans and successfully remove neighborhood blight, stabilize homes, and return economic prosperity to their communities.

''The current foreclosure crisis has plunged hundreds of families into even deeper poverty,'' said Gary Cunningham, Northwest Area Foundation Chief Program Officer and vice president of programs. ''This report does more than provide a stark picture of the financial and social hurt that result from irresponsible practices. It illustrates, through real-life examples, how public policy can help a neighborhood and a city halt the downward spiral,'' he said. “I have great hope that policymakers will use the data and practical strategies within this report to shape public policies that safeguard low-income families against predatory practices, and encourage other cities to do the same.''

''All families, regardless of race or income, deserve equal access to quality, safe and affordable housing options,'' said Tom Fulton, President of Family Housing Fund. ''By speaking out against predatory practices and advocating for positive investments in low-income areas, we are helping to create stable, healthy home environments for children and families to thrive.''

White Paper on Sustainability:
A Report on the Green Building Movement

In this White Paper, the editors of Building Design & Constructionoffer a brief history of green building; present the results of a specially commissioned survey of our readers; and analyze the chief trends, issues, and published research, based on interviews with dozens of experts and participants in green building.

Who Lives Downtown

The Brookings Institution has released Who Lives Downtown, a report that analyzes downtown population, household, and income trends in a selection of 44 cities, from 1970 to 2000.

Workforce Development and Smart Growth

Workforce Development and Smart Growth: Opportunities for Linking Movements from the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities describes why funders who support working families can further their objectives by joining the movement calling for smart growth policies and practices.

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