Walkable communities are desirable places to live, work, learn, worship and play, and therefore a key component of smart growth. Their desirability comes from two factors. First, walkable communities locate within an easy and safe walk goods (such as housing, offices, and retail) and services (such as transportation, schools, libraries) that a community resident or employee needs on a regular basis. Second, by definition, walkable communities make pedestrian activity possible, thus expanding transportation options, and creating a streetscape that better serves a range of users -- pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, and automobiles. To foster walkability, communities must mix land uses and build compactly, and ensure safe and inviting pedestrian corridors.

Walkable communities are nothing new. Outside of the last half-century communities worldwide have created neighborhoods, communities, towns and cities premised on pedestrian access. Within the last fifty years public and private actions often present created obstacles to walkable communities. Conventional land use regulation often prohibits the mixing of land uses, thus lengthening trips and making walking a less viable alternative to other forms of travel. This regulatory bias against mixed-use development is reinforced by private financing policies that view mixed-use development as riskier than single-use development. Many communities -- particularly those that are dispersed and largely auto-dependent -- employ street and development design practices that reduce pedestrian activity.

As the personal and societal benefits of pedestrian friendly communities are realized – benefits which include lower transportation costs, greater social interaction, improved personal and environmental health, and expanded consumer choice -- many are calling upon the public and private sector to facilitate the development of walkable places. Land use and community design plays a pivotal role in encouraging pedestrian environments. By building places with multiple destinations within close proximity, where the streets and sidewalks balance all forms of transportation, communities have the basic framework for encouraging walkability.

Resources

This Is Smart Growth Showcases Development at its Best

Many people want to know what smart growth looks like. This Is Smart Growth, a publication from the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and the Smart Growth Network, illustrates and explains smart growth concepts and outcomes. This full-color booklet describes how, when done well, development can help create more economic opportunities, build great places where people want to live and visit, preserve the qualities people love about their communities, and protect environmental resources.

1000 Friends of Wisconsin ''Ten of the Best'' Awards

As part of its 10th year celebration, 1000 Friends of Wisconsin is recognizing ''10 of the Best'' individuals, organizations, companies, and efforts to promote better communities through land use and transportation ideas, policies, projects, and investments.

20 Actions Governors Can Take

The National Governors Association's (NGA) Health and Dignity Task Force provides this issue brief on ways to improve long-term health care issues in America.

2003 Metlife Awards Case Studies

Community Safety Initiative (CSI) staff have produced case studies for seven 2003 MetLife Awards projects; these case studies are available online in PDF format at the Local Initiative Support Corporation website.

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.

2005 Golden Shoe Award

The Center for Quality Growth & Regional Development at Georgia Tech (CQGRD) and Emory University won a Golden Shoe Award from Pedestrians Educating Drivers on Safety (PEDS) for creating an ongoing venue for multi-disciplinary discussions and research on the relationship between health and the built environment through the Healthy Places Research Group.

2005 Rudy Bruner Awards for Urban Excellence

Excellence exists in every city. It can be found in downtowns, neighborhoods, and parks. The Rudy Bruner Award searches for urban places that embody excellence, and celebrates their contribution to the richness and diversity of the urban experience.

2005 ULI Awards of Excellence -- Americas

Eleven outstanding developments from the Americas have been selected as winners for the 2005 Urban Land Institute's first ever (ULI) Awards for Excellence: The Americas competition.

2006 Massachusetts Smart Growth Conference Proceedings

Conference proceedings and presentations from the 2006 Massachusetts Smart Growth Conference are now available online at the conference website. More than 750 people from the private, public, and non-profit sectors attended this event, co-hosted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Planning Association.

2006 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement

On November 15, 2006, EPA announced five winners of the 2006 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. This award recognizes outstanding achievement in smart growth by tribal, state, local, or regional governments in five categories: Overall Excellence, Built Projects, Policies and Regulations, Small Communities, and Equitable Development.

2006 Neighborhood of the Year Award

Neighborhoods, USA (NUSA) invites applications to its 2006 Neighborhood of the Year Awards Program. Application deadline for the 2006 award is March 1, 2006.

2006 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference -- Audio Recordings

Audio compact discs from the 2006 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference are available for purchase. The fifth annual conference drew more than 1,200 attendees and offered dozens of seminars, symposia, workshops, and other events.

2006 Vision Long Island Smart Growth Awardees

Vision Long Island hosted more than 375 leaders, experts and advocates at the 5th Annual Smart Growth Awards on June 16, 2006. The event put a spotlight on the cutting edge people, projects and policies that are shaping the future of Long Island’s landscape. Categories were based on Vision Long Island's “Principles of Smart Growth,” and included awards for green development and regional leadership.

2006 Vision Long Island Smart Growth Awards Nominations

Vision Long Island is seeking nominations for its fourth annual Smart Growth Awards. This special event will honor individuals and organizations taking leadership in advancing Smart Growth projects, policies, regulations and initiatives. Deadline for submission is February 28, 2006.

2007 AIA/HUD Secretary’s Awards

The Housing and Custom Residential Knowledge Community of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announce the 2007 AIA/HUD Secretary’s Awards Program. New categories and guidelines have been added for this year's awards.

2007 Award for Smart Growth Excellence -- New York State

The New York State Association of REALTORS Award for Smart Growth Excellence was created to recognize the successful efforts of New York's communities to incorporate the principles of smart growth into their projects, policies and programs. Its purpose is to promote the continued advancement of smart growth in the state, in accordance with the principles adopted by REALTORS.

2007 National Planning Awards -- Call for Entries

Good planning helps create communities of lasting value. Creating such communities takes effort, vision, and dedication.

2007 Planning Award for Regional Bicycle Plan

Changing people's minds about the practicality and convenience of using a bicycle instead of car to drive to work, complete an errand, or go on a nearby outing is neither simple nor easy. Yet, the idea of using a bicycle to get around town is not only gaining popularity in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but also national attention.

2007 Vision Long Island Smart Growth Awardees

Vision Long Island honored a dozen individuals and organizations in their 2007 Smart Growth Awards ceremony, held on June 15, 2007, at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury, New York.

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.

2008 Awards for Excellence -- Europe

Five outstanding developments have been selected as winners of the Urban Land Institute's (ULI) 2008 Awards for Excellence: Europe competition. The Awards for Excellence competition is widely recognized as the land use industry's most prestigious recognition program.

2008 Pedestrian and Biking Professionals Awards

The Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals (APBP) announced the 2008 winners of its annual awards program to honor excellence in the profession. APBP made three awards at its 2008 Pro Walk/Pro Bike conference in Seattle: The Lifetime Achievement Award, the Public Sector Professional-of-the-Year, and the Private Sector Professional-of-the-Year.

2009 Livable Communities Award

The Coalition for Smarter Growth will present its Sixth Annual Livable Communities Leadership Award to Congressman Gerry Connolly at an awards ceremony on February 25, 2009.

2009 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement Winners

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson presented the 2009 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement on December 1 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Through the awards, four communities were recognized for their comprehensive approach to improving access to affordable housing, providing more transportation options and protecting the local environment for residents.

The four recipients of the 2009 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement are:

Overall Excellence: Lancaster County Planning Commission for Envision Lancaster County. Lancaster County, in south-central Pennsylvania, is known for its historic towns and villages, and its fertile farmland. To maintain the county’s character, its diverse economy, and its natural resources for future generations, the Lancaster County Planning Commission established a countywide comprehensive growth management plan, which protects valuable farmland and historic landscapes by directing development to established towns and cities in the county.

Policies and Regulations: City of Charlotte for Urban Street Design Guidelines. As the central city in a rapidly growing metropolitan area, Charlotte, N.C., is under intense development pressures. Rather than continue the automobile-dominated development patterns of the last 50 years, Charlotte adopted Urban Street Design Guidelines to make walking, bicycling, and transit more appealing and to make the city more attractive and sustainable.

Built Projects: Chicago Housing Authority, FitzGerald Associates Architects and Holsten Real Estate Development Corporation for Parkside of Old Town. Parkside of Old Town sits on eight city blocks that were once home to a public housing complex notorious for criminal activity. The redevelopment has transformed the neighborhood by reconnecting it to downtown Chicago and tying together mixed-income housing, parks, and new shops and restaurants.

Smart Growth and Green Building: City of Tempe, Ariz. for the Tempe Transportation Center. The Tempe Transportation Center is a model for sustainable design, a vibrant, mixed-use regional transportation hub that incorporates innovative and green building elements tailored to the Southwest desert environment. The Tempe Transportation Center is a true multi-modal facility that integrates a light rail stop, the main city bus station, and paths for bicyclists and pedestrians.

2009 New Partners for Smart Growth Session Proposals

The Local Government Commission (LGC) is conducting a ''Call for Session Proposals'' (CFSP) for the 2009 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference program. This process will be open from May 19 through June 25, 2008. The submittal review process will take place from early-July through late-August 2008.

2009 Smart Growth Vermont Awards

Smart Growth Vermont announces its 2009 Smart Growth Awards and Art Gibb Award Ceremony. This awards program honors projects, initiatives, and plans anywhere in the state of Vermont that demonstrate smart growth principles in action.

2010 Metropolis Next Generation Design Competition

Metropolis's 2010 Next Generation Design Competition is now accepting entries based on the theme is One Design Fix for the Future. The competition is looking for one small (but utterly brilliant!) design fix that can be made now, and that will have a lasting postive impact on the designed environment. The competition is open to all designers and architects in practice ten years or less (including design students), and the winner will receive $10,000 to help make his or her idea a reality.

Deadline: January 29, 2010.

2010 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is now accepting applications for the 2010 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement. This competition is open to public- and private-sector entities that have successfully used smart growth principles to improve communities environmentally, socially, and economically.

The application period is open from February 8, 2010 to April 5, 2010.

Up to five awards will be given in the following categories:

• Programs, Policies, and Regulations
• Smart Growth and Green Building
• Civic Places
• Rural Smart Growth
• Overall excellence

2010 New Partners for Smart Growth: Building Safe, Healthy and Livable Communities

February 4-6, 2010 – Seattle, WA

The 9th Annual 2010 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference in Seattle, Washington, boasted record-breaking attendance. Some 1,600 people from across the country gathered for three days of presentations, discussions, and information sharing. For more information about the conference, see www.newpartners.org.

The conference was produced by the Local Government Commission (LGC), with support form a very impressive and multi-disciplinary group of partners and sponsoring organizations, agencies, and companies. Without their collective support, this dynamic event would not have been possible. For a complete list of sponsors and cosponsors, see

The conference was produced by the Local Government Commission (LGC), with support form a very impressive and multi-disciplinary group of partners and sponsoring organizations, agencies, and companies. Without their collective support, this dynamic event would not have been possible. For a complete list of sponsors and cosponsors, visit the conference website.

PDF files of available PowerPoint presentations are now available on the conference program page at the link below. These files are available for FREE download.

Please note: some presentation files are large and may take time to download.

2010 Opportunity to Register and Other Important Information for Electronic Application Submission for the Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program

On February 10, 2010, HUD published an Advance Notice (75 FR 6689) announcing its intent to offer funding through competitive NOFA under its Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program. Through the Advance Notice, HUD sought input from state and local governments, regional bodies, community development entities, and a broad range of other stakeholders on how the Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program should be structured in order to have the most meaningful impact on regional planning for sustainable development.

HUD is publishing this new Notice to inform potential applicants of the multi-week time frame for the registration requirements that must be met before an application can be submitted, as well as the application procedures to follow once the NOFA itself is published.

HUD is using this notice to request entities interested in applying for the Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program to notify HUD of their intent to submit an application. Providing HUD with this information will allow HUD to properly access the workload anticipated during the review process and plan accordingly to ensure timely decision-making.

If your organization is interested in applying for the Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program, please call the HUD NOFA Information Center as soon as possible at 1-800-HUD-8929. The NOFA Information Center will ask for your organization name and address, contact name, email, and telephone number, including area code. Notification of intent to apply is not a requirement for application. If you are an eligible applicant, you may still apply – notification merely helps HUD determine staffing requirements for review and evaluation of applicants.

The full Notice is available at the link below.

21st Century Land Development Code

In 21st Century Land Development Code from APA Planners Press, two of the nation's leading experts in land-use law and planning provide a comprehensive guide to drafting and updating land-use regulations.

30 Great Places in America

The American Planning Association (APA) has announced its 2008 list of Great Neighborhoods, Great Streets, and Great Public Spaces -- in 21 states and the District of Columbia -- that offer better choices for where and how people work and live.

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 Blueprint for Action: Developing a Livable Community for All Ages

A Blueprint for Action was created to provide local leaders with tools to build the collaborations needed to create livable communities for people of all ages. The guide can be used as a quick-reference kit for practitioners looking for tools, resources, and best practices. It includes information based on community experiences in building local leadership and offers tools to prepare for the needs of a maturing America, drawing on the most innovative and effective practices of communities throughout the country.

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 Convenient Remedy: Walkable Urban Neighborhoods

A Convenient Remedy: Walkable Urban Neighborhoods is a short movie from the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) that demonstrates the difference that your choice of neighborhood can make in reducing your contributions to global warming -- and how it can help protect you from runaway gas prices.

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.

A Guide for Collaborative Action

This report examines how community development organizations often overlook the importance of involving youth and delinquency prevention in their programs.

A Guide for Property Owners Returning to New Orleans

The National Trust for Historic Preservation offers this two-page guide for property owners returning to New Orleans. This overview is designed as an initial guide in helping property owners minimize structural and cosmetic flood damage.

A Guide to Aging in Place

The National Aging in Place Council (NAICP) has create an online Guide to Aging in Place. This resource, indexed by topic, provides detailed information about things to consider if you want to remain living independently in your own home throughout retirement.

A Guide to Smart Growth and Cultural Resource Planning

A Guide to Smart Growth and Cultural Resource Planning, prepared by the Wisconsin Historical Society's Division of Historic Preservation, is now available.

A Healthy Community: New Ideas for an Older California

A Healthy Community: New Ideas for an Older California is a report from Center for Civic Partnerships that looks at how, in a sweeping demographic transformation, the over-65 population will skyrocket over the next 25 years -- and the effects that will have on community life.

A Legal Guide to Urban and Sustainable Development for Planners, Developers and Architects

Written by pioneering attorneys in the emerging fields of urbanism and green building, A Legal Guide to Urban and Sustainable Development for Planners, Developers and Architects offers you practical solutions for legal issues you may face in planning, zoning, developing, and operating such communities.

A National Model for Smart Growth

''A National Model for Smart Growth'' is the title of this PowerPoint presentation from Ventura, California, on how the city is making smart growth central to its planning.

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 Plan for Tomorrow: Creating Stronger, Healthier Communities

A Plan for Tomorrow: Re-Thinking Density to Create Stronger, Healthier Communities is a free PowerPoint presentation jointly prepared by the Urban Land Institute, the National Multi-Housing Council, and the Sierra Club, that shows how density can transform neighborhoods, and offers compelling research to allay conventional fears about density.

A Primer on Active Living for Government Officials

This primer on active living is an introduction for government officials on the health and economic benefits of active living, and explores ideas on how state and local officials can promote active living within their communities.

A Reporter’s Resource and Media Guide to Growth in CA

Unprecedented population pressures throughout California are threatening the state’s natural values and pristine landscapes. The threat is largely the result of land use policies that favor low-density development over carefully planned growth within existing urban boundaries.

A Residents' Guide to Creating Safe and Walkable Communities

People need walkable communities where sidewalks, trails, and street crossings are safe, accessible, and comfortable for people of all ability levels. A Residents' Guide to Creating Safe and Walkable Communities from the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, provides examples from communities that are working to improve pedestrian safety. It includes information, ideas, and resources to help residents learn about issues that affect walking conditions; find ways to address or prevent these problems; and promote pedestrian safety.

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 Smart Growth Reader

A Smart Growth Reader, prepared by the American Planning Association (APA), is designed as an aid to understanding the various elements that make up Smart Growth. This on-line publication draws on articles that have appeared in APA publications over the past two years, and is intended as a rich compendium of perspectives on the smart growth.

A Strategy for Saving Rhode Island from Sprawl and Urban Decay

This briefing book from Grow Smart Rhode Island provides background information about issues that are critical for the state’s healthy economic and physical development, quality of life, and social well-being.

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.

A Vision for the Main Street Movement

In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Main Street program, the Main Street Center conducted a year-long visioning process to define the future of the entire Main Street movement. A Vision for the Main Street Movement is the result of this process, a statement consolidated from the input of nearly 700 people offering their input on the future of the movement.

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.

Achieving Equity and Inclusion in America

PolicyLink has developed Achieving Equity and Inclusion in America: Policy Principles for the Obama Administration and New Congress, a framework of principles that can guide federal decision-making to maximize the return on national investment for all Americans, especially low-income people and communities of color. These principles reflect the knowledge and experience PolicyLink has developed through its decade-long partnership with local leaders working to foster economic and social inclusion in communities across America.

