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2006 International Paper Conservation Awards
International Paper, in partnership with The Conservation Fund, recognizes the efforts of people across the country working to protect the future of America's outdoor heritage.
2007 Sustainability Award Winners -- Berkeley
The Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Sustainability (CACS) at the University of California-Berkeley presents the annual Sustainability Award to outstanding members of the Cal Community.
50 Greenest Cities in the United States
The March 2008 issue of Popular Science Magazine has ranked America's 50 Greenest Cities. Popular Science used raw data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Geographic Society's Green Guide, which collected survey data and government statistics for American cities over 100,000 people in more than 30 categories, including air quality, electricity use, and transportation habits.
A Global Urban Agenda: Highlights from the 2005 World Cities Forum
A Global Urban Agenda from the Urban Land Institute highlights issues discussed at ULI’s World Cities Forum in June 2005.
America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places 2005
America's heritage is at risk from coast to coast -- and beyond. The National Trust for Historic Preservation notes some of the most at-risk places in its annual list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.
AMPO -- 2004 Conference Presentations
Presentations from the 2004 Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations Conference are available online as PowerPoint files through the AMPO website.
Bye, Bye Suburban Dream.
Newsweek, May 15, 1995. Lead article introducing the new urbanist movement, principals, practitioners and vision. Also includes a set of 15 steps needed to fix the American suburb from the viewpoint of new urbanists
Can Urban Growth be Contained?
APA Online National Conference. San Diego, 1997. Tempe AZ: ASU College of Architecture and Environmental Design P, 1999 Challenging traditional urban theory, the authors warn that growth boundary strategies are based on outmoded notions of urbanization processes. This paper, using an analysis of the Twin Cities metropolitan region, presents an emerging theory of 'postmodern' urban development based on social restructuring and a physical decentralization to the suburbs. Their research has profound implications for growth management.
Community Action Grants
The Gannett Foundation supports local organizations in communities served by Gannett Co., Inc.
Community-Based Habitat Restoration
The Five-Star Restoration Program provides modest financial assistance on a competitive basis to support community-based wetland, riparian, and coastal habitat restoration projects that build diverse partnerships and foster local natural resource stewardship through education, outreach and training activities.
Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance Recognized Projects: April 2009
The Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance has added to its list of recognized smart growth projects: Kardon Ponds in Chester County, Pennsylvania; and Zurbrugg Mansion Redevelopment in Burlington County, New Jersey.
Delmarva Farmland Strategy Project
American Farmland Trust (AFT) initiated the Delmarva Farmland Strategy Project to bring new tools to communities that are struggling with how to accommodate change and growth while retaining a profitable agricultural sector.
Demonstrating the Economic Benefits of Integrated, Green Infrastructure
This paper will provide a compelling argument for municipalities to pursue means of developing integrated approaches in the development of services and infrastructure.
Downtown Planning for Smaller and Midsized Communities
''For so long we were floundering and taking ad hoc measures, but the minute I understood what a downtown plan really was I said 'We need one of those!' As it turned out, it was the most fantastic vehicle I've ever seen,'' said Susan Moffat-Thomas of New Bern, North Carolina. Her hometown got a much-needed shot in the arm from a good downtown plan. Does yours need a similar boost?
Philip L. Walker, an experienced downtown-planning consultant, offers practical tips for preserving a sense of place, improving fiscal efficiency, and enhancing quality of life in Downtown Planning for Smaller and Midsized Communities.
Planners and revitalization officials will learn how to address physical components of the downtown, as well as economic development. Walker, an experienced downtown-planning consultant, also explains how to develop an organization to implement a downtown plan; how federal, state, and local policies may influence the planning process; and how to fund a downtown revitalization effort.
EcoIndustrial Strategies
Eco-industrial Strategies explores the key issues involved in eco-industrial development and identifies the stakeholders and their roles in such projects.
Economics, Equity and the Environment
Economics, Equity, and the Environment, by Stephen M. Johnson, examines major economic incentive and market-based environmental protection programs that are being implemented by governments, including pollution taxes, pollutant trading programs, regulatory waiver programs, subsidies, grants, loans and favorable tax treatment, and deposit/refund systems.
Environmental Health Perspectives: Built Environment
Built Environment is a collection of articles from Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed open access journal dedicated to the effect of the environment on human health.
Facing Our Future
Western Resource Advocates, Trout Unlimited and the Colorado Environmental Coalition have released this report on how to satisfy demands for water along the Front Range for the next 25 years with less harm to the environment and less controversy than water projects have faced in the past.
