Smart Growth Resource Library

Local Governments and Schools

Local Governments and Schools from ICMA Press is a guide that 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.

Over the last sixty years, school facility investments have shifted toward buildings with larger capacities and school locations that are more distant from the people they serve. This trend is of particular concern to local government managers and staff seeking to support economic growth, improve environmental and public health, ensure socially equitable development, and preserve a high quality of life.

The land use and facility planning efforts of local governments and school districts have become increasingly separated in most communities. Their lack of coordination may contribute to the trend toward larger, more distant schools and associated economic, environmental, and social impacts.

This guide provides local government managers with an understanding of the connections between school facility planning and local government management issues. Eight case studies illustrate how communities across the U.S. have already succeeded in collaborating to create more community-oriented schools.

40 pages (0.6mb); available online as a PDF document at the resource link below.

Resource: http://icma.org/documents/SGNReport.pdf

E-mail to a Friend

View Printer-friendly page

Conservation: An Investment That Pays from Trust for Public Land is intended to help agency personnel and community conservationists make the case for conservation as a long-term economic investment. Find out more   Based on the National Building Museum's exhibit, Green Community is a collection of thought-provoking essays that illuminate the connections among personal health, community health, and our planet's health. Find out more

This web site is developed and maintained by the
National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT),
and supported with funding from the US EPA.
Disclaimer
Copyright © 1996-2010. All Rights Reserved.