Achieving Smart Growth in New Hampshire

The New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning (OEP) has produced a report and website, Achieving Smart Growth in New Hampshire. This project documents how New Hampshire is changing and highlights some positive examples of development and conservation throughout the state.

Active Community Environments (ACEs)

This Center for Disease Control program promotes walking, bicycling, and the development of accessible recreation facilities. The website contains a number of working papers and data analyses designed to better understand how the natural, built, and social environment influences physical activity.

Active Community Transportation Act of 2010

U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer (Ore.) introduced H.R. 4722, the Active Community Transportation (ACT) Act of 2010, in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, March 2, 2010.

For the past several years, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) has been working closely with local, state and national partners around the country on the Campaign for Active Transportation.

Building on the successes of the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program, the ACT Act would establish a competitive active transportation investment fund, to invest in walking and bicycling improvements in targeted communities around the country.

These resources would enable communities to build interconnected systems—allowing people to travel between the places they work, live, play, learn and shop without needing car.

If the act is passed, the U.S. Department of Transportation will administer a competitive fund, which will invest in communities that best make the case for resources to shift large numbers of trips from driving to walking and bicycling.

The two billion-dollar program, with funds set aside within the Surface Transportation Program, will allow dozens of communities nationally to improve their walking and bicycling networks.

Active Design Guidelines

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, architects and urban reformers helped to defeat infectious diseases, such as cholera and tuberculosis, by improving design of buildings, streets, neighborhoods, clean water systems and parks. In the 21st century, designers can again play a crucial role in combating the most rapidly growing public health epidemics of our time: obesity and its impact on related chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. Today, physical inactivity and unhealthy diet are second only to tobacco use as the main causes of premature death in the United States. A growing body of research suggests that evidence-based architectural and urban design strategies can increase regular physical activity and healthy eating.

The Active Design Guidelines provides architects and urban designers with a manual of strategies for creating healthier buildings, streets and urban spaces, based on the latest academic research and best practices in the field. A growing body of research suggests that evidence-based architectural and urban design strategies can increase regular physical activity and healthy eating.

The Guidelines includes:

• Urban design strategies for creating neighborhoods, streets and outdoor spaces that encourage walking, bicycling and active transportation and recreation.
• Building design strategies for promoting active living where we work, live and play—for example, through the placement and design of stairs, elevators and indoor and outdoor spaces.
• Discussion of synergies between active design and sustainable design initiatives such as LEED and PlaNYC.

The Active Design Guidelines was developed through a partnership of the New York City departments of Design and Construction, Health and Mental Hygiene, Transportation, City Planning and the Office of Management and Budget, working with leading architectural and planning academics, and with assistance from the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter. Other City agencies that contributed to the Guidelines include the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, Department of Buildings, Department of Parks and Recreation, School Construction Authority, Housing Preservation and Development and the Department for the Aging.

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.

Active Living Approaches by Local Government

Active living -- the integration of physical activity into daily routines -- is one innovative approach to making communities healthier. This survey by the National Association of Counties and the International City/County Management Association seeks to understand how local government leaders view their role in enabling active living in communities.

Active Living by Design Issues Call for Proposals Aimed at Helping Americans Become More Physically Active

Active Living by Design plans to award grants of up to $200,000 each to 25 community partnerships across the country. These partnerships will develop and implement strategies that will make it easier for people to enjoy routine physical activity as part of their daily lives.

Active Living Funding Sources

The Active Living Resource Center (ALRC) Web site provides resources and tools to help you make walking and bicycling part of your community's healthy lifestyle. The funding section of the Web site is designed to help answer all of your funding needs.

Active Living Minnesota

The Active Living Minnesota funding program supports interdisciplinary partnerships to plan for and implement a comprehensive approach to encourage active living among community residents, with a focus on environmental and policy change efforts.

Active Living Research

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has announced a New Connections funding opportunity the Active Living Research program. The Foundation's New Connections program is designed to expand the diversity of perspectives that inform RWJF programming and introduce new researchers and scholars to the Foundation, while simultaneously helping to analyze data that measures progress towards programming objectives.

Active Living Research -- Call for Abstracts 2006

Active Living Research has issued a Call for Abstracts for their Third Annual Conference, to be held in Coronado, California, February 16-18, 2006.

Active Living Research -- Call for Proposals

Active Living Research (formerly Active Living Policy and Environmental Studies) is a $12.5-million national program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), created to stimulate and support research that will identify environmental factors and policies that influence physical activity. Findings are expected to inform environmental and policy changes that will promote active living among Americans.

Active Living Research -- Call for Proposals (Round 8)

Active Living Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has issued a call for full proposals for research topic grants and full proposals for dissertation grants in Round 8 of their program.

Active Living Research -- Childhood Obesity

Active Living Research is a $12.5-million national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that stimulates and supports research to identify environmental factors and policies that influence physical activity. Childhood obesity is one topic that Active Living Research has pursued, and to this end issued a call for proposals is to increase our understanding of how environments and policies affect children's physical activity in community and school settings.

Active Living Research -- Round 5 -- RWJ Foundation

Round 5 of the Active Living Research Program is underway for funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Active Living Research program focuses on relationships among characteristics of natural and built environments, public and private policies, and personal levels of physical activity. Application deadline for Round 5 submissions is May 25, 2005.

Active Living Research 2009 -- Childhood Obesity

Active Living Research supports research to inform policy and environmental strategies for increasing physical activity among children and adolescents, decreasing their sedentary behaviors and preventing obesity. A special emphasis is placed on research focused on racial/ethnic populations and children living in low-income communities who are at highest risk for obesity. Findings will advance RWJF's efforts to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015.

Active Living Research PowerPoint Presentations

PowerPoint presentations from the 3rd Annual Active Living Research Conference, held in Coronado, California on February 16-18, 2006 are now available online.

Conference sessions included oral presentations and posters selected though a competitive call for abstracts and presentations on cutting-edge issues by experts.

Active Living Research is an Active Living Program supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and administered by San Diego State University. Read more at the resource link below.

Active Living Resource Center Experts Directory

The Active Living Resource Center website provide answers and resources to help you make walking and bicycling part of your community's healthier lifestyle.

Active Living Resource Center Library

The Active Living Resource Center (ALRC) is an online resource designed to help citizens take charge in their neighborhoods and make them more physically active by making them more bicycle and pedestrian friendly. The ALRC Library provides dozens of resources that support this goal.

Active Living Storybank Database

The Active Living Network -- a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation -- has recently launched its new Storybank database, archiving more than 100 searchable projects, programs and initiatives around the country promoting health through changes in the built environment, public policy and education.

Active Neighborhood Checklist

Active Living Research grantees have developed an objective and practical checklist to help residents, community groups, local government officials and advocacy organizations determine whether their neighborhoods are activity friendly. The checklist rates communities on land use, presence of public recreational facilities, availability of public transportation and quality of the environment.

Active School Neighborhood Checklist

Today, nearly one in every three (or more than 23 million) children in the U.S. are overweight or obese and physical inactivity contributes to this high prevalence of overweight. In the late 1990s, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared an 'epidemic' of obesity and diabetes. Much of the epidemic has been caused by an ever-decreasing amount of physical activity in the lives of our children due, in part, to how our communities are built. Since then, many highly respected medical and health organizations have made similar declarations and policy statements, and have launched campaigns to reverse the epidemic.

The aim of the Active School Neighborhood Checklist (ASNC) is to provide decision makers with a quantitative tool for evaluating the potential long-term health impacts of candidate school sites on the children who will attend them. The logic of ASNC is based on existing research that the built environment can have an effect on either encouraging or preventing people of all ages from walking and bicycling safely to various destinations.

Active Transportation for America: A Case for Increased Federal Investment in Bicycling and Walking

Active Transportation for America from the Rails to Trails Conservancy makes the case and quantifies the national benefits -- for the first time -- that increased federal funding in bicycling and walking infrastructure would provide tens of billions of dollars in benefits to all Americans.

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.

Affordable Housing Design Advisor

This web site is described as a tool, resource, idea bank and step-by step guide to Design in affordable housing.

Age Friendly Manitoba Initiative

The Canadian Province of Manitoba has launched an Age Friendly Initiative with numerous partners to address the challenges facing the growing population of seniors.

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.

Aging in Place

Aging in Place from the Atlanta Regional Commission and the Community Housing Resource Center is a tool designed to help local governments plan and prepare for their aging populations. It presents a series of programs and zoning practices that expand the alternatives available to older adults living in the community.

Aging in Place Initiative

The National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a) and Partners for Livable Communities (PLC) have launched a joint initiative to work with cities and counties over an 18-month period to facilitate a community dialogue on ''aging in place,'' and to assist community leaders in developing an action plan to ensure programs and services are in place so that communities are good places to grow old.

Aging Initiative Awards

The U.S. EPA is inviting eligible candidates to submit applications for the Excellence in Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging award. Applications are due September 12, 2008.

Ahwahnee Principles for Climate Change

At the 17th Annual Yosemite Conference for Local Elected Officials, a process was set in place by the Local Government Commission's (LGC's) Board of Directors to develop a set of guiding principles for local governments to use in response to global warming. A draft of Ahwahnee Principles for Climate Change was distributed at the conference for comments by all attendees.

AIA 50to50

50to50 from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a how-to resource intended to assist architects and the construction industry in moving toward the AIA's public goal of a minimum 50 percent reduction of fossil fuel consumption in buildings by 2010 and carbon neutrality by 2030.

AIA Recorded Presentations -- Convention '09

Did you miss the 2009 AIA convention? The American Institute of Architects is offering through its website a video stream of select presentations and workshops from the 2009 National Convention and Design Exposition.

AIA Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) Program

The SDAT is a community assistance program that focuses on the principles of sustainability. SDATs will bring a team of volunteer professionals (such as architects, urban designers, planners, hydrologists, economists, attorneys, and others) to work with community decision-makers and stakeholders to help them develop a vision and framework for a sustainable future.

AIA Sustainable Design Assessment Team RFP -- 2009

The American Institute of Architects Center for Communities by Design announces the 2009 Sustainable Design Assessment Team Program Request for Proposals.

AIA Sustainable Design Assessment Team RFP -- 2010

The AIA Center for Communities by Design announces the 2010 Sustainable Design Assessment Team Program Request for Proposals. The RFP solicits applications for inclusion in the Sustainable Design Assessment Team 2010 program.

AIA Top Ten Projects and Measures -- 2008

Each year the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment hosts a 2008 Top Ten Green Awards competition. In addition to posting award recipients and project summaries, AIA produces a webpage featuring information on the ten measures and supporting metrics used to evaluate the entries.

Alcan Prize for Sustainability 2007

The Alcan Prize for Sustainability is a $1 million prize that recognizes organizations demonstrating a comprehensive approach to addressing, achieving and further advancing economic, environmental and/or social sustainability. The Alcan Prize for Sustainability is one of the world’s most significant, privately funded Prizes. One Prize is awarded annually.

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 2050 Planning Initiative

America 2050 is a national initiative to meet the infrastructure, economic development and environmental challenges of the nation as we prepare to add about 130 million additional Americans by the year 2050.

American Makeover

American Makeover is a new web-exclusive series that explores growth and development alternatives in communities across America, looking at what can be done to help our communities grow in such a way that gives us the kind of neighborhoods and choices we're increasingly looking for.

The first episode ''sounds the alarm bell on Atlanta’s sprawl.'' No one who has ever been to Atlanta will argue their status as poster child of sprawling growth, but it's encouraging that the filmmakers spend most of the short episode taking a closer look at the alternatives in Atlanta — focusing on those growing millions of people who are looking for places to live that are walkable and connected and dontt entail hour-long car commutes to work, school, or the local market.

The series is expected to include episodes of four to five more cities.

American Planning Association

APA is a nonprofit, public interest organization representing 30,000 practicing planners, elected and appointed officials, and citizens involved in urban and rural planning issues. APA's members believe that sound planning is essential to meeting our nation's economic, environmental, and community development needs. Sixty-five percent of the members work in state and local government agencies, helping citizens define the kind of community they want to live in and developing policies, plans, and land use regulations that respond to those desires. APA is working with the SGN to disseminate ''best practice'' techniques for encouraging citizen participation, reforming state and local planning frameworks, and promoting sustainable development patterns.

American Trails' National Trails Awards Program -- 2008

Every two years, American Trails presents the National Trails Awards to recognize the tremendous contributions of volunteers, professionals, businesses, and other leaders who are working to create a national system of trails for all Americans.

AMPO -- 2004 Conference Presentations

Presentations from the 2004 Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations Conference are available online as PowerPoint files through the AMPO website.

AMPO -- 2008 Conference Presentations

Presentations from the 2008 Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations Conference are available online as PDF files through the AMPO website. The event was held October 28-31, 2008, in in Seattle, Washington.

AMPO Annual Conference Presentations

The AMPO Annual Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, October 2-4, 2007, drew close to 300 attendees from MPO's, state and federal agencies, and consulting firms. Presentations from many conference events are now available online at the AMPO website.

AMPO Awards 2004

The Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO) has announced winners of their 2004 Awards. These annual awards recognized the efforts of individuals who work to metropolitan transportation systems.

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 Audio Conferences

The American Planning Association (APA) offers the Audio Conference Training Series comprised of thematic audio and visual training programs. Topics during the current series include Economic Development for Small Towns, Planning and Public Health, and Planning for Safe Growth.

APA National Plan of the Year Award -- 2006

With northeastern Illinois expected to grow by 1.9 million people over the next 25 years, a new vision -- one that will accommodate this anticipated growth in an efficient, coordinated and sustainable manner -- is guiding decision making around the region. This vision is a key component of the 2040 Regional Framework Plan, recipient of the 2006 Outstanding Planning Award for a Plan from the American Planning Association (APA).

APA National Planning Conference Coverage 2007

The American Planning Association has created a website featuring resources and information from their 2007 National Planning Conference. Session reports, photos from various events, media coverage, and more can be found at this resource.

APA's 2009 Planning Conference -- Call for Proposals

The American Planning Association (APA) is seeking proposals for providing educational content at the 2009 APA National Planning Conference in Minneapolis, April 25–29, 2009.

Application Guidelines for Safe Routes to School

The National Safe Routes to Schools Partnership (SRTS) provides links to the State Departments of Transportation that have released application guidelines for the federal program.

April 2007 Getting Smart! Newsletter

The April 2007 issue of Getting Smart! focuses on three case studies of faith-based organizations and religious institutions that have been pivotal in the success of smart growth efforts.

April 2009 Getting Smart! Newsletter

The April 2009 Getting Smart e-newsletter features articles on energy-related topics. With the Obama Administration declaring energy a priority and investing billions of federal dollars in new and existing programs, this edition offers some ideas for broader consideration.

Arizona Smart Growth Scorecard

The Arizona Smart Growth Scorecard is a valuable tool for community self-assessment developed by a working group of the Growth Cabinet with input from public and private stakeholders. It is designed to strengthen the ability of local officials to plan for future growth and development and to adopt comprehensive strategies that address growth-related pressures. As Arizona continues to attract unprecedented population growth, all levels of government must play a role in wisely planning and managing both the challenges and opportunities that new growth and development present.

Recognizing that communities measure and track how well they are implementing smart growth and look for areas of improvement, the Growth Cabinet prepared this Scorecard to help communities assess whether they have the right tools in place to promote smart growth. Executive Order 2007-05, directed state agencies to identify how state discretionary funds might provide incentives to communities for growing smarter and technical assistance for those needing support. The intent is to provide communities, counties, and Tribal governments - small or large, rural or urban - with a simple, clear, usable means of evaluating how well prepared they are for the pressures of growth. In addition, the Scorecard can help spur action on local and regional approaches to address growth issues and provide incentives and assistance to communities wanting to effectively and efficiently manage development. Cities, towns, counties, and Tribal governments will be evaluated by the set of smart growth criteria and indicators contained within the Scorecard.

Arlington's Smart Growth Journey: Documentary Film

Arlington's Smart Growth Journey is a documentary film that traces the dramatic history of the past half-century of growth and development in Arlington, Virginia.

Around the Table: Community Partnerships for Healthier Eating

Communities throughout the United States are experimenting with innovative ways to support adults and youth in making healthier food choices. Around the Table: Community Partnerships for Healthier Eating is a report from the Center for Civic Partnerships (CHCC) that reviews the Healthy Cities and Communities program in California, which promotes an inclusionary and systems approach to improving community health and encouraging healthier eating.

ASLA Professional Awards -- Call for Entries

The Board of Trustees of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has selected the recipients of the 2005 Medals and Landscape Architecture Firm Award, to be presented on October 10, 2005, during the ASLA Annual Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) Livable Centers Initiative -- Georgia

The Atlanta Regional Commission’s (ARC) Livable Centers Initiative encourages local jurisdictions to plan and implement strategies that link transportation improvements with land use development strategies to create sustainable, livable communities consistent with regional development policies.

Atlanta's Fifty Forward Initiative

The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) has launched an ambitious initiative, called ''Fifty Forward: Metro Atlanta Futures Forum,'' to explore possible future scenarios for metro Atlanta and forge an action plan to ensure future livability, prosperity and sustainability.