Free Legal Resources Available
The American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy and Resources has initiated a new pilot program that offers free legal assistance to support community-based environmental protection efforts.
Funders' Network: Looking Back
To acknowledge and celebrate its 10th Anniversary in 2009, the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities commissioned Looking Back: Influencing, Networking, Facilitating, a retrospective on the efforts undertaken by the Network and its members over the past ten years.
Funders' Network: Looking Forward
To acknowledge and celebrate its 10th Anniversary in 2009, the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities Looking Forward: Perspectives on Future Opportunities for Philanthropy, a compilation of essays from leading thinkers in the movement for smarter growth policies and practices that challenge philanthropy to think about its role over the next ten years.
Funding Brownfield Redevelopment
The Community/School Partnership for Brownfields Development offers an online guide to funding brownfields redevelopment. The guide is part of the school curriculum developed by the Purdue EPICS team for the ''Our Town Project'' (OTP).
Getting on Message: Making the Biodiversity-Sprawl Connection
This message kit is a resource for outreach by nonprofits on issues related to biodiversity and sprawl. We hope it serves as a springboard for new activity.
The site includes fact sheets, communication sheets, and other information.
Grants to Promote Farmers Markets
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced 20 grants totaling $900,000 to establish, expand or promote local farmers markets, roadside stands, and similar agricultural ventures under the new Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP).
Growth Management for Florida’s Future
Growth Management for Florida’s Future is a position paper from 1000 Friends of Florida that analyzes the growth management practices the state has used for the past two decades, and offers recommendations for how the state can be more instrumental in helping to build better communities.
Heritage Case Studies
Partners in Tourism, a national coalition that promotes culture and heritage tourism, offers detailed case studies on its website that describe efforts from across the U.S. to create tourist destinations based on local heritage and culture.
High Performance Schools School Planning Kit
The Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS, often pronounced ''chips'') aims to increase the energy efficiency of schools in California by marketing information, services, and incentive programs directly to school districts and designers. The Collaborative offers a School Planning Kit promoting the design of high performance schools: environments that are not only energy efficient, but also healthy, comfortable, well lit, and containing the amenities needed for a quality education.
Holding The Line: Urban Containment In The United States August 2002
Policies designed to deliberately control the spread of urban areas are
increasing in popularity throughout the United States. Several states,
and many local governments in the west, are adopting urban growth
boundaries and other containment measures in their land-use planning
laws and legislation. Whatever the primary purpose, it is clear that the
precise impacts of containment policies are not well understood. This
paper reviews the research on urban containment generally, and also
examines the experience of such policies in particular metropolitan
areas. It discusses some lessons learned and raises relevant research
questions for practitioners as well as policymakers at the state
and local level.
In Chicago, A Green Economy Rises
This essay by Keith Schneider of the Great Lakes Bulletin News Service reviews how the city of Chicago has successfully used a ''green'' smart growth strategy to blossom into one of America's finest cities.
Innovative Philanthropic Approaches to Housing Affordability and Smarter Growth
Innovative Philanthropic Approaches to Housing Affordability and Smarter Growth looks at some of the creative approaches used to address housing affordability in the context of the broader smart growth agenda.
Land Trust Standards and Practices
The newly revised Land Trust Standards and Practices reflect the lessons learned in conservation over the fifteen years since they were first created and recent changes in nonprofit law.
Make Your Community Walkable
AARP's discussion on how to make your community walkable is the topic of this January 2005 web resource.
Making Educated Decisions: A Landscape Preservation Bibliography
The second edition of this resource offers a comprehensive listing of publications for those involved with preservation planning and stewardship of significant landscapes.
Marketing Smart Growth
This series of articles from On Common Ground, The National Association of Realtors® Smart Growth Magazine, attempts to grasp this subject of supply and demand for Smart
Growth.
Massachusetts Sustainable Design Initiative
The Massachusetts Sustainability Program is working to educate all state agencies on the importance of taking environmentally sustainable measures into account when renovating or constructing buildings and facilities, and is working with the Division of Capital Asset Management (DCAM) to implement these design strategies in state construction projects. DCAM has been actively promoting sustainable design practices over the last few years through their Sustainable Design Program, which has developed ''Sustainable Design Guidelines'' for use on agency construction projects.