Audio from Three Winter 2008 Smart Growth Speaker Series Events

New audio recordings are now available from three Smart Growth Speaker Series events at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. These lectures are part of a four-part series focusing on Smart Growth in Washington, D.C., which will conclude with the April 23, 2008 event celebrating 10 years of the Smart Growth Speaker Series.

August 2007 Getting Smart! Newsletter

The August 2007 issue of Getting Smart! focuses on one of the hottest -- no pun intended -- issues of the day: climate change. The transportation sector is one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions. To effectively reduce emissions from the transportation sector, we must reduce the number of miles U.S. residents drive; in other words, land use patterns must change. Smart growth will play a critical role in making this change happen.

August 2008 Getting Smart! Newsletter

The latest issue of Getting Smart! is now available for all Smart Growth Network members in the Members Section. This edition of Getting Smart! examines how the most public of places -- our community's streets -- can be transformed to serve not only vehicles but also pedestrians and cyclists.

Awards of Excellence for Sustainable Community Development

The Home Depot Foundation’s Awards of Excellence for Sustainable Community Development recognizes public-private partnerships that have successfully developed projects and/or initiatives that promote and exemplify a more sustainable community. Truly sustainable projects take a holistic, integrated approach, whereby sustainability planning, affordable housing and the creation of green spaces and planting of trees are inextricably linked.

Projects that qualify for the Awards of Excellence in Sustainable Community Development program exhibit thoughtful construction of a neighborhood which includes green affordable housing and tree plantings and have gone beyond to address overarching community issues. These projects have contributed to creating a stronger connection among the residents and addressed many broad-scale issues, including treatment of stormwater, economic development, reducing urban heat island effect, disaster preparedness, carbon reduction strategies, abandoned and foreclosed properties, pedestrian friendliness, traffic calming, transit oriented development, and resident health and quality of life.

The Awards of Excellence go to both the cities and their non-profit partners representing the partnership that completed the local initiative. The Foundation will recognize a National Winner ($75,000 grant), National Runner-up ($25,000 grant), and up to three Honorable Mentions ($2,500 grant).

The grants are to be used at the discretion of the non-profit to further the sustainability goals of the community.

Responses are due March 31, 2010.

Bank of America Neighborhood Excellence Initiative -- 2005

Bank of America's Neighborhood Excellence initiative consists of three distinct investing programs in select markets: Neighborhood Builders, Local Heroes, and Student Leaders.

Bay Area Bike Commuter of the Year Nominations -- 2008

Do you know someone in your community who is committed to making every day a ''Bike to Work Day''? Does this person epitomize and actualize the health, environmental, social and economic benefits of bicycling? Please share his or her story with us!

Bay Area Burden: Examining the Costs and Impacts of Housing and Transportation on Bay Area Residents, Their Neighborhoods, and the Environment

Bay Area Burden provides a comprehensive analysis of the “cost of place” in nine counties located throughout the San Francisco region by examining the costs and impacts of housing and transportation on Bay Area residents, their neighborhoods, and the environment.

Bay Area households spend an average of more than $28,000 annually on housing—about 39 percent of the area median income. In addition to the high cost of housing, Bay Area households spend nearly $13,400 annually on transportation. Combined, this cost burden of $41,420 per year represents 59 percent of the median household income in the Bay Area. The high combined costs of housing and transportation leave many Bay Area households with insufficient remaining income to comfortably meet their basic needs. This underscores the importance of broadening our understanding of housing affordability to consider the combined costs of housing and transportation, as well as the impacts of longer commutes on the environment and quality of life.

This report exposes the complexity of the interaction of housing and transportation choices as well as expenditures, and the unintended consequences on the natural environment when they work at cross purposes. The report also highlights the importance of “location efficiency” — the proximity of housing to transportation hubs, employment, and retail centers — as a driver of both affordability and environmental sustainability. Land use decisions play a critical role in determining the availability of housing that is affordable to Bay Area working families in locations that are near employment centers and transit. By strengthening the coordination of land use, housing, and transportation policies, Bay Area jurisdictions could create, preserve, and expand communities that are both environmentally sustainable and affordable to Bay Area households.

Bay Area Focused Growth

Four San Francisco, California Bay Area regional agencies have joined forces in a Joint Policy Committee. The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) are working together to create complete, livable communities.

BC Sprawl Report: Walkability and Health

The 2009 BC Sprawl Report: Walkability and Health from Smart Growth BC links physical activity and health data from 16 neighborhoods dispersed throughout British Columbia, spanning the urban to rural spectrum, with objective and subjective walkability index scores.

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 Development Practices

APA Planners Press. 1996. In this book Reid Ewing argues that the best development is both profitable and sustainable. APA Planners Press.

Best Practices in Development: ULI Award Winning Projects 2009

This lavishly illustrated, hardcover awards book profiles 48 top development projects throughout the world. Each project description includes photos, the development story, and project data and is a winner or finalist for the prestigious ULI Awards for Excellence. The annual prize is based on financial viability, the resourceful use of land, design, relevance to contemporary issues, and sensitivity to the community and environment.

Best Walking Cities -- 2009

Prevention lists the 25 Best Walking Cities in the United States, based on its annual survey with the American Podiatric Medical Association and Sperling's Best Places.

Better Models for Development in California

Better Models for Development in California is a one of a kind publication for creating, maintaining and enhancing livable communities in California.

Better Models for Development in Maryland

Authors Edward McMahon and Shelley Mastran offer practical advice on key issues facing communities throughout Maryland in Better Models for Development in Maryland, published by the Conservation Fund.

Beyond 50.05: A Report to the Nation on Livable Communities

Beyond 50.05 -- Livable Communities: Creating Environments for Successful Aging takes a fresh look at the adequacy of communities to serve the needs of persons of all ages, especially those 50 and older, and provides AARP’s prescription for improving them.

BGreen 2020

The City of Bridgeport and Bridgeport Regional Business Council have released BGreen 2020, a Sustainability Plan that outlines the policies and actions to be implemented in the next decade to improve the quality of life, social equity, and economic competitiveness of the city while reducing carbon emissions and increasing the community's resilience to the effects of climate change and increasing energy costs. The program management team, led by Regional Plan Association, convened the efforts of more than a hundred stakeholders in a Community Advisory Committee and working groups to develop strategies to address brownfields and land use, pedestrian and transit access, renewable energy production, and environmental protection while supporting the growth of green jobs in the region.

BGreen 2020 is the result of a public-private partnership between the City of Bridgeport and the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, a consortium of local business groups. By building on Bridgeport's existing strengths, BGreen will modernize the city's infrastructure, create wealth, intensify urban amenities, enhance environmental quality, enable revitalization without gentrification, and retain Bridgeport's historic character. Early priorities are the creation of an Energy Improvement District to support energy efficiency and production, adopting a ''Transit First'' policy, developing a plan for open space use and maintenance, expanding recycling, and protecting the region's waterways through enhanced stormwater management. A Green Collar Institute will train workers and act as an incubator for developing green industries.

More information, and a download link, can be found at the link below.

(Reprinted with permission from Regional Plan Association)

Bicycle and Pedestrian Facilities Funding -- Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Departmetn of Transportation (WisDOT) takes an active role in providing financial assistance to create and improve bicycle and pedestrian facilities in Wisconsin. The state's website offers background on both current and historical funding for bicycle and pedestrian facilities.

Bicycle Friendly Communities Awards 2006

Twelve cities across the United States celebrated the start of fall with the news that the League of American Bicyclists awarded them the coveted designation of Bicycle Friendly Community. The award, given at levels from Bronze to Platinum, recognizes those communities that are improving conditions for bicyclists and bicycling.

Bicycle Parking Solutions

''A Resource for Installing Indoor Bicycle Parking.''

Bicycling and Walking in the United States: 2010 Benchmarking Report

Bicycling and Walking in the U.S.: 2010 Benchmarking Report is an effort by the Alliance for Biking and Walking to collect and analyze data on bicycling and walking in all 50 states and the 51 largest U.S. cities and promote human powered transportation as an important alternative choice. This second biennial report reveals data including: bicycling and walking levels and demographics; bicycle and pedestrian safety; bicycle and pedestrian policies and provisions; funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects; bicycle and pedestrian staffing levels; written policies on bicycling and walking; bicycle infrastructure including bike lanes, paths, signed bike routes, and bicycle parking; bike-transit integration including presence of bike racks on buses, bike parking at transit stops; bicycling and walking education and encouragement activities; and public health indicators including levels of obesity, physical activity, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

The report concludes that where bicycling and walking levels are higher, obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes levels are lower. Higher levels of bicycling and walking also coincide with increased bicycle and pedestrian safety and higher levels of physical activity. Increasing physical activity through transportation can help improve health and reduce obesity. Bicycling and Walking in the U.S.: 2010 Benchmarking Report also includes numerous measures local and state governments can implement to make their communities friendlier to walkers and bikers. International efforts are also studied to show what programs have worked overseas and potential ways to copy those successes in the United States.

Alliance for Biking & Walking (formerly known as the Thunderhead Alliance) is the North American coalition of grassroots bicycling and walking advocacy organizations. Bicycling and Walking in the U.S.: 2010 Benchmarking Report was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and made possible through the additional support of Bikes Belong and Planet Bike.

Big & Green: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century, January 17-June 22, 2003

Big & Green: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century explores five categories of issues that design and building professionals are addressing in order to reduce the deleterious environmental impact of skyscrapers and other megastructures: Energy; Light and Air; Greenery, Water and Waste; Construction; and Urbanism.

Bike/Walk Twin Cities

Bike/Walk Twin Cities, formerly known as the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Program, or NTPP, was established in 2005 as part of the six-year federal transportation bill known as SAFETEA-LU. This website provides current information on the project and scheduled events for the Minneaspolis region.

Bikeability Checklist

How bikeable is your community? The Bikeability Checklist can help you find the answer. Inside you'll find insightful questions, allowing you to evaluate your neighborhood's bikeability.

Bikes Belong Coalition Grants -- May 2007

Bikes Belong is the national coalition of bicycle suppliers and retailers working together to put more people on bicycles more often. Through national leadership, grassroots support, and promotion, we work to make bicycling safe, convenient, and fun.

Bikes Belong Coalition Grants -- Overview

The Bikes Belong Coalition is sponsored by members of the U.S. bicycle industry. Its mission is to put more people on bicycles more often. The Bike Belong Grants Program was the first major on-going initiative undertaken by the Bikes Belong Coalition.

Bikes Belong Grants -- Summer 2007

Bikes Belong is the national coalition of bicycle suppliers and retailers working together to put more people on bicycles more often. Through national leadership, grassroots support, and promotion, Bike Belong works to make bicycling safe, convenient, and fun. In summer 2007 Bikes Belong presented six grant awards, totaling $46,935. Investment in these paths, trails, parks, and advocacy initiatives will help create, enhance, and protect great places to ride in communities across the country.

Bikes Belong Grants Program

The Bikes Belong Coalition is sponsored by members of the U.S. bicycle industry. Its mission is to put more people on bicycles more often. The Bike Belong Grants Program was the first major on-going initiative undertaken by the Bikes Belong Coalition.

Biking and Walking Funding

America Bikes outlines on its website how communities can leverage federal funding to improve local roads for bicyclists through the 2005 SAFETEA-LU bill.

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.

Blueprint for a Better Region: Putting Development in the Right Places

This PowerPoint presentation promotes Smart Growth principles in the Greater Washington, D.C. metro area.

Blueprint for American Prosperity

The Blueprint for American Prosperity is a multi-year initiative from Brookings to promote an economic agenda for the nation that builds on the assets -- and centrality -- of America's metropolitan areas.

Blueprint for Oregon's Future

From 2005-2007, 1000 Friends of Oregon, the Bus Project, and more than 50 other organizations hosted a series of town hall forums in 16 locations across the state. Called ''Envision Oregon,'' these forums challenged more than 2,200 participants from over 140 towns and places in Oregon to describe their vision for Oregon's future, and to help create strategies for making that vision a reality. They also formed the foundation for Blueprint for Oregon's Future.

Blueprint Houston

Blueprint Houston is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building community support for a planning process that makes improvements to Houston's quality of life and place.

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.

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…''

Bringing Safe Routes to Scale

The Transportation and Land Use Coalition (TALC) has released Bringing Safe Routes to Scale, a report that outlines the need for regional funding to support Safe Routes to Schools programs that help students safely walk and bike to and from school without having to be driven in a car.

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 National Site Revitalization Award

Orlando's Baldwin Park community, the largest single-phase demolition and recycling project in history that has resulted in one of the nation's most successful residential real estate developments, has added yet another prestigious award to its trophy case. The Phoenix Award™ was presented to Baldwin Park Development Company during the Brownfields 2006 environmental conference in Boston.

Brownfields Policy and Research

The February 2009 Brownfields Policy Research Newsletter from Northeast/Midwest Institute (NEMW) includes links to recent reports and white papers plus a feature article, ''Infill, Historic Preservation, and Infrastructure Savings.''

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.

Build Smart

This article from The American School Board Journal challenges the notion that bigger schools are better, a trend that has dominated the education landscape for decades.

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 Community Case Study

Building Community: A Post-Occupancy Look at the Maryvale Mall Adaptive Reuse Project is the topic of this February 2006 IssueTrak from CEFPI, (the Council of Educational Facility Planners International. Find out how an aging subdivision uses a vacant mall to rebuild community and create opportunities for residents.

Building Community through Transportation

The overarching goal of Building Community through Transportation, a Project for Public Spaces (PPS) initiative, is to support Placemaking and transform federal, state, and metropolitan transportation policies and practice that currently prioritize moving people and goods over creating walkable, healthy and sustainable communities. This campaign is also focused on influencing the design of streets and transit facilities so they become assets and gathering places for civic life.

Building Healthier Schools: Local Collaborations to Promote Nutrition and Physical Activity

The National Association of City and County Health Officials (NACCHO) offers this compilation of innovative approaches to collaboration and creative health-promoting activities that resulted from local public health agency (LPHA)-school partnerships.

Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging

This award recognizes communities for their outstanding comprehensive approaches to implementing principles of smart growth, as well as strategies that support active aging. It is presented to communities with the best and most inclusive overall approach to implementing smart growth and active aging on a variety of fronts, at the neighborhood, tribe, city, county, and/or regional level.

For the past three years, 15 communities in 14 states have been recognized for their leadership in smart growth and active aging. Together these regional councils of government, cities and towns have a total population of more than 5 million inhabitants and almost 500,000 residents over 65 years of age. As a percent of the population over 65, five of the award winning entities have greater than the national average of 12.6 percent and range from 13.3 percent to 21.5 percent. The other winning communities are planning for the aging of the population and currently have been 7 percent and 12.5 percent of their population over 65.

The communities have a diverse array of projects that are at the commitment or planning stage or have implemented ambitious plans and are winners of the achievement award. The lead for each of the projects were local planning department, city managers, parks and recreation, public health, aging, housing or transportation. For more information on the past winning communities see http://www.epa.gov/aging/bhc/index.htm

While this recognition program does not provide a financial award, the winners are the people living in these communities and this award recognizes the leadership of these communities in making their communities a great place to live. If you would like to submit an application to be considered for this recognition, visit the link below.

Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging -- 2007

The U.S. EPA is inviting eligible candidates to submit applications for the Excellence in Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging award. This award recognizes communities for their outstanding comprehensive approaches to implementing principles of smart growth, as well as strategies that support active aging.

Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging -- 2008 Applications

The U.S. EPA's Aging Initiative is spearheading the multi-agency Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Award. The The principal goal of the is to raise awareness across the nation about healthy synergies that can be achieved by communities combining Smart Growth and Active Aging concepts.

Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging -- 2009 Applications

The principal goal of the Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Award program is to raise awareness across the nation about healthy synergies that can be achieved by communities combining Smart Growth and Active Aging concepts.

Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Assessment Tool

The U.S. EPA's Aging Initiative website provides a wealth of information about the Agency's efforts to protect the environmental health of older persons. The Initiative's Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Assessment Tool consists of a series of questions that address concerns for an aging population in terms of overall health, quality of life in terms of accessibility within the community -- and how smart growth practices provide solutions to these questions.

Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Award

The U.S. EPA's Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Award recognizes communities for their outstanding comprehensive approaches to implementing principles of smart growth, as well as strategies that support active aging.

Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Awards 2008

The U.S. EPA has produced a booklet for recipients of its Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Awards 2008. Included in this booklet are details on the 2008 Achievement Award Winner, 2008 Commitment Award Winners, and 2007 BHCAA Winner Updates.

Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Awards Nominations

Nominations are now open for the 2009 Excellence in Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Awards. This award from the U.S. EPA's Aging Initiative program recognizes communities for their outstanding comprehensive approaches to implementing principles of smart growth, as well as strategies that support active aging.

Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging National Recognition Program

U.S. EPA offers this fact sheet on the ''Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging'' program. The principal goal of the program is to raise awareness across the nation about healthy synergies that can be achieved by communities combining Smart Growth and Active Aging concepts.

Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging: Grant Winners

The U.S. EPA has announced winners of its Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging: Training and Demonstration Projects. EPA has awarded the Training Grant to the Univeristy of Maine, and the Demonstration Grant to Portland State University.

Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging: Training and Demonstration Projects

The EPA Aging Initiative, located in the Office of Children's Health Protection and Environmental Education, is seeking proposals for a new grant opportunity for Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging: Training and Demonstration Projects.

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.

Building the Livable Urban Edge

This resource from the Cleveland Waterfront Coalition is a Best Practices for Urban Waterfronts slideshow that you can view in your web browser. More than 150 slides show the current condition of Cleveland's lakefront and photos from other cities.

Building Vibrant Sierra Communities

Building Vibrant Communities: A Commercial and Mixed Use Handbook from the Sierra Business Council (SBC) builds on the vision set forth in the SBC's Planning for Prosperity. Historic downtowns and neighborhoods have been the social, cultural, and economic centers of Sierra communities for over a hundred years. These compact, pedestrian-friendly towns are unique to our region and have enduring value. The Sierra Business Council believes they provide an excellent model for how to plan and enhance future development while we preserve what is best from our past.

Built Environment and Obesity Research

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are accepting applications for grants to research relationships in two specific areas related to the built environment and obesity: First, understanding the role of the built environment in causing/exacerbating obesity and related co-morbidities; and second, developing, implementing, and evaluating prevention/intervention strategies that influence parameters of the built environment in order to reduce the prevalence of overweight, obesity and co-morbidities.

''Built to Last'' Film

Recorded in May of 2009 in Buffalo, New York, the short film ''Built to Last'' is independent filmmaker John Paget's short film exploring the connection between New Urbanism and environmental issues.

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

Califia Sketchbook Design Competition

The Califia Sketchbook Design Competition will demonstrate what life will be like in Califia, a proposed next generation eco-city. People from around the world are invited to enter a conceptual sketch conveying their view of ''slices-of-life'' within Califia, revealing smarter ways of building, powering, and maintaining the urban fabric. The program sponsors believe that allowing for more direct public involvement in the design of future living spaces is the first step in a successful eco-city project.

California Sustainable Community Planning Grant Program

On behalf of the Strategic Growth Council, the California Dept. of Conservation is administering a $22.3 million competitive planning grant program for sustainable community plans.

The primary purpose of this grant program is to implement the vision of the Governor and Legislature to foster and support development of sustainable communities. Local governments will need to adopt land use plans and integrated strategies that can transform communities and create long term prosperity. Such communities shall promote equity, strengthen the economy, protect the environment and promote healthy, safe communities.

Under SB 732, approximately $60 million will be awarded to cities, counties, Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), Joint Powers Authorities (JPAs), Regional Transportation Planning Agencies (RTPAs), and Council of Governments (COGs). The Council anticipates two or three funding cycles.

Funds will be used to encourage sustainable regional and local actions that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, promote water conservation, reduce automobile use and fuel consumption, encourage infill and compact development, protect natural resources and agricultural lands, promote public health, and revitalize urban and community centers. Proposals must help achieve state planning priorities and environmental goals, as well as promote cooperative and scale-appropriate methods and strategies that reflect the interdependence of environmental, economic and community health.

Workshops will be conducted to provide technical assistance in preparing grant applications and vetting project proposals for eligibility and competitiveness.

Applications are due by August 31, 2010.

California Transit-Oriented Development Searchable Database

The State of California offers the internet-based Transit-Oriented Development Searchable Database. Access and search detailed information on 21 Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs) in California -- also called transit villages -- such as: land uses, site maps, implementation processes, financing, facilities, zoning, design features, pedestrian access, transit services, photos, travel benefits, contact information, and other valuable data.

Call for Abstracts -- Urban Down Under 2005

Urbanism Down Under 2005 -- Creative Urban Futures, an international urban design conference with an Australasian focus, has issued a Call for Abstracts for their August 2005 conference.

Call for Entries: 2006 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is pleased to announce that applications are now being accepted for the fifth annual National Award for Smart Growth Achievement.

Call for Entries: National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education Best Masters Thesis Award 2007

The National Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland will grant one award in the amount of $1000 for the best masters thesis focused on urban growth and development issues completed in the 2007 academic year. Masters students in urban planning, public policy, civil engineering, public and community health, economics and finance, political science or related fields are encouraged to apply.

Call for Papers -- International Sustainable Development Conference -- Sustainable Cities

The Centre of Urban Planning and Environmental Management (CUPEM), The University of Hong Kong, in association with ERP Environment, have announced the 12th Annual International Sustainable Development Research Conference 2006 will be held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong on April 6-8, 2006.

Call for Program Ideas -- New Partners for Smart Growth 2008 Conference

The Local Government Commission is conducting a ''Call for Program Ideas'' for the 2008 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference program. This process will be open from June 6th through July 11th, 2007. The submittal review process will take place from mid-July through late-September 2007, and those selected for inclusion in the final program will be notified by late September.

Call for Smart Growth Model Courses

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has received requests from communities and universities for help in developing model courses that incorporate smart growth into hands-on, applied course offerings.

Campus Sustainability Leadership Awards -- 2007

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) presented its Campus Sustainability Leadership Awards on September 7, 2007, at the 7th biennial Greening of the Campus conference, ''Partnering for Sustainability: Enabling a Diverse Future,'' held at Ball State University September 6-8, 2007, in Muncie, Indiana.

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.

Can Landscape Architects Make Schools Walkable Again?

In the April 15, 2008 edition of LAND online, the landscape architecture news digest of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), editor J. William ''Bill'' Thompson discusses the challenge of getting kids to walk to school.

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.

Canons of Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism

The Charter of the New Urbanism is the guiding document of the new urbanist movement. Although it offers an encompassing vision of sustainable urbanism from the scale of the region to the block and building, three leading CNU members, including two who had a central role in drafting the original Charter, undertook an effort to clarify and detail the relationship between New Urbanism and sustainability. The resulting document, The Canons of Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism, is designed to serve as a set of operating principles for human settlement that reestablish the relationship between the art of building, the making of community, and the conservation of our natural world.

Caring for Your Historic Buildings

Technical Preservation Services (TPS) helps home owners, preservation professionals, organizations, and government agencies by publishing printed pamphlets and books -- easy-to-read guidance on preserving, rehabilitating and restoring historic buildings.

Cascadia Scorecard

Northwest Environment Watch (NEW) offers the Cascadia Scorecard, a new gauge of regional progress that monitors seven key trends--health, economy, population, energy, sprawl, forests, and pollution--that are profoundly shaping the region's future.

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.

Case Studies in Smart Growth

The New Jersey Smart Growth Gateway, a project of New Jersey Future, is an online resource to provide the information necessary to begin implementing Smart Growth Strategies in their communities. Included on this website are links to on- and off-site case studies from a variety of organizations.

CDC Livability Listserv

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) facilitates a Listserv that addresses issues related to health and the built environment. An e-newsletter that includes related news articles, latest studies, and updates on conferences and events related to livability is sent to all subscribers once a month.

CDC Offers Slideshows on Kidswalk to School Website

Two new slide presentations are available on the CDC's Kidswalk-to-School website. Each comes with a lesson plan, presenter's guide, and presentation script.

Center for Infrastructure Equity

The PolicyLink Center for Infrastructure Equity advocates for fair and inclusive policies and provides community and grassroots leaders, advocates, and public officials with the tools, training, and consultation needed to ensure that public investments in infrastructure create economic opportunity and health in all communities. The center has evolved out of several years of action-oriented research and partnerships by PolicyLink with state and local organizations, and is poised to continue that work while also addressing key new federal infrastructure policy opportunities.

Center for Neighborhood Technology

Founded in 1978, CNT invents and develops tools and methods for sustainable development. CNT is working with the SGN to promote technical assistance and to enhance regional cooperation in South Florida. It is also working with the Surface Transportation Policy Project and the Natural Resources Defense Council to develop and implement location-efficient mortgages, which take into account the transportation efficiency of a property's location, making home ownership more affordable for properties located closer to public transportation. CNT has organized a coalition of 140 groups in the Chicago region to develop a long-range transportation plan that promotes smart growth. It has also led the way in using transit-oriented development as a redevelopment strategy in an urban setting, and it has created a financial intermediary to promote inner-city commercial development around transit.

Center for Sustainable Communities

Center for Sustainable Communities, part of the National Association of Counties (NACo) website, provides a forum for county officials to work with other government leaders, the private sector, and communities to develop policies and programs that lead to economic enhancement, environmental stewardship and social well being -- the three pillars of sustainable communities.

Center for Transit-Oriented Development: Five Years of Progress

The Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD) is celebrating its fifth year in 2009, and has published a brochure detailing its projects, partnerships and intellectual capital.

Center for Urban and Rural Affairs Funding

The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) is an all-University applied research and technology center at the University of Minnesota that connects faculty and students with community organizations and public institutions working on significant public policy issues in Minnesota.

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.

CEOS for Cities

CEOs for Cities is a membership-based national network of urban leaders dedicated to creating next generation cities that hold the answers to many of the challenges our nation faces. Through its website, members and visitors can keep current on events, publications and projects, meetings, and more.

Champions for Sustainable Communities -- Call for Partners

Forward Scotland is currently developing and looking for partners for Champions for Sustainable Communities. Originally launched in 2008, this is an award that recognizes the achievements of individuals across society who have lead the way in community development with the highest regard for sustainable development principles.

Changing Metropolitan America

As the nation looks to make significant new federal investments in infrastructure, Changing Metropolitan America: Planning for a Sustainable Future, a new publication from the Urban Land Institute, outlines strategies for building and maintaining infrastructure that fosters sustainable cities and metropolitan areas.

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.

Chicago Climate Action Plan

The Chicago Climate Action Plan describes the major effects climate change could have on the city and suggests how all city residents can work together to address those challenges.

Chicago's Guide to Completing an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy

Center for Neighborhood Technology recently helped to co-author Chicago's Guide to Completing an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy, a guide that will help cities and counties to develop a long-term and sustainable energy efficiency and conservation plan.

Child-Friendly Transport Planning

As a step to developing child-friendly planning guidelines, the Centre for Sustainable Transportation has completed a limited literature survey and canvassed several planning experts to determine whether child friendly planning guidelines have been developed elsewhere in the world. Child Friendly Transport Planning is a report that outlines the results of this search.

Childhood Obesity Prevention and Healthy Living

The National Association of Counties provides technical assistance on childhood obesity prevention to counties, with a focus on rural and/or underserved communities, including those communities disproportionately affected by youth obesity.

Choosing Our Community's Future

Smart Growth America has released Choosing Our Community's Future, a guidebook developed to assist communities in shaping the growth and development of their neighborhoods, towns and regions.

Cities Back from the Edge: New Life from Downtown

New York. John Wiley& Sons/Preservation Press, 1998. This book looks at cities that have ''come alive'' with basic policy changes such as curbside parking, walkable sidewalks, neighborhood shopping and more to sustain growth into the 21st century.

Cities Go Green

CitiesGoGreen is a project focused on answering the question, ''How can cities and other local governments become sustainable as quickly and effectively as possible?'' With both an online and offline presence -- the project includes a digital and a print magazine, distributed with the intent to encourage effective movement by cities and other local governments toward sustainability.

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 Practice Resources

When your city is seeking solutions, avoid reinventing the wheel by using the City Practice Resources compiled by the staff of the National League of Cities. Four City Practice Resources are now available: City Practice Online Database, City Practices Briefs, Municipal Action Guides, and the Municipal Reference Service Inquiry Service.

Civilizing Downtown Highways

Civilizing Downtown Highways from the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) is a must-read for anyone interested in traffic management. Using California as a case study, this book discusses the struggle New Urbanists face in reconstructing inner-city super highways into walkable, business-friendly thouroghfares.

Clarksville, Tennessee, Smart Growth Plan 2030

The Clarksville Smart Growth Plan 2030 was initiated in January 2010 by Clarksville Mayor John E. Piper and the Clarksville City Council. The mayor established a Comprehensive Master Plan Committee with the responsibility of creating a strategic plan to guide the future growth, development and quality of life initiatives for the community. The first phase of the plan was published to a new website on July 30.

Smart Growth Plan 2030 is subtitled ''a Blueprint for Progress & Quality . . . as we grow to 250,000 residents.'' Combining the work of a multi-disciplinary planning team plus the input of 200 citizen volunteers, the plan presents a vision for the city of Clarksville, including artistic renderings, potential projects, economic considerations and implementation steps to achieve major priorities.

Clean Ohio Bond Fund

American Farmland Trust (AFT) reports a landslide victory for Clean Ohio Bond Fund, a November 2008 ballot initiative that offers great promise to farmland protection and the environment.

Clear as Mud: Planning for the Rebuilding of New Orleans

Planning the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has been among the greatest urban planning challenges of our time. Since 2005, Robert B. Olshansky and Laurie A. Johnson, urban planners who specialize in disaster planning and recovery, have been working to understand, in real time, the difficult planning decisions in this unusual situation. As both observers of and participants in the challenging process of creating the Unified New Orleans Plan (UNOP), Olshansky and Johnson bring unparalleled detail and insight to this complex story.

New Orleans has had to rebuild its buildings and institutions, but it has also had to create a community planning structure that is seen as both equitable and effective, while addressing the concerns and demands of state, federal, nonprofit, and private-sector stakeholders. In documenting how this unprecedented process occurred, Olshansky and Johnson spent years in New Orleans, interviewing leaders and citizens and abetting the design and execution of the UNOP. Their insights will help cities around the globe recognize the challenges of rebuilding and recovering after disaster strikes.

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.

Climate Neutral Campus Report

The Climate Neutral Campus Report contains peer-reviewed white papers, case studies, executive interviews and vendor profiles that share strategies, challenges and solutions for higher education institutions that are striving for climate neutrality.

Climate Smart Communities

The Climate Smart Communities program from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is a state and local partnership to encourage climate protection. The program is centered around a pledge to combat climate change and includes the online resource, A Guide for Local Officials: Climate Smart Communities.

Climate, Energy and Transport

Climate protection is one of the four key goals of the World Resources Institute (WRI), and the Climate, Energy and Transport section of its website deals with the topic of climate change on a global scale.

Climate@CNU

Climate@CNU is the Congress for the New Urbanism's (CNU's) Low-Carbon Urbanism Campaign, which emphasizes low-carbon neighborhoods and high-quality living.

CNU Athena Award

Sim Van der Ryn became the 10th recipient of the Athena Award when the the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) honored him at its Sustainable Communities 2008 conference in September 2008. Van der Ryn earned an international reputation as the ''father of the green building'' during his tenure as California State Architect during then Governor Jerry Brown's administration.

CNU Charter Awards 2006 Honorees

The Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) has honored 19 professional, student, and faculty projects with in their 2006 Charter Awards competition.

CNU Charter Awards 2007 Honorees

The Congress for the New Urbanism announces the recipients of its 2007 Charter Awards, the annual prize honoring the best of the New Urbanism. The 20 winning professional submissions and 5 student/faculty submissions were chosen by a seven-member jury of distinguished urbanists in March 2007.

CNU Charter Awards Nominations 2007

The Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) is accepting nominations for its 2007 Charter Awards, recognizing achievements in design, planning, and development that meet the exacting standards of the Charter of the New Urbanism.

CNU Project Database

Are you looking for ideas on how other communities are successfully promoting walkable, neighborhood-based development? The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) offers a Project Database that features dozens of new urbanist developments from throughout the United States and other countries.

CNU XIV Multimedia Toolkit

The Congress for New Urbanism offers the CNU XIV Multimedia Toolkit, a collection of materials from sessions and events at the 2006 CNU Congress. The Toolkit includes audio and video from nearly 50 Congress sessions, a similar number of slideshows, and reports from the correspondents who covered the Congress for the online Daily NUws.

CNU XVI Call for Papers

The Congress for the New Urbanism invites academic paper submissions for presentation at CNU XVI in Austin, Texas from April 3-6, 2008. Submissions are welcome on a range of issues and disciplines related to New Urbanism. Selection will be based on the paper's contribution to critical discussion and practice of New Urbanism and for synergies within sessions. Summaries of research results are particularly encouraged.

Coalition for Smarter Growth Awards

The Coalition for Smarter Growth will host its Tenth Anniversary Celebration November 14, 2007 in Washington, DC at the True Reformer Building, with a reception, silent auction, and presentation of the 2007 Capital Region Visionary Awards.

College Sustainability Report Card 2009

GreenReportCard.org is the first website to provide in-depth sustainability profiles for hundreds of colleges in all 50 U.S. States and Canada. Its College Sustainability Report Card is the only independent evaluation of campus and endowment sustainability activities at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.

Colorado Governor’s Awards for Downtown Excellence -- 2005

The Colorado Governor's Awards for Downtown Excellence is an annual program that recognizes the progress being made in revitalizing Colorado's historic downtown and neighborhood business districts and the contributions these districts are making to Colorado's quality of life and economy.

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.