Mississippi Renewal Forum
Mississippi Renewal Forum -- Final Reports
Final team reports have been released from The Mississippi Renewal Forum, held October 11-17, 2005. The Renewal Forum was a gathering of design specialists from across the nation to help provide rebuilding visions for communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
Moving Communities Forward: AIA Study on the Design of Transportation
Moving Communities Forward, a project by the American Institute of Architects and the Center for Transportation Studies, measures the benefits that well-designed transportation projects bring to communities.
National Park(ing) Day Stories
National Park(ing) Day is an opportunity to celebrate parks in cities and promote the need for more parks by creating temporary public parks in public parking spaces. In 2008, National Park(ing) Day was held Friday, September 19, 2008.
Nature-Friendly Land Use Practices at Multiple Scales
Nature-Friendly Land Use Practices at Multiple Scales is a unique book organized around eight detailed case studies of private land developers, local governments, and public agencies that have worked across jurisdictional and ecological boundaries to effectively address habitat conservation.
Neighborhood-Scale Planning Tools to Create Active, Living Communities
Neighborhood-Scale Planning Tools to Create Active, Living Communities from the Local Government Commission offers tips, tools, and case studies to help communities align planning with the implementation of walkable community design.
New for Members -- Getting Smart, the Newsletter for Smart Growth
The February 2003 issue of ''Getting Smart'' is available in the Members Section. Features in this issue include Managing Urban Transportation Systems: The Need for a New Operating Paradigm; Transportation Reform and Social Equity: An Agenda for Smart Growth; and a feature on Enhancing America’s Communities.
Not Yet a Member? Click Here for a list of benefits.
New for Members -- Getting Smart, the Newsletter for Smart Growth
The June 2003 issue of ''Getting Smart'' is available in the Members Section. Features in this issue include
Land Use and Substance Abuse in Northern New Mexico; Letter from the Editor;
Living in Paradise?; Toolbox: Resources for Smart Growth;
Considering Residents’ Needs in
Planning for Higher Density Housing; Spotlight On: National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration; Partner Updates.
New Partners for Smart Growth: Jan. 27, 2005
The 4th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth: Building Safe, Healthy and Livable Communities conference was held January 27-29, 2005 in Miami Beach, Florida. View the entire program and PowerPoint presentations from select events, or order audio files.
New Partners for Smart Growth: Jan. 28, 2005
The 4th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth: Building Safe, Healthy and Livable Communities conference was held January 27-29, 2005 in Miami Beach, Florida. View the entire program and PowerPoint presentations from select events, or order audio files.
New Partners for Smart Growth: Jan. 29, 2005
The 4th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth: Building Safe, Healthy and Livable Communities conference was held January 27-29, 2005 in Miami Beach, Florida. View the entire program and PowerPoint presentations from select events, or order audio files.
New Urbanism Articles
Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) has prepared a 13-page bibliography listing of academic articles about new urbanism.
New Urbanist K-12 Teaching Resources
The Congress for New Urbanism's (CNU) K-12 Initiative has produced a bibliography of resources for primary and secondary teachers to introduce students to the concepts of New Urbanism, Smart Growth, and traditional town planning. This provides teachers with curriculum suggestions, teaching modules, videotapes, books, and games that are grade and age appropriate.
North American Cities and Smart Growth
A special issue of Local Environment, an international refereed journal, is now available online. Articles include ''Smart Growth in a Small Urban Setting the challenges
of building an acceptable solution,'' by Henry J. Mayer, Christine M. Danis,
and Michael R. Greenberg; ''Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously a
comparative analysis of twenty-four US cities,'' by Kent E. Portney; and ''Local
Government and the WSSD,'' by Mike Ashley.
Open Space Investments Pay Big Returns
Land & People, Spring, 1999. Trust for Public Land. This article discusses the benefits to communities, beyond saving land, when they invest in green spaces
Open Space Zoning: What It Is & Why It Works.
Planning Commissioners Journal. July/August 1992. One of the nation's leading advocates of ''open space'' zoning describes its advantages over conventional zoning regulation in preserving open space, natural areas, and farmland.
Overcoming Impediments to Smart Growth
Overcoming Impediments to Smart Growth: Finding Ways for Land Development Professionals to Help Achieve Sustainability examines why, despite knowledge of problems associated with sprawling patterns of land use, successful development projects using principles of smart growth are not more commonplace.
Pathways to Healthy Living
Pathways to Healthy Living is a two-page brochure produced by the National Park Service to promote its nationwide initiative to encourage healthful outdoor physical activity in National Parks and local communities.