Commonwealth Capital -- Massachusetts

The Commonwealth Capital (CC) policy of the Office for Commonwealth Development (OCD) coordinates Massachusetts capital spending programs that affect development patterns. The state's goal is to invest in projects that are consistent with OCD's Sustainable Development Principles and partner with municipalities seeking to advance the Commonwealth's development and resource protection interests.

Commonwealth Design Awards 2006

Honoring smart growth design, cutting-edge community development, and progressive urban and rural planning in Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth Design Awards recognize design excellence and responsible development in Pennsylvania.

Communities by Design

From the website: Communities by Design is the first in a series of AIA publications addressing livable communities from the architect's point of view. It is meant to stake out the AIA's position and get people to think of architects as integral to livability issues.

Communities by Design Built Works

Built Works, from the American Institute of Architects' (AIA) Center for Communities by Design, is a web resource that demonstrates the expertise architects contribute to community design. Featured projects on Built Works serve as a community design resource and demonstrate the positive impact of thoughtful community design and civic engagement in our nation's communities.

Communities Creating Healthy Environments

Communities Creating Healthy Environments is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) that aims to prevent childhood obesity by increasing access to healthy foods and safe places to play in communities of color. The program will advance RWJF's efforts to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015 by supporting diverse, community-based organizations and federally chartered tribal nations in the development and implementation of effective, culturally competent policy initiatives to address childhood obesity at the local level.

Communities of Tomorrow Partnership

Sustainable community development affects our people, our environment, and our economy. Communities of Tomorrow will make Regina, Saskatchewan a world leader in environmental sustainability, community development and technology commercialization.

Communities Selected for Sustainable Design Assistance -- 2006

The American Institute of Architects' Sustainable Design Assessment Team program brings together multidisciplinary teams of professionals from across the country to provide a road map for communities seeking to improve their sustainability -- as defined by a community’s ability to meet the needs of today without reducing the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

Community Assessment Tools

The Active Living Resource Center offers a collection of community assessment tools on its Web site.

Community Design and Transportation Policies: New Ways to Promote Physical Activity

The Physician and Sportsmedicine, vol.29, no.2. February 2001. Public health and city planning both seek to improve living conditions and health by preventing, identifying, investigating, and eliminating problems that may pose threats to residents' health and welfare. This article asks how can public health, city planning, and transportation officials work toward reducing the burden of physical inactivity.

Community Design Centers

Community Design Centers (CDCs) provide planning, design and technical assistance to low- and moderate-income urban and rural communities, many of which have limited resources.

Community Design for Healthy Eating

Community Design for Healthy Eating: How Land Use and Transportation Solutions Can Help, a research paper from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, examines how community design and transportation flaws have contributed to a decrease in physical activity among Americans and an increase in rate of obesity.

Community Design, Active Living and Public Health

Community Design, Active Living and Public Health makes a compelling case for changes in regional and community design to reverse the growing trend toward obesity and its negative effects on health.

Community Developer's Guide to Improving Schools in Revitalizing Neighborhoods

Community Developer's Guide to Improving Schools in Revitalizing Neighborhoods is a report from Enterprise that shows community developers how to work with school systems to improve individual schools.

Community Development and Smart Growth: Stopping Sprawl at its Source

This paper describes examples of community development projects that have taken shape in explicitly “smart” deliberations with regional authorities and planners.

Community Development Resources

A collection of publications for guidance on Waterways, Landfills, and Traffic and Highway issues.

Community Development: A Guide for Grantmakers on Fostering Better Outcomes through Good Process

Community Development is a guide for funders on the valuable role of collaborative process in community development initiatives. It draws from the lessons learned by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation during twenty years of funding conflict resolution, collaboration, and civic engagement.

Community for a Lifetime -- Michigan

''Community for a Lifetime'' is a statewide community recognition program offered by the Michigan Office of Services to the Aging, in conjunction with the Michigan Commission on Services to the Aging and in cooperation with Michigan State University Extension.

Community Image Survey CD

The Community Image Survey from the Local Government Commission (LGC) is a tool for helping decision-makers and their constituents address community design, land use and transportation issues. It uses visual images to help participants evaluate their existing environment and envision their community's future. Tailored for the needs of each community, the survey provides a foundation for planning and implementation efforts.

Community of Choices

This video focuses on the economic, social, and environmental benefits of preserving community character.

Community Partnership Profiles -- Active Living by Design

The Community Partnership Profiles report reviews each of the 25 community partnership locations selected by Active Living by Design. Facts for each location include summaries of demographic information, description of each project, and its primary areas of focus.

Community Revitalization Funds

The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) provides grant funds to support local initiatives that promote community stability and quality of life through its Community Revitalization Program (CRP).

Community Revitalization Grants

The Surdna Foundation is accepting applications for its Community Revitalization Grants program to support projects that improve the quality and longevity of communities, such as through development that is walkable, environmentally sustainable, and cost-effective.

Community Revitalization Resources -- Honolulu

The City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii, offers a Community Revitalization Unit, providing information, technical support, and technical assistance for communities and organizations within communities that wish to implement projects, programs and activities that will be a positive influence for that community.

Community Revitalization Stories: On Common Ground

The Summer 2005 edition of On Common Ground from the National Association of Realtors turns its focus to revitalization: success stories of rejuvenation in urban areas and inner-ring suburbs.

Community Rules: A New England Guide to Smart Growth Strategies

Written by the Conservation Law Foundation and the Vermont Forum on Sprawl, Community Rules: A New England Guide to Smart Growth Strategies is a guidebook for volunteer board members, planners, concerned citizens, and others who want to achieve smart growth in their communities through better planning, zoning, and permitting. Community Rules is accessible and authoritative, and is chock-full of examples of communities in New England and elsewhere that have laid the groundwork for smart growth through sensible planning, zoning and other strategies.

CommunityViz® Software

CommunityViz® GIS software for land-use planning from Placeways is designed to help people visualize, analyze, and communicate about important land-use decisions. CommunityViz® community planning software provides a real–time interactive environment of 3D visuals, intelligent maps and dynamic analysis tools.

Compendium of Sustainability Indicators

Version two of the Compendium of Sustainable Development Indicator Initiatives is now available online. Use this searchable directory to find initiatives based on location, type, issue areas, and more. Search for topics including quality of life,housing, and transporation.

Complete Streets for Active Communities

Complete Streets for Active Communities is a new fact sheet from the Active Living Resource Center Library, part of the Active Living Resource Center (ALRC).

Complete Streets: Best Policy and Implementation Practices

Complete streets accommodate pedestrians, bicyclists, transit, and cars, creating multimodal transportation networks. But how do communities achieve complete streets? What are the policies and practices that need to be put into place?

Drawing on lessons learned from more than 30 communities around the country, this report provides insight into successful policy and implementation practices that have resulted in complete streets. Readers will learn how to build support for complete streets, adopt a policy, and integrate complete street concepts into plans, processes, and standards. In addition, this report provides insight into design issues, handling costs, and ways of working with various stakeholders. Case studies highlight communities that have adopted and implemented complete streets, and model policy language provides guidance to communities interested in writing and adopting a complete streets policy.

Complete Streets: Best Policy and Implementation Practices is a product of a joint research project of APA and the National Complete Streets Coalition, with model policies prepared by Public Health Law and Policy.

Complete the Streets

Complete streets are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and bus riders of all ages and abilities are able to safely move along and across a complete street. The Complete the Streets website contains information and resources that you can use to help bring complete streets to your community.

Complete the Streets Powerpoint Presentation

Complete streets are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and bus riders of all ages and abilities are able to safely move along and across a complete street. A Complete the Streets PowerPoint presentation is now available for free, courtesy of Michael Ronkin, Oregon Department of Transportation, and Complete the Streets.

Congress for the New Urbanism

CNU is a collaboration of professionals working to reform North America's urban growth patterns. CNU encourages restoration of existing urban centers, reconfiguration of sprawling suburbs into communities of real neighborhoods and diverse districts, conservation of natural environments, and preservation of the built legacy. It works with governmental agencies and neighborhood activists to shape federal, state, and local policy and to promote the importance of neighborhood vitality, place-specific investments, and physical design. CNU is currently collaborating with the SGN to develop a workbook on strategies for infill development, to produce a series of fact sheets on smart growth, and to identify barriers to financing New Urbanist development.

Connecting Florida: Transit + Florida's Economy

New transportation connections within and between the five largest urban regions in Florida – including Miami/Fort Lauderdale, Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg, Orlando, Jacksonville, and Lee and Collier counties – will enhance the long-term economic and environmental sustainability of the entire state, according to this new report from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and its five Florida District Councils.

''Well-planned, integrated transportation systems, including transit, translate into sustainable communities. A sustainable community is also an economically viable one,” observed ULI Southeast lorida/Caribbean Infrastructure Chair Debbie Orshefsky, also a Fort Lauderdale attorney with Greenberg Traurig.

The Connecting Florida examines transit alternatives being built, planned or proposed for each of the state's five major urban regions, which include more than 80 percent of both the state's population and the state’s jobs, and which are expected to absorb at least 80 percent of the five million additional people projected to live in the state by 2030. The systems range from a rejuvenated express bus service in Miami to commuter rail service in central Florida to a federally funded high-speed rail line system connecting Tampa to Orlando and other areas. With use of the limited transit service now available already on the rise, the potential is great for widespread use of the new systems, which will provide much-needed relief to traffic gridlock throughout much of the state, the report says. (Between 2000 and 2007, vehicle miles traveled in the state rose 35 percent, compared to a 17- percent population increase and a 6-percent increase in road lanes.)

''Regionally integrated transit systems coordinated with compact development and metropolitan intensification will benefit not only Florida's economy, but also the state's environment and quality of life,'' Connecting Florida states. ''For a state long associated with tourism and attracting in-migrants, quality of life is one of Florida's most significant economic assets.'' Connecting Florida was prepared as part of the ULI/Curtis Regional Infrastructure Project, supported by ULI trustee James J. Curtis, III, principal at the Bristol Group, Inc. in San Francisco. The project includes research on the relationship between infrastructure and land use, and seeks to position infrastructure as a key component of sustainable communities and a major contributor to economic competitiveness. The ULI district councils in Florida are among several nationwide that are participating in the project. The report notes that the passenger capacity of 400 cars can be accommodated by eight buses or one commuter train. It points to five elements of a regionally integrated transit system:

• Commuter rail and express buses to connect multi-county metro regions
• Light rail and bus rapid transit to expedite movement throughout urban areas
• Local buses and streetcars to connect neighborhoods to regional transit
• Intercity passenger rail and bus service to expand connections between metro regions
• Walkable community design to permit pedestrian access to transit

Connecting Florida highlights the multiple benefits of well–designed, integrated transit systems: 1) more transportation choices for consumers means having to spend less on auto maintenance and gas; 2) high-quality transit lowers expenditures on road use and parking facilities; and 3) transit investments create jobs (every billion dollars of annual spending on transit in the United States generates 36,000 jobs, according to the American Public Transportation Association.)

The viability of the transit systems will hinge in large part on the degree to which the infrastructure systems are planned in coordination with land use planning in the regions, the report states. ''Clustering development around transit stations or stops improves the efficiency of the transit system, allowing for higher-quality service, which with supportive planning and development policies, increases property values,'' the report says.

It points to more concentrated, transit-oriented development as a way to conserve land, preserve the environment, encourage transit use, and create a safe walking environment (each of the five major urban regions are rated as among the nation's highest for pedestrian fatalities, according to the Surface Transportation Policy Project and Transportation for America). In addition, the report notes that more compact development in walkable neighborhoods connected by transit will be the likely preference of the two age groups influencing future housing demand: aging baby boomers trading large homes on large lots for smaller homes on smaller lots; and Generation Y, the highly mobile children of baby boomers who place a high priority on convenience and connectivity.

The report emphasizes the need for a long-term commitment to transportation infrastructure, including local, metro and regional coordination, consistent state government support, and private sector leadership. “Collaborative partnerships will be needed to develop plans, policies, regulations and investment strategies…As the ingredients come together, Florida's metropolitan regions will become more competitive.”

The report can be downloaded at the link below.

Connecting Green Trail Packages

Portland, Oregon park providers, local cities and citizens have worked for decades to establish a network of trails linking parks to local communities and other area attractions. In April 2008 the Metro Council appointed a Blue Ribbon Committee for Trails to take the work the community has developed, evaluate where regional trails fit in the region's priorities and recommend potential strategies for expanding the region's trail network.

Conservation Fund

The Conservation Fund is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting America's land legacy. The fund purchases and protects land--almost 2 million acres since 1985. It also assists local communities, private land owners, and government agencies with a variety of programs that balance conservation with economic development. Current efforts involve sustainable forestry, ecotourism, greenway development, battlefield protection, watershed sensitive design, and community visioning.

Contemporary Debates in Urban Planning

Planetizen announces the release of Contemporary Debates in Urban Planning, a new book featuring thought-provoking commentary and insights from the some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the field.

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 a Regulatory Blueprint for Healthy Community Design

ICMA's consumer guide, Creating a Regulatory Blueprint for Healthy Community Design, is a road map for local government officials and their staff as they consider reforming zoning and development codes to encourage more physical activity in their areas.

Creating a Sense of Place: A Design Guide

Creating a Sense of Place: A Design Guide forms the third in a series of publications produced by Britain's Affordable Rural Housing Initiative, begun in 2003. It is a collaboration between two charitable organizations: Business in the Community and the Foundation for the Built Environment.

Creating a Vibrant City Center

This book from the Urban Land Institute will give you the key planning and design guidelines you need to create a lively, appealing city center in any metropolitan area.

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.

Creating Great Places

Creating Great Places is an initiative of the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) that helps governors design and implement state growth and physical development strategies that promote healthy, economically competitive and sustainable communities.

Creating Great Town Centers and Urban Villages

Creating Great Town Centers and Urban Villages from the Urban Land Institute (2008) is a book that describes the inside story and details on how town centers were developed, what makes them special, and provides facts on costs, rents, land uses, and more.

Creating Inclusive Communities in Florida

Creating Inclusive Communities in Florida is a manual that offers local officials and affordable housing advocates tools for overcoming NIMBYism, or the Not In My Back Yard syndrome.

Creating Livable Places

The Creating Livable Places website is provided by the Southern California Association of Governments to promote more livable communities. The site includes ten case studies of regional communities that have made efforts to become livable communities. The site also provides information and resources related to transportation planning, transit, and growth visioning. A calendar of events and list of related links are also available at the site.

Creating Successful Communities: A New Housing Paradigm

The 16-page brochure from the National Multi Housing Council takes on the conventional wisdom about housing preferences and is recommended for use with local planning and zoning boards or to support state and local advocacy efforts.

Creating Value: Smart Development and Green Design

In Creating Value: Smart Development and Green Design, a new book from the Urban Land Institute, architect Vernon Swaback argues convincingly that financial success in real estate development will increasingly require design that is smarter, greener, and more sustainable.

Creating Walkable Places

Richly illustrated with color photographs, site plans, and diagrams, Creating Walkable Places: Compact Mixed-Use Solutions is a book from the Urban Land Institute that explains how to create pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use developments.

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.

Crossroads Resource Center: Tools for Community Self-Determination

Crossroads Resource Center compiles and distributes data at the neighborhood level useful for community-based and asset-based initiatives in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota.

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.

Dangerous by Design

Dangerous by Design, a new report that ranks the nation’s most dangerous metropolitan areas for walking, concludes that ‘incomplete’ streets are a major culprit in the deaths of thousands of Americans every year. The report, from Transportation for America and the Surface Transportation Policy Project, finds that as many as 40 percent of fatal pedestrian crashes are in places where no crosswalk was available and that arterials designed only for cars are the most dangerous.

The report analyzes the more than 9,000 pedestrian deaths in the U.S. in 2007 and 2008, and its findings are reflected in accounts of pedestrian deaths in the news media. “This report shows that making isolated safety improvements after a crash is not enough,” says Barbara McCann, Executive Director of the National Complete Streets Coalition. “We need Complete Streets policies that ensure that every road is planned and designed from the outset for the safety of everyone who will be using it – whether driving, walking, bicycling, or getting on a bus. Complete streets are not only safe, but help create more attractive, livable communities.”

The report also calls attention to the low levels of investment of federal funds in pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure – less than 1.5 percent of federal transportation dollars over the last few years. We know that a cost-efficient way to improve pedestrian safety is to consider their needs as part of every road project – that is what the Complete Streets Act of 2009 would do. It would require states and Metropolitan Planning Organizations to adopt Complete Streets policies that would apply to federally-funded projects. In essence, this could turn just about every road project into one that improves safety for pedestrians.

For more information and links, visit www.completestreets.org/resources/new-pedestrian-safety-ranking-calls-for-complete-streets.

December 2008 Getting Smart! Newsletter

The December 2008 issue of Getting Smart! is now available for all Smart Growth Network members in the Members Section.

Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance Project Recognition

Do you have a smart growth project on the horizon? Consider submitting an application for either preliminary or final recognition by the Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance.

To be eligible, the project must be located in Eastern or Central Pennsylvania (including Dauphin County), Southern New Jersey (including Mercer County and south) or Delaware, and not yet under construction.

The Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance is a collaborative initiative of more than 200 government, private sector and non-profit organizations in the tri-state region. We support and promote good smart growth projects at the earliest stages by helping them get approved at the local level. Each quarter, applications are reviewed by an independent jury of architects, planners, developers, builders, bankers, engineers, and other related disciplines. Projects recognized to be in compliance with the DVSGA's published smart growth criteria receive a letter of endorsement and an offer of testimony before local approval authorities.

DVSGA recognizes projects that will foster regional growth and redevelopment in a manner that achieves important economic, environmental and quality of life objectives. By highlighting the potential of smart growth projects to add value to the region, the DVSGA hopes to encourage developers, business organizations, citizen groups and elected officials to strive for smart growth solutions.

To date, the DVSGA has granted preliminary and/or full recognition to 26 projects, including most recently a group of affordable infill townhomes in downtown Norristown that will soon be under construction.

Download an application, as well as the criteria and the list of more than 200 supporting organizations and companies and examples of recognized projects, at the link below.

The application deadline for the current round is September 1, 2010.

Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance Recognized Project -- January 2009

The Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance jury provides on its website a list of project applications as good examples of smart growth development in the region. In January 2009 the Alliance recognized the West Chester Hotel of Pennsylvania.

Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance Recognized Project -- July 2008

The Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance jury provides on its website a list of project applications as good examples of smart growth development in the region. In July 2008 the Alliance recognized University Place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance Recognized Projects -- Fall 2007

The Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance jury provides on its website a list of project applications as good examples of smart growth development in the region. Projects receiving preliminary recognition in 2007 include Mountain Manor, Smithfield Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania; and Ellis Preserve Town Center, Newtown Square, Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

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.

Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance Slide Show

The Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance (DVSGA), an initiative of various government, private sector and non-profit organizations in the Greater Philadelphia tri-state region, offers a free educational PowerPoint slide show on its web site.

Delaware Valley Smart Growth Coalition -- Application for Project Recognition

The Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance (DVSGA) is an initiative of various government, private sector and non-profit organizations in the Greater Philadelphia tri-state region encompassing Southeastern Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey, and Delaware. The DVSGA promotes smart growth projects by recognizing proposed projects prior to development approval.

Delaware Valley Smart Growth Projects Recognized

The Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance jury provides on its website a list of project applications as good examples of smart growth development in the region. Projects recognized in 2006 include Bell Point in Sussex County, Delaware, and Pembroke North in Radnor Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

Delaware Valley Smart Growth Projects Recognized -- 2006

The Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance jury provides on its website a list of project applications as good examples of smart growth development in the region. Projects recognized in 2006 include Towne Center at Haddon in Camden County, New Jersey, and The Village at Valley Forge in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

Delaware Valley Smart Growth Projects Recognized -- 2007

The Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance jury provides on its website a list of project applications as good examples of smart growth development in the region. Projects recognized in 2007 include Wyomissing Square, Wyomissing, Berks County, Pennsylvania, and Stafford Park, Stafford Township, Ocean County, New Jersey.

Design and Engineering Image Library

The Design and Engineering Image Library, part of the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center's (PBIC's) Image Library, provides a wealth of images grouped by category that illustrate a broad range of walking and bicycling environments.

Design for Aging

Authored by the American Institute of Architects Design for Aging Center, Design for Aging: Post-Occupancy Evaluations features well-researched post-occupancy evaluations for approximately forty senior living facilities previously featured in the AIA's Design for Aging Review.

Design for Diversity: Exploring Socially Mixed Neighborhoods

Design for Diversity: Exploring Socially Mixed Neighborhoods offers detailed studies of socially diverse neighborhoods and evidence that such neighborhoods are better off than more homogenous neighborhoods. Author Emily Talen's analysis in this book shows planners and urban designers how their work can support diversity.

Design Guidelines to Enhance Community Appearance and Protect Natural Resources

Design Guidelines to Enhance Community Appearance and Protect Natural Resources is a guidebook for citizens, decision-makers, and youth from Michigan Technological University that compares traditional development to a more visually appealing approach that also protects natural and cultural resources. Tools to accomplish the recommended approach are suggested.

Designing Accessible Pedestrian Facilities

Designing Accessible Pedestrian Facilities in the Public Rights-of-Way Series from the Institute of Transport Engineers (ITE) is a series of four individual courses intended to provide practicing traffic and highway engineers, planners and transportation managers with a better understanding of the latest Public Rights-of-Way guidelines developed by the U.S. Access Board, and how they can be applied in better designing sidewalks and intersections to accommodate persons with disabilities.

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 and Building Healthy Places

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has organized a section of its website to focus on ''Designing and Building Healthy Places.''

Designing and Building Healthy Places

The Centers for Disease Control offers this website on health and the built environment. Topics include children's and elders' health, accessibility, and physical activity.

Designing for Active Recreation

Designing for Active Recreation is a fact sheet that summarizes the current state of research into the way community design is related to whether people walk or bicycle to get to where they're going.

Designing Major Urban Thoroughfares for Walkable Communities

This report from the Institute of Transportation Engineers advances the successful use of context sensitive solutions (CSS) in the planning and design of major urban thoroughfares for walkable communities.

Designs and Codes That Reduce Crime Around Multi-Family Housing

This four-page fact sheet from the Local Government Commission that discusses how zoning, codes, and designs have an immediate effect on the safety -- and security -- of multi-family dwellings and neighborhoods.

Designs for Walkable Neighborhoods

This 12-minute video provides an introduction to key design concepts of pedestrian friendly development including: compact, mixed-use development, pedestrian-oriented site design, and traditional neighborhood street design.

Developing Around Transit

Developing Around Transit from the Urban Land Institute breaks new ground by going beyond the typical formula of a master-planned mix of retail, offices, and housing to show a variety of ways to tap the vast prospects of undeveloped and underdeveloped areas around transit stations, whether large scale or small scale, downtown or suburban.

Development Principles and Ordinance Manual for Protecting Nature

The Chicago Wilderness coalition produces a variety of publications for the general public, teachers, decision-makers, scientists and land managers. Sustainable Development Principles: Protecting Nature in the Chicago Wilderness Region is one of their latest publications.

DOT SBIR Phase I Solicitation

The U.S. Department of Transportation requests proposals for the Small Business Innovation Research Program Phase I. Through SBIR, small businesses are invited to submit innovative research proposals that address high priority requirements of the U.S. DOT.

Areas of interest include but are not limited to: Safer, Greener, User-Friendly Bus and Rail Transit; and Expert System Traffic Signal Analysis Tools.

Responses are due November 16, 2009.

Access all information and materials related to the solicitation at the link below.

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.

Downtowns and Town Centers

The Planning Commissioners Journal is the nation's principal publication designed for citizen planners, including (but certainly not limited to) members of local planning commissions and zoning boards. ''Downtowns and Town Centers'' is an index of journal articles on downtown topics such as Farmers' Markets, Historic Preservation Ordinances, Public Buildings, Parking, and more.

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.

Draft Vermont Pedestrian and Bicycle Policy Plan

The State of Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) has developed a draft Vermont Pedestrian and Bicycle Policy Plan to promote bicycling and walking as an integral part of the overall transportation network in Vermont.

Driven to Action: Stopping Sprawl in Your Community

Driven to Action encourages communities to reshape urban areas by helping to set the rules and making plans for sustainable cities.

EcoDensity -- Vancouver

EcoDensity is a concept being discussed with the Vancouver community. In brief, EcoDensity is an acknowledgement that high quality and strategically located density can make Vancouver more sustainable, livable and affordable.

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.

Ecological Riverfront Design

Ecological Riverfront Design puts forth a new vision for the nation's urban riverfronts and provides a set of planning and design principles that will allow communities to reclaim urban river edges in the most ecologically sound and economically viable manner possible.

Economic Development and Smart Growth

Economic development success and smart growth can go hand-in-hand. The International Economic Development Council's (IEDC's) Economic Development and Smart Growth presents eight case studies on communities that incorporated smart growth principles in their development projects and have experienced economic development improvements in the form of increased tax revenue, more jobs, higher income levels, downtown revitalization, business growth, and other indicators of economic success.

Eight Lessons to Promote Diversity in Public Places

In the November 2007 edition of Making Places: News and Ideas from Project for Public Spaces, PPS discusses eight lessons to promote diversity in public places. These lessons represent the findings of a major PPS research initiative, ''Placemaking in a Pluralistic World: Using Public Spaces to Encourage and Celebrate Social Diversity,'' which was carried out during the summer of 2007.

Elder Friendly Communities

Elder Friendly Communities is the third component of the Successful Aging Initiative of the Cleveland Foundation, a multi-phased program that supports and promotes the assets and positive aspects of aging. The Successful Aging Initiative is focused on establishing elder-friendly communities, lifelong learning and development centers, and increased prospects for civic engagement, including meaningful volunteering and post-retirement employment opportunities.

Elder Friendly Communities Program

The Elder Friendly Communities Program supports seniors to connect with each other, contribute to their neighbourhoods, and effectively voice their concerns through senior-led initiatives. The Calgary, Alberta program promotes the use of promising practices for collaborative community development work with seniors as identified through research.

Electronic Green Government Network

The National Association of Counties (NACo) Electronic Green Government Network is a source for information on all things green for county officials, staff, and public and private companies with an interest in learning about county activities in this area.

Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development

This new book provides a refreshing look at how American cities are leading the way toward greener, cleaner, and more sustainable forms of economic development.

In Emerald Cities, Joan Fitzgerald shows how in the absence of a comprehensive national policy, cities like Chicago, New York, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle have taken the lead in addressing the interrelated environmental problems of global warming, pollution, energy dependence, and social justice. Cities are major sources of pollution but because of their population density, reliance on public transportation, and other factors, Fitzgerald argues that they are uniquely suited to promote and benefit from green economic development. For cities facing worsening budget constraints, investing in high-paying green jobs in renewable energy technology, construction, manufacturing, recycling, and other fields will solve two problems at once, sparking economic growth while at the same time dramatically improving quality of life.

Fitzgerald also examines how investing in green research and technology may help to revitalize older industrial cities and offers examples of cities that don't make the top-ten green lists such as Toledo and Cleveland, Ohio and Syracuse, New York. And for cities wishing to emulate those already engaged in developing greener economic practices, Fitzgerald shows which strategies will be most effective according to each city's size, economic history, geography, and other unique circumstances. But cities cannot act alone, and Fitzgerald analyzes the role of state and national government policy in helping cities create the next wave of clean technology growth.

Lucid, forward-looking, and guided by a level-headed optimism that clearly distinguishes between genuine progress and exaggerated claims, Emerald Cities points the way toward a sustainable future for the American city.

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.

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.

Enterprise Foundation Database

This database from the Enterprise Foundation offers searchable categories from financing and housing to child care, workforce development, and community building. Visitors can browse by keyword or category.

Enterprise Resource Database

The Enterprise Resource Database is an extensive library of community-based resources from the Enterprise Foundation. Database categories include regional and neighborhood planning, housing, community safety, finance, and community building.

Environment Program -- Kresge Foundation

The Kresge Foundation is a national foundation that has been advocating environmental conservation for many years, especially through its Green Building Initiative. In June 2008, the Foundation decided to elevate this interest and expand it into a major, comprehensive program -- the Environment Program -- to cultivate solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, accelerate renewable energy technologies, and support efforts to help society adapt to the impacts of climate change.

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 Characteristics of Smart Growth Neighborhoods

This study conducted for NRDC, in cooperation with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, suggests that the environmental benefits of smart growth are real and can be measured. The study focuses on the Metro Square neighborhood in Sacramento, California, and is one of the first to examine a fully completed and occupied development.

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.

Environmental Justice Achievement Awards -- 2008

The U.S. EPA's Environmental Justice Achievement Awards recognize organizations for their success in addressing environmental justice issues or by adopting the goals of environmental justice to positively impact their community.

Environmental Law Institute

For nearly three decades, the Environmental Law Institute has played a pivotal role in shaping the fields of environmental law, policy, and management, domestically and abroad. Today, ELI is an internationally recognized, independent research and education center. The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) Sustainable Use of Land Program is an on-going collaborative program devoted to promoting the sustainable use of urban, suburban, and rural land at the state and local levels. ELI works in collaboration with partners to formulate and implement options for overcoming barriers to sustainable land use found in local,state, and federal law, while developing creative alternatives to promote sound economic, community, environmental, transportation, public infrastructure and other strategies.

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.

Environmental Stewardship and the Green Campus

Colleges and universities are ideally suited to implement sustainability practices through environmental programs, energy conservation, and recycling. Environmental Stewardship and the Green Campus outlines practical steps your campus or institution can take to promote sustainability, including solid waste reduction, water conservation, transportation solutions, new construction, grounds and land use, and more.

Envisioning Better Communities: Seeing More Options, Making Wiser Choices

Randall Arendt's work has shaped a generation of planners, designers, and landscape architects. In Envisioning Better Communities, he brings his insights to a broader public, with a profusely illustrated demonstration of how local officials, planning commissioners, and everyday citizens can work to make their communities more attractive, more habitable, and more sustainable.

Despite the widespread acceptance of good design and planning principles throughout the professions, too many of our towns and rural areas remain needlessly ugly and inefficient. In side by side comparisons of similar places and kinds of buildings, Arendt shows that we need not live amid sprawling, characterless visual blight. Simple design choices and effective municipal decisions can have tremendous impacts on the quality of our communities.

Written in Arendt's well-known clear, accessible, nontechnical style, this book creates a sense of hope for those who face the everyday challenges of working with developers and landowners to create places that make economic, environmental, and aesthetic sense. Arendt shows us that with diligence, thoughtfulness, and care, we can make our communities better in countless ways.

EPA 6th Annual P3 Awards: Student Design Competition

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) invite submissions to the 6th Annual P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability.

EPA Announces New RFP: ''Smart Growth Streets and Emergency Response''

A new grant RFP issued by the U.S. EPA's Development, Community, and Environment Division seeks to bring together emergency response officials, local government officials, transportation experts, and developers to engage in a problem-solving process around the issue of simultaneously meeting the needs for emergency response with the design of smart growth streets. The goal is to create a solution or set of solutions that have the endorsement of these multiple interests and will be applicable nationally across the U.S. and/or in significant regions of the country. The RFP will also support outreach efforts to educate relevant stakeholders nationally.

EPA Announces Winners of the 2004 National Awards
for Smart Growth Achievement

On November 17, EPA announced five winners of the 2004 National Awards for Smart Growth Achievement at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. This Award recognizes outstanding achievement in smart growth by tribal, local, or regional governments in five categories: Overall Excellence, Built Projects, Policies and Regulation, Community Outreach and Education, and Small Communities.

EPA-NOAA Coastal Community Development Partnership

The EPA and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have agreed to work together to help coastal communities grow in ways that benefit the economy, public health, and the environment.

EPA's Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program

The U.S. EPA's Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program (SGIA) is an annual, competitive solicitation open to state, local, regional, and tribal governments (and non-profits that have partnered with a governmental entity) that want to incorporate smart growth techniques into their future development.

EPA's Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program: 2007 Communities

EPA developed the Smart Growth Implementation Assistance (SGIA) program in response to communities' requests for help in achieving their development goals. Through this program, EPA provides technical assistance from private-sector experts to help communities find the best tools and resources to plan for growth in ways that sustain environmental and economic progress and create a high quality of life.

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.

European Urban Knowledge Network

The European Urban Knowledge Network (EUKN) shares knowledge and experience on tackling urban issues. Fifteen EU Member States, EUROCITIES, the URBACT Programme and the European Commission participate in this European initiative.

Evaluation of Smart Growth on the Ground

''Smart Growth on the Ground'' is an innovative program to change the way that development is done in British Columbia by creating real, built examples of smart growth. This unique program helps BC communities to prepare more sustainable neighborhood plans -- including land use, transportation, urban design, and building design plans. Extensive follow-up ensures that the plans become reality.

Excellence on the Waterfront Awards Program -- 2007

The Waterfront Center is inviting entries for its Annual Awards Program, a juried competition to recognize top-quality urban waterfront projects, comprehensive waterfront plans, and outstanding citizen efforts. New in 2007 will be recognition of student waterfront work.

F as in Fat

F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America, 2005 from the Trust for America's Health (TFAH), reports that obesity rates in the United States continued to rise last year in every state but one.

Facing the Future

Facing the Future believes in the transformative power of widespread, systemic education to improve lives and communities, both locally and globally. The organization's positive, solutions-based programming is designed by and for teachers, and effectively brings critical thinking about global issues to students in every walk of life.

Fact Sheet: Making Streets Safe for Bicycling and Walking

America Bikes Complete the Streets, a two-page fact sheet that discusses the inadequacies of many streets for bicycle and pedestrian traffic, the safety risks for those who choose to ride or walk those streets, and ways to accommodate alternate transporation on new street projects.

Fact sheets

Local Government Commission. A series of 4-page fact sheets on livability, traffic safety, crime prevention, planning issues, and more.