Planning for the Unexpected
Planning for the Unexpected, published by the American Planning Association's Planning Advisory Service, describes the tools planners have to identify and manage risks related to land use.
Planting a Greener Future -- Indiana
An Alcoa Foundation grant is helping communities across Indiana have a greener future. The $100,000 grant, awarded to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources' Community & Urban Forestry (CUF) program, will be matched by local funds and will pay for the planting of 4,000 trees in 13 communities. The CUF program offers technical and financial assistance to cities and towns that want to restore their urban forest.
PPS' Greatest Hits of 2008
The Project for Public Spaces (PPS) offers the PPS Greatest Hits of 2008: 10 Trends Shaping the Future of Our Communities. This collection of ten significant trends is redefining the world as we know it, even in a down economy.
Promoting Public Health through Smart Growth
Promoting Public Health through Smart Growth, a report from Smart Growth BC, 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.
Rail~Volution 2008 Presentations Online
Rail~Volution 2008, held in San Francisco, California, October 27-30, offered more than 60 on-site and mobile workshops, two plenary sessions, and networking events addressing nearly every aspect of building livable communities with transit. These activities featured many thoughtful policy overviews of livability issues, as well as hands-on, specific strategies that can be used and applied in conference attendees' own communities.
Regional Prosperity Initiative Grants
To strengthen the voice of regions in Michigan, People and Land (PAL) has launched its Regional Prosperity Initiative. The goal of the initiative is to foster multi-sector and multi-jurisdictional collaboration at the regional level as a means for advancing economic, social, and environmental progress in Michigan.
Report on Public Health and Urban Sprawl in Ontario
This report from the Ontario College of Family Physicians summarizes pertinent information on the relationship between urban sprawl and health. It serves to identify the key issues that are relevant to the growing number of sprawl-related health problems in Ontario, which is comparable to U.S. situations and is far worse compared to Europe.
Resourceful Communities Program
Established in 1991, The Conservation Fund's Resourceful Communities Program blends innovative techniques to help North Carolina's underserved communities create new economies that protect and restore, rather than extract, natural resources.
Smart Growth for Better Schools
The Winter 2005 edition of On Common Ground features a series of articles on how smart growth principles can help create better schools.
Smart Growth on the Edge
The Winter 2006 edition of On Common Ground focuses on the far suburbs, the exurban areas beyond the edge of major metropolitan areas, and the smaller non-metropolitan cities.
''Smarty'' Awards -- 2008 Smart Growth BC Awards
Smart Growth BC presented the third annual Smarty Awards at its annual conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, on April 18, 2008.
Sprawl: The New Manifest Destiny
From the August 2004 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives journal, Sprawl: The New Manifest Destiny discusses the current state of sprawl on both national and international levels. This article includes listings of the Top Ten Sprawling U.S. and World Metro Regions, details the effects of sprawl, and discusses how sprawl continues, despite a growing knowledge of its effects.
Sustainable Cities Initiative
United Technologies Corp. has unveiled a Sustainable Cities initiative supporting the development and use of green building practices in urban centers, creating new programs to educate the public about the need for healthier environments, and protecting natural resources nationwide.
Symposium 2005: Twenty Lessons from Maryland’s Smart Growth Initiative
John Frece, former spokesman for Maryland’s Smart Growth Initiative and currently with the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland, reviews the events that led to Maryland's Smart Growth Initative and the evolution of that landmark policy in the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law (VJEL).
The Farm Around the Corner
In “The Farm Around the Corner,” Detroit Free Press writer Heather Newman reports on the surging popularity of locally produced food -- organic and otherwise.
The Nature of Open Space Programs
The Nature of Open Space Programs is a report from The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) that examines 28 major state open space protection programs to determine whether or not they have the legal authority to acquire lands in a biologically meaningful manner, and proposes strategies to improve the effectiveness of these programs to support biodiversity conservation.
The New Urbanism: An Alternative to Modern, Automobile- oriented Planning and Development.
New Urban News, May 21, 1999. This article is a good introduction to New Urbanism and includes a list of principles and prototypes
The Powerful Link between Conserving Land and Preserving Health
This article from the Land Trust Alliance's Special Anniversary Report, 2007, emphasizes the health benefits of parks and green spaces for people of all ages. Authors Howard Frumkin and Richard Louv describe the growing body of evidence supporting the belief that people benefit so much from contact with nature that land conservation can now be viewed as a public health strategy.