Fall 2007 Walking School Bus Program -- Columbia, Missouri

The Columbia, Missouri, PedNet Coalition is hosting a Walking School Bus Program at seven area public elementary schools during the Fall 2007 semester.

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.

FHWA Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Program

The US Federal Highway Safety Administration Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety Program has the goal of reducing these pedestrian fatalities. To accomplish this goal FHWA provides guidance on street and intersection design improvements that promote pedestrian safety.

FHWA Safe Routes to School

The Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Office of Safety offers a web site dedicated to the new Safe Routes to School Program (SR2S). The web site provides preliminary information about the program passed by Congress in 2005.

Financing Greenways

The Environmental Finance Center (EFC) at the University of Maryland features a web resource that includes trail-building cost estimates from several Virginia communities as well as techniques to help partner with community members, raise funds, and seek grants for greenway programs.

Flexible Design of New Jersey's Main Streets

The New Jersey Department of Transportation (DOT) asked the Voorhees Transportation Policy Institute (TPI) to investigate possible changes in design standards for highways passing through New Jersey’s communities.

Florida Department of Health -- Smart Growth Presentation

The Florida Department of Health (FDOH) offers a smart growth presentation that provides an overview of smart growth in the context of public health. This resource emphasizes the connection between public health and the built environment, and how following Smart Growth principles can benefit Florida.

Florida Smart Growth Advocates

1000 Friends of Florida has compiled this list of local advocacy groups that are dealing with the impacts of growth on a daily basis. This online resource contains contact information for more than a dozen organizations.

Focusing Our Vision: Planning for Sustainability in the San Francisco Region

The Vision was created in 2002 by individuals and organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area who believe that the region's population growth can be accommodated in a sustainable way. The Vision calls for the Bay Area to develop as a ''network of neighborhoods,'' where future growth is concentrated near transit and in the existing communities that surround the San Francisco Bay. Focusing Our Vision is the most recent effort to realize the Vision. Referred to as FOCUS, the program's nickname is fitting because it requires a FOCUS of efforts, resources and housing development in areas that will promote the long-term sustainability of the region.

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.

Footloose and Fancy Free -- Walkable Urbanism

Footloose and Fancy Free: A Field Survey of Walkable Urban Places in the Top 30 U.S. Metropolitan Areas from The Brookings Institution is a field survey that attempts to identify the number and location of ''regional-serving'' walkable urban places in the 30 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., where 138 million, or 46 percent, of the U.S. population lives.

For the Greener Good: Public Lecture Series

For the Greener Good is a public series that affirms the National Building Museum's commitment to environmental sustainability. It calls on experts from diverse backgrounds to investigate links between environmental sustainability and design, public health, energy policy, bioscience, infrastructure, education, and even popular culture.

Forum on Children and Nature

The National Forum on Children and Nature is a diverse group of public and private leaders dedicated to reconnecting kids with nature. Hosted by The Conservation Fund hosts and comprised of four governors, three mayors, corporate CEOs, parks officials and others, the Forum's goal is to improve children's health and overall well-being, while encouraging them to rediscover America's landscape.

Foundations and Real Estate

This report from the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities presents 19 stories from foundations that demonstrate the strategic use of varying types of investments a foundation can make toward supporting more thoughtful real estate investment in a region as well as how a foundation might approach such investment.

Four Ways to Genuine Prosperity

New Jersey Future has developed the Four Ways to Genuine Prosperity policy guide for state leaders committed to New Jersey's long-term prosperity. Featuring nearly two years worth of research and policy analysis, the guide also reflects the expertise and advice of many contributors and financial supporters.

Free Transit, Transportation Images for Educational, Noncommercial Use

Transportation Planet seeks to educate viewers about the importance of balanced transportation in reducing car dependency and improving quality of life by using images of balanced transportation-oriented places.

Friends of the High Line

Friends of the High Line (FHL) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and reuse of the High Line, a 1.5-mile-long historic elevated rail structure on the West Side of Manhattan.

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.

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.

Genius of Common Sense: Jane Jacobs and the Story of the Death & Life of Great American Cities

Here is the first book for young people about Jane Jacobs, a heroine of common sense, a woman who never attended college but whose observations, determination, and independent spirit led her to far different conclusions than those of the academics who surrounded her. Illustrated with almost a hundred images, including a great number of photos never before published (with many by Robert Otter), this story of a remarkable woman will introduce her ideas and her life to young readers, many of whom have grown up in neighborhoods that were saved by her insights. It will inspire young people - and readers of all ages - and demonstrate that we learn vital life lessons from observing and thinking, and not just accepting what passes as ''conventional wisdom.''

Getting Density Right

Getting Density Right from the Urban Land Institute is a book that describes tools used to better support compact development, including visioning, planning, and new regulations. Case studies profile the experiences of eight communities, the policy tools they used to encourage compact development, and the development projects built using the new regulations.

Getting Real about Urbanism

How do you create a flourishing, livable place appealing to residents and visitors of all ages, incomes, and backgrounds? Offering a ground-breaking alternative to uniform, ''cookie-cutter'' urban designs, Getting Real About Urbanism is a book that describes techniques for creating ''Real Urbanism'' -- designing places with personality that reflect what is distinctive and original in a neighborhood, district, city, or region.

Getting the Growth You Want: A Citizens Guide to Subdivisions and Smart Growth

Getting the Growth You Want: A Citizens Guide to Subdivisions and Smart Growth is the first of a two-part series from the Montana Smart Growth Coalition and the Great Yellowstone Coalition designed to help communities approve good subdivisions and deny bad ones.

Getting the Message Out: Promoting Active Living

This PowerPoint presentation examines ways to promote active living and pedestrian-friendly elements within communities.

Using examples from Colorado communities, the presentation shows how a vision for active living can be defined in the comprehensive plan, and what language may be used to build these features into local government codes.

Available online at the resource link below.

Getting to Smart Growth

This popular, 100-page primer from the ongoing series by ICMA and the Smart Growth Network describes concrete techniques of putting the ten smart growth principles into practice. The policies and guidelines presented in this primer have proven successful in communities across the United States, and range from formal legislative or regulatory efforts to informal approaches, plans, and programs.

Getting to Smart Growth II

Getting to Smart Growth II: 100 More Policies for Implementation is the newest primer in the ongoing series from the Smart Growth Network and ICMA, and follows on the heels of the extremely popular first volume of Getting to Smart Growth. The publication serves as a road map for states and communities that have recognized the need for smart growth but are unclear on how to achieve it. Spanish language version now available!

Getting to Smart Growth: 100 Policies for Implementation (Spanish Version)

Getting to Smart Growth: 100 Polices for Implementation has been made accessible for Spanish readers and speakers. The document has been translated in its entirety, complete with all policies and practice tips.

Getting to Smart Growth: Puerto Rico

Getting to Smart Growth has been adapted for Puerto Rico. Hacia el desarrollo inteligente: 10 principios y 100 estrategias para Puerto Rico is an adaptation of the popular, 100-page primer from the ongoing series by ICMA and the Smart Growth Network.

Getting Transportation Right for Metropolitan America

This brief details the importance of TEA-21 reauthorization for the nation's metro areas and offers a comprehensive policy agenda for Congress' work on the bill.

Global Age-Friendly Cities

To help cities make the most of an ever growing older population, the World Health Organization (WHO) is releasing the Global Age-friendly Cities Guide in several cities around the world. WHO recognizes that population ageing and urbanization are two global trends that together comprise major forces shaping the 21st century. At the same time as cities are growing, their share of residents aged 60 years and more is increasing.

Global Alliance for Ecomobility

The Global Alliance for EcoMobility was founded by a group of leading organizations on the occasion of the Climate Change Conference in Bali in December 2007. The Alliance works to promote EcoMobility and reduce citizens' dependency on private motorized vehicles worldwide.

Global Planners Network

Recognizing that planners and their organizations throughout the world provide leadership in addressing many societal issues, the Global Planners Network was initiated to further the goal of globally connecting planning groups to assist each other and share best practices.

Global Sustainability Centers: The 20 Cities of 2020

Ethisphere magazine reports on The 20 Cities of 2020 as centers for global sustainability, with an emphasis on how density and mixed-use development provide more advantages for a vibrant, healthy community than subsurban sprawl.

Going to Town: New Urbanism and Neighborhood Success Stories

Going to Town is a special report from the Michigan Land Use Institute (MLUI) that documents newfound interest among northwest Michigan’s developers and government officials in town center developments. Rising gas prices, escalating traffic congestion, and a rapidly growing population wary of both -- and eager for a more sensible, healthier lifestyle -- are fueling that interest. Today traditional-style neighborhood or town center developments are being planned, are already rising, or are now full of satisfied residents not only in larger towns such as Traverse City, Manistee, and Petoskey, but also in villages like Empire and Harbor Springs, and even rural townships like Acme.

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.

Great Cities Initiative

The work of Project for Public Spaces (PPS) is grounded in on-site analysis and offers a unique community-based approach to revitalization. PPS's Great Cities Initiative assembles these services into a step-by-step program that any town, city, or region can systematically apply to improve its neighborhoods place by place.

Great Neighborhoods: How to Bring them Home

The 1000 Friends Great Neighborhoods Project is intended to help teach the residents and developers in Wisconsin about the social, environmental and economic benefits of building compact, mixed-use, aesthetically appealing neighborhoods; and to offer professional and layperson guidance for how to advocate for and create these neighborhoods.

Great Plans, Great Communities

Looking to illustrate the connection between planning and great places? APA's Community-Wide Audio/Web Conference Great Plans, Great Communities provides a striking introduction to planning and makes the case for the importance and wide-ranging benefits of planning.

Great Streets Facilities Plan

This resource from 1000 Friends of New Mexico supports the Albuquerque, New Mexico's Great Streets Facilities Plan as it moves through the current planning phase to adoption by the City Council.

Greater Lansing Go Green Initiative

The Greater Lansing Go Green! Initiative is working to promote environmental and economic health for all those who live, work, and play in Greater Lansing.

Green and Healthy Homes

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requests proposals for the Green and Healthy Homes and Technical Studies Program. Through this RFP, HUD seeks to improve knowledge of the effects residential green construction has on both indoor environmental quality and occupant health, with a particular focus on children and other sensitive populations. It is expected that benefits would be most likely observed for respiratory health outcomes and reductions in irritation-related symptoms.

Some $2.4 million expected to be available, up to 7 awards anticipated.

Responses are due November 17, 2009.

Green Building

In the last few years, there has been a greater recognition within the green building field that sustainability is not just about buildings, but includes a focus on where and how we site our buildings, how the buildings are served by transportation, and the overall health of the communities that these buildings shape.

Green Building Policy in a Changing Economic Environment

Green Building Policy in a Changing Economic Environment is a new report that provides an inventory of policies and best practices intended to help policymakers advance a more sustainable legislative agenda for growth and development. The report also contains detailed case studies of the green building programs in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, Nashville, and Grand Rapids, Mich.

According to the report, the number of U.S. cities with green building programs has increased 50% in two years. Green buildings generally include energy-efficient designs and other sustainable features. Among AIA’s findings, 138 cities have green building programs, compared with 92 cities in 2007, and 24 of the 25 most populated metropolitan regions are built around cities with a green building policy.

The report also notes that DOE's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is providing ''an unprecedented opportunity for the advancement of green building and sustainability efforts in our nation's cities.'' AIA has stated a goal of making all building designs carbon neutral by 2030.

Green Buildings for All

The City of Portland, Oregon's Office of Sustainability has developed this ''G/Rated'' website, a depository of green building technologies, case studies, specifications, and other technical resources.

Green Communities' Green Tour

Take a Green Community Tour with Enterprise's Green Communities. Trolley Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a 40-unit building that incorporates both retail and residential space. The location and neighborhood were chosen to minimize the building's environmental impact as well as to make the best use of available natural light and passive heating and cooling opportunities. The City of Cambridge identified Trolley Square, located on the site of a former trolley storage facility, as a critical location in the revitalization of the neighborhood.

Green Communities News -- October 2008

New opportunities in green affordable housing, sustainable Green Communities projects, and how HUD is promoting energy efficiency are all topics of discussion in the October 2008 Green Communities newsletter from Enterprise.

Green Communities Newsletter -- July 2008

News about winners in the first annual Sustainable Cities Awards program, a call for Congress to pass the Green Resources for Energy Efficient Neighborhoods Act of 2008, and Rebuilding a Greener New Orleans are all topics of discussion in the July 2008 Green Communities newsletter from Enterprise.

Green Community: Essays on Community Health

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.

Green Government Initiative

Launched in 2007, the NACo Green Government Initiative provides comprehensive resources for local governments on all things green, including energy, air quality, transportation, water quality, land use, purchasing and recycling.

Green Government Initiative Publications

NACo's Green Government Initiative Publications are free resources for local governments on all things green, including energy, air quality, transportation, water quality, land use, purchasing and recycling. Includes fact sheets, guidebooks, and case studies of Green Initiatives from throughout the country.

Green Government Initiative Webinar Presentations

NACo has posted presentations from its Green Government Initiative on its website. The presentations and recordings are from seminars, webinars, and workshops beginning with the May 2008 event, ''Green Counties 101.''

Green Gown Awards

Is your institution a leader in sustainability? Are you making positive changes through exciting initiatives? Then get yourself recognized in the leading Sustainability Awards Scheme for universities and colleges across the U.K. Applications for the 2009 Green Gown Awards are now open, and the deadline to have your stage one application received by the Green Gown Awards team is February 27, 2009.

Green Ground Zero International Design Competition

The WTC site in New York City is focus of the Green Ground Zero International Sustainable Design Competition. Entries should focus on ways to ''green'' the buildings that will surround the memorial on the World Trade Center grounds.

Green Infrastructure: A Framework for Smart Growth

This resource introduces the key elements of Green Infrastructure, the network of natural lands, open space, waterways, and smart growth design measures that form the framework for healthy and sustainable communities.

Green Metropolis

Just about everything you think you know about the environment is wrong. Solar panels, electric cars, ethanol, big urban parks, and locavorism aren’t green; traffic jams, congestion, office towers, and crowded cities are. Green is not the country home in Vermont with the compost heap and the photovoltaic panels; it’s the concrete high-rise in New York City.

In a persuasive and provocative challenge to established environmental thinking, David Owen’s Green Metropolis: What the City Can Teach the Country About True Sustainability challenges much of the conventional wisdom about being green and shows how the greenest place in the United States isn’t Portland, Oregon, or Snowmass, Colorado, but New York, New York.

Owen—a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1991—states that while most Americans view congested cities as environmental calamities, with their pollution, garbage, and gridlock, residents of dense urban environments individually drive, pollute, consume, and throw away less than other Americans. Residents of New York City—the most densely populated community in the U.S.—consume less electricity than the average inhabitants of any other part of the country, generate greenhouse gases at a level far below the national average, and rank last in gasoline consumption and first in use of public transportation.

New York City’s environmental efficiencies are the result of its extreme compactness: being forced to live in small spaces sharply reduces opportunities to be wasteful; gridlock and a scarcity of parking spaces makes driving prohibitive while proximity simultaneously renders walking, bicycling, and public transportation viable means of getting around. Put simply, it’s easier to be green in a crowded city. The ecological innocuousness of leafy exurban areas long favored by environmentalists is an illusion—spreading people thinly across the countryside may make them feel greener, but in fact it increases their damage to the environment. In the face of rapidly dwindling nonrenewable resources, we should not look to the country, but to the dense metropolis as a model of true environmentalism.

In a radical departure from environmentalist dogma, David Owen’s Green Metropolis redefines what it means to be green, and offers vital insights into how to make our way to a more sustainable future. In this eye-opening and meticulously researched polemic, Owen argues that sustainability doesn’t depend on the acquisition of fancy new “green” gadgetry or the advent of new energy-related technologies, but on lo-fi solutions already at work in dense cities around the globe. We already have a good idea of what we need to do, or at least how to get started.

Publisher: Riverhead Books. ISBN: 978-1-59448-882-5

Green Playbook

The Playbook, a web-based resource, provides strategies, tips, and tools that cities and counties can use to take immediate action on climate change through: Green building, green neighborhoods, and sustainable infrastructure. The Playbook is designed both for communities that are considering making the first steps toward these, as well as for those who want to take existing efforts to a new level.

Green Space Funding -- Atlanta, Georgia

The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation aims to help develop a system of ''Great Parks'' in Atlanta, tied to the larger vision of how public space connects the entire community. By providing support, the Foundation wants to help create parks and ensure that they are high quality, well-maintained and protected. Most of all, they must be accessible and available to all the citizens.

Green Trails Guidebook

The Green Trails guidebook, published by Portland, Oregon's Metro organization, provides a comprehensive source of information about planning, construction and maintenance of environmentally friendly or ''green trails'' -- trails that avoid or minimize impacts to water resources and fish and wildlife habitat.

Greenbelt Alliance Wins Award for Smart Growth Scorecard

Greenbelt Alliance received the 2007 Education Project Award for its Bay Area Smart Growth Scorecard from the California chapter of the American Planning Association (APA).