The Shape We’re In - Planning for a ‘Smart’ Future
For decades, environmentalists, walking and biking advocates and neighborhood activists have been trying with small success to stop urban sprawl and encourage planners to think ''fewer cars, more walking.'' But now physicians and scientists also are turning their attention toward developing communities to advance the cause of ''active living'' -- daily physical movement, the easier and more natural, the better.
The Source Protection Handbook
Based in part on the scientific, economic, and public health justifications for land conservation as a critical strategy for protecting America's drinking water sources and recharge lands, this new book from the Trust for Public Land (TPL) also relies heavily on best practices and case studies from organizations such as TPL and communities across America.
The State of Smart Growth
The State of Smart Growth is the theme for the Summer 2004 issue of On Common Ground, a twice-yearly publication from the Government Affairs office of the National Association of Realtors®.
The Sustainable Future
The Summer 2008 issue of On Common Ground presents the many approaches that Realtors®, home builders, school officials, environmentalists, public officials, and concerned citizens are using to shape communities into sustainable human environments -- communities that make better use of our resources and reduce the damage we leave behind.
The Sustainable Sites Initiative: Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009
The Sustainable Sites Initiative: Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009 is the product of 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 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 Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009 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, please 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 companion document titled 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 Initiative has followed.
Tools for Smart Growth in Montana
New from the Montana Smart Growth Coalition is Tools for Smart Growth in Montana, an online collection of success stories on how communities and counties in Montana and the intermountain West are making smart growth goals a reality.
Toward an Architecture of Place
Appearing in Urban Land magazine, this article puts forth a program for how architecture can be more effectively used to create great cities with effective public spaces for people to use and enjoy.
Towards Sustainability
The Minneapolis Environmental Report: Towards Sustainability provides a link to the City’s overall Environmental goal: “Preserve and enhance our natural and historic environment and promote a clean, sustainable Minneapolis.”
Urban Forest Success Stories
American Forests' Urban Forest Success Stories webpage examines how to better integrate green infrastructure policy and practice into urban areas.
Urban Sprawl and Public Health
This essay by Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH, discusses the impact that urban sprawl is having on public health. Dr. Frumkin examines the rise in urban sprawl and how the practice of keeping different land uses separate from each other affects public health.
Urbanization of Minnesota's Countryside -- 2000-2025
Major changes are taking place in Greater Minnesota. Areas of the state that used to be occasional vacation destinations are attracting year-round residents -- and doing so at rates of growth traditionally seen only in metropolitan centers.
Using Smart Growth Techniques as Stormwater Best Management Practices
Using Smart Growth Techniques as Stormwater Best Management Practices from the U.S. EPA reviews nine common smart growth techniques and examines how they can be used to prevent or manage stormwater runoff. This publication will help communities encourage smart growth and meet the new regulatory requirements.
Watershed Academy CDs
A set of 44 training modules from Watershed Academy Web are now available on a free CD. Single copies of the CD are available by requesting ''Watershed Academy Web on CD'' publication no. EPA 841-C-03-001.
Watershed Events (Fall 1999),
A newsletter published by EPA's Office of Water, focuses on Smart Growth as an emerging concept that promotes better stewardship of land and water resources to make our communities more livable and sustainable. Articles include ''Smart Growth and the Watershed Approach: What's the Connection?'' and ''What is Smart Growth?''. The newsletter also features Tools for Smart Growth.
Wet Growth: Should Water Law Protect Land Use?
Wet Growth: Should Water Law Control Land Use? from the Environmental Law Institute was written as a means to disseminate new ideas about the land/water interface in law and policy and provides an overview of the relevant issues, current trends toward integrating land and water controls, and prospects for further progress.
What Works, What Doesn’t in Smart Growth Policy
This news analysis by Arlin Wasserman of the Great Lakes Bulletin News Service looks at the Michigan Smart Growth Council's efforts to make permanent, meaningful land use changes. It also reviews how research by the Michigan Land Use Institute and the Sierra Club/Mackinac Chapter can help the Michigan's Smart Growth Council avoid the pitfalls -- and implement successful strategies -- employed in other states.
Your Town Alabama: Community-Building Workshops
Despite the crucial importance of planning and design, small communities rarely have good access to professional assistance or information regarding the application of planning and design to their communities' issues. The YourTown Alabama program is a first step in meeting these needs.
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