Greenbuild 2005 Proceedings

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) offers the Greenbuild 2005 Proceedings CD-ROM, a compilation of events and resources from the 2005 conference.

Greening America's Capitals

Greening America's Capitals is a project of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities between EPA, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to help state capitals develop an implementable vision of distinctive, environmentally friendly neighborhoods that incorporate innovative green building and green infrastructure strategies. This program will assist three to four communities per year, with the first projects beginning in the fall of 2010.

EPA will offer technical assistance by funding a team of designers to visit each city to produce schematic designs and exciting illustrations intended to catalyze or complement a larger planning process for the pilot neighborhood. Additionally, these pilots could be the testing ground for citywide actions, such as changes to local codes and ordinances to better support sustainable growth and green building. The design team and EPA, HUD, and DOT staff will also assist the city staff in developing specific implementation strategies.

The assistance may include, but is not limited to, the following issues:

• Brownfield or infill redevelopment
• Aligning transportation and housing choice
• Climate change response planning
• Engaging disadvantaged communities
• Public art and civic design strategies
• Green and energy efficient building strategies
• Green infrastructure for multiple community benefits

EPA is providing this design assistance to help support sustainable communities that protect the environment, economy, and public health and to inspire state leaders to expand this work elsewhere. Greening America's Capitals will help communities consider ways to incorporate smart growth strategies into their planning and development to create and enhance interesting, distinctive neighborhoods that have multiple social, economic, and environmental benefits.

This design assistance is being made available to all 50 state capital cities, plus the District of Columbia. EPA is soliciting letters of interest from mayors of state capitals. Any city department, office, or agency may submit the letter of interest, but only one proposal should be submitted on a city's behalf.

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.

Greentips Podcasts from Earth Day 2008

The U.S. EPA offers archives of its Earth Day 2008 podcasts (MP3 sound files) on its Earth Day website.

Grid / Street / Place

Today's urban resident is seeking a more flexible, sustainable environment -- representing a unique, diverse, vibrant, and responsible way of living -- as an alternative to the typical development patterns of suburban and semi-urban sprawl. Can urban design help create this type of sustainable urbanism?

Grid / Street / Place presents a unique approach to understanding urban design through scientific, empirical research. The authors examined more than 100 successful projects throughout North America to identify differences and commonalities, and they discovered universal elements that characterize sustainable urban districts. By applying these essential elements, designers and developers can recreate and extend the experience of successful places to their communities.

Myriad plans, sections, diagrams, and charts illustrate how each district works -- at an extremely detailed level. Concrete examples, as opposed to generalities, make Grid / Street / Place a must-read for anyone interested in the working strategies of urban design.

Growing a Healthier DC

Why is green infrastructure important, and how can it be incorporated as business districts grow and schools are renovated, for example? To answer these questions Casey Trees has developed a series of issue briefs, Growing a Healthier DC, that are available for free download on their website.

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 Cooler -- Urban Development and Climate Change

''Growing Cooler: Urban Development and Climate Change'' is a new ''virtual'' workshop from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) that examines the relationship between land use patterns, travel and CO2 emissions. The workshop will demonstrate the impact current development and transportation patterns are having on our environment.

Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change

In Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change, a 2007 book published by the Urban Land Institute, a team of leading urban planning researchers report that the key to mitigating climate change is less auto-dependent development, and that key changes in land development patterns could help reduce vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

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 Safer: Improving Roadways for Everyone

The Spring 2009 issue of the Planning Commissioners Journal from PlannersWeb includes the feature article ''Growing Safer: Improving Roadways for Everyone,'' which looks at the growing number of communities and transportation agencies that have adopted complete streets policies to make their roadways safe and accessible for people of all ages and abilities traveling by all modes -- pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders, as well as drivers.

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 Smarter, Living Healthier: A Guide to Smart Growth and Active Aging

This guidebook is intended for older adults who are interested in how our communities work and how we might help them become more 'age-friendly.' Many of us have longed for the kind of age-friendly neighborhood that has different types of homes for people at different stages of life; walking paths and public transit to make it easy to get around without a car; and parks, shops, services, and homes that are closer together. Older adults are finding that by designing new neighborhoods differently — as well as redeveloping existing neighborhoods and roadways — we can make places that are healthier for ourselves, our neighbors, and the environment. Rather than let aging limit our options, we can actually become more independent by reducing our dependence on the auto, increasing our travel choices, and improving our quality of life right when we've started to have time to enjoy it. We can enrich our own remaining decades, as well as hand off a more sustainable community to future generations. That is, if we decide to do something about it.

In this guide, we address the basic principles of neighborhood and town design. But it is also intended to help you understand why community design matters, and how becoming involved in your community's decisions about growth can make it a better place in which to grow old. You'll find suggestions for ideas to try, and links to resources to learn more about how to remake your neighborhoods to be easier to get around, whether you live in a city, suburb, or small town. We’ll also give you a few ideas for getting involved and staying engaged, providing more housing options and gathering places, eating healthier, and making it easier to carry out your daily activities. After all, our age group spans decades, and some of us are very active, while others have limited mobility.

Active Aging concepts (activities that increase endurance, strength, flexibility, balance, and the principles of injury prevention) can also be built into community design and development to encourage walking, biking, and active use of parks, so that people of all ages get exercise in the course of daily life. This is an image of a group of senior women doing water aerobics in a pool

The first chapter, Staying Active, Connected, and Engaged, outlines why our choices of where and how to live can have an impact on our health and wellbeing. The next three chapters — Development and Housing, Transportation and Mobility, and Staying Healthy — outline strategies and include project examples that address these key issues. Within each chapter, the What You Can Do section provides some ideas for what you can work on with your friends and neighbors. The Conclusion: Next Steps chapter summarizes additional follow-up ideas. In the Resources chapter, you’ll find links to more detailed strategies, websites, and information about each of the ideas discussed in the guide. We included a community self-assessment checklist for you to identify what your community is already doing, and where you might want to focus your energy — so get together, and get moving!

Growing Smarter, Living Healthier: Age-Friendly Neighborhood Design Guidebook

Growing Smarter, Living Healthier is a guidebook from the U.S. EPA intended for older adults who are interested in how our communities work and how we might help them become more ''age-friendly.''

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.

Guide to Complete Streets Campaigns

Washington, DC - June 2, 2010 - In the past four years, the national push for complete streets has caught fire, spreading rapidly from coast to coast. Since 2006, more than 100 state and local jurisdictions have adopted new policies that require transportation projects include safe accommodations for all users, including bicyclists and pedestrians.

To add fuel to this quickly advancing movement, the Alliance for Biking & Walking has released a new edition of its Guide to Complete Streets Campaigns. The 117-page book updates and expands on the 2006 edition, with new complete streets policy examples, samples from current campaigns, and resources for advocates pursuing complete streets.

In many cases, Alliance organizations have led the charge, winning complete streets policies in their states and cities. Jeff Miller, Alliance president/CEO, says this new manual could be a catalyst for groups to kick-start or super-charge a successful campaign in their area.

“This updated guide is a key resource for grassroots advocates pursuing complete streets policies for their states and cities,” Miller says. “This compilation shares the step-by-step actions and lessons learned from peers across the country, making it the most up-to-date and on-the-ground advice for winning complete streets.”

Book Description: Our nation’s transportation system poses significant challenges for the third of our citizens who do not drive. A full 13 percent of traffic deaths are bicyclists and pedestrians, yet most roadways are still being built with only motor vehicles in mind. Complete streets policies require that future transportation projects ensure safe accommodation of all users. Bicyclists, motorists, transit vehicles and users, and pedestrians of all ages and abilities safely and enjoyably travel along and across complete streets. The Alliance for Biking & Walking’s Guide to Complete Streets Campaigns compiles a blueprint for winning a complete streets policy in your city, region, state, or province. Filled with models from past and current campaigns and tips from advocacy leaders in the field, this guide is an indispensable resource for the new or seasoned advocate working towards complete streets.

The Guide to Complete Streets Campaigns is part of a series of Alliance guides, which aim to build the capacity of bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations.

Guide to Complete Streets Campaigns (2006)

The Thunderhead Alliance has completed the second edition of the Guide to Complete Streets Campaigns. This guide is a roadmap to winning a complete streets policy in your jurisdiction.

Guide to Neighborhood Placemaking in Chicago

Guide to Placemaking in Chicago provides basic instruction on Placemaking at the local level and highlights specific examples of citizen-led Placemaking that has already led to sweeping improvements in Chicago neighborhoods. The book encourages citizen action and provides a framework to engage local businesses and government in helping create positive change.

Guide to Transit-Oriented Development

The Minnesota Metropolitan Council's Guide for Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) highlights key ideas about TOD and shows how these ideas have been put to work within the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

Guidelines for Walking School Bus -- Spanish

The Atlanta Bicycle Campaign offers a Walking School Bus Guidelines fact sheet in Spanish. This two-page fact sheet is part of an educational program package designed to promote alternative means for children to get to school.

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.

Guiding Growth and Development in Georgia Handbook

Georgia's land use laws, together with innovative planning and fresh approaches to community engagement, provide the tools needed to build strong communities that are sustainable both economically and environmentally. Guiding Growth and Development in Georgia: A Handbook on Planning and Land Use Law and Practices was created by the Livable Communities Coalition for elected officials and interested citizens. This guide is intended to provide an overview of those planning tools and the laws, terms, and concepts essential for using them wisely.

Harvard Green Campus Initiative: Vision 2020 Event Resources

The ''Harvard Vision 2020: A Bridge to Campus Sustainability'' Conference featured three days of discovery and discussion involving prominent keynote addresses, interdisciplinary panels of faculty, staff, students and alumni, corporate and government leaders, workshops, special events and networking opportunities. Resources from this event are now available online.

Healthy Communities and Environmental Justice

The Conservation Law Foundation's (CLF's) Healthy Communities and Environmental Justice Program works to ensure that New England's communities are vibrant and healthy places for people of all ages, regardless of race, ethnicity, or economic status, today and in future generations.

Healthy Communities Grant Program

The Healthy Communities Grant Program integrates nine EPA New England programs – Assistance & Pollution Prevention: Schools Sector, Asthma, Children’s Environmental Health, Community Air Toxics, Pesticides, Smart Growth, Tools for Schools, Toxics, and the Urban Environmental Program working in partnership to best identify competitive projects that will achieve measurable environmental and human health improvements in communities across New England. The Healthy Communities Grant Program is EPA New England’s main grant program to work directly with communities to reduce environmental risks to protect and improve human health and the quality of life. The Healthy Communities Grant Program will achieve this through identifying and funding projects that: Target resources to benefit communities at risk (environmental justice areas of potential concern, places with high risk from toxic air pollution, urban areas) and sensitive populations (e.g. children, elderly, others at increased risk). Assess, understand, and reduce environmental and human health risks. Increase collaboration through community-based projects. Build institutional and community capacity to understand and solve environment and human health problems. Achieve measurable environment and human health benefits.

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 Community Design Video

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have posted a streaming video, Healthy Community Design, that discusses the benefits of walkable communities as they relate to health, the environment, and social interaction. Dr. Howard Frumkin, Director of the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (NCEH/ATSDR), hosts the video.

Healthy Eating, Active Living Convergence Partnership

In 2006, a collaboration of funders came together to create the Healthy Eating Active Living Convergence Partnership, with the shared goal of changing policies and environments to better achieve the vision of healthy people living in healthy places.

Healthy Kids Healthy Communities

The Local Government Commission (LGC) offers Healthy Kids Healthy Communities, a brochure that provides examples of cities, counties and school districts working together to address childhood obesity. It offers ideas and guidance that will help local government officials leverage community resources and identify opportunities for collaboration, and also provides resources and references to assist policy-makers in developing and implementing new initiatives.

Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities Call for Proposals -- 2009

Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) whose primary goal is to implement healthy eating and active living policy- and environmental-change initiatives that can support healthier communities for children and families across the United States. Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities places special emphasis on reaching children who are at highest risk for obesity on the basis of race/ethnicity, income and/or geographic location.

Healthy Living Resource Guide

This website from the Michigan Department of Community Health and the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness is designed to help communities promote healthy physical activity.

Healthy Places, Healthy People: Promoting Public Health & Physical Activity Through Community Design

October 2001. A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report of a meeting held in November 2000 in Washington, DC, in which 26 experts exchanged information, identified barriers, and formulated possible strategies for reintegrating physical activity into community design.

Healthy Schools, Healthy Communities and Youth Obesity

Healthy Schools, Healthy Communities and Youth Obesity is a report from the the NACo Center for Sustainable Communities that looks at how the effects of obesity are disproportionately felt by certain segments including minorities, the poor -- and youth.

Healthy Streets Campaign

The goal of the Healthy Streets Campaign is to make physically active transportation safe, convenient and fun. The Campaign is working to redesign streets around the needs of people rather than motor vehicles alone. The Healthy Streets Campaign aims to effect a balanced transportation environment that more wisely allocates resources and space to encourage walking, bicycling and public transit -- and re-creates streets to better serve all aspects of community life.

Healthy Transportation Network

The Healthy Transportation Network website provides walking and bicycling safety information -- doing it safely, for everyday transportation, and in supportive environments.

Healthy Urban Design -- UMD Presentation

Healthy Urban Design: Maryland’s Smart Codes and the Pedestrian Environment examines Maryland’s Smart Codes, a state initiative that encourages local communities to adopt principles of Smart Growth. The paper examines the efforts of three communities that participated in the Smart Codes initiative and the potential for these codes to transform the walkability of neighborhoods and town centers.

Helping Johnny Walk to School: Policy Recommendations for Removing Barriers to Community-Centered Schools

School districts are responsible for the education of almost 50 million public school students. Nearly all decisions about the use and location of school facilities are made by local school districts—but the impact of these decisions goes far beyond the school and the education of its students.

This report identifies the larger community interest in decisions about retaining existing schools and deciding where to locate new ones. It describes the states’ role in school siting decisions and identifies state level policy changes that will ensure that educational, environmental, health, community, and fiscal considerations are weighed by communities when school districts make school closing, consolidation, and site selection decisions.

The report was produced through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and with support from Building Education Success Together (BEST).

To download a copy of this report, visit the link below.

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.

Higher-Density Development -- Myth and Fact

Higher-Density Development -- Myth and Fact from the Urban Land Institute examines eight widespread misconceptions about higher-density development and dispels them with well-researched facts and examples of quality, compact developments.

Historic Neighborhood Schools in the Age of Sprawl: Why Johnny Can't Walk to School

National Trust for Historic Preservation. This report looks at how public policies are contributing to mega-school sprawl -- giant education facilities in remote locations that no child can walk to -- and at what citizens and public officials are doing to change them.

Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction

Following five regional competitions, 15 Award-winning projects will now compete in the first global Holcim Awards competition for sustainable construction projects. The global phase of the competition showcases the best entries from more than 1500 submissions from 118 countries, and encourages innovative, future-oriented and tangible approaches within the building and construction industry.

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.

Housing and Transportation Affordability Index

The Housing and Transportation Affordability Index, a pilot pilot project led jointly by Reconnecting America's Center for Transit-Oriented Development and the Center for Neighborhood Technology, integrates housing and transportation costs into a single measure, correcting a pervasive information gap. The index will help local and regional planners understand the housing costs and ''location costs'' of building housing and transportation. Potential home buyers and renters, finance agencies, public and private-sector real estate developers, housing lenders, and secondary market actors can use the index to better understand the full cost of the homes they purchase.

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.

Houstonians Discuss Growth: 3-Part Video

Shaping Our Future Growth, a local, town-hall-meeting-style discussion on improving quality of life in Houston, Texas, is available for video streaming online. This three-part series was aired by Houston 8 PBS television on their ongoing local issues show, ''Houston Have Your Say.''

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 Portland Does It.

The Atlantic Monthly, November 1992. A city that protects its thriving, civil core.

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?''

How to Create a Vibrant Waterfront

This resource from the Project for Public Spaces (PPS) offers 19 tips on how to create a vibrant waterfront, drawing on success stories from around the world.

How to Develop a Pedestrian Safety Action Plan

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (PBIC) have produced this guidebook to help state and local officials address pedestrian safety issues.

How We Live: A NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

The first installment of a new series examining issues affecting people's daily lives. Ray Suarez has the first report which looks at urban sprawl in Atlanta, Georgia.

Available in transcript, streaming video, and RealAudio.

HUD Sustainable Community Regional Planning Grant Program Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA)

Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Program

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced the availability of $100 million for the Sustainable Community Regional Planning Grant program. Key elements of the program include identifying affordable housing, transportation investment, water infrastructure, economic development, land use planning, environmental conservation, energy system, open space, and other infrastructure priorities. Funding is available to support preparation of Regional Plans for Sustainable Development, and at least $25 million is set aside for smaller population regions (populations of less than 500,000).

Proposal submittal deadline is August 23, 2010.

HUD, DOT Create Sustainable Communities Partnership

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan and U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Ray LaHood announced a new partnership to help families gain better access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs.

ICLEI Case Studies Available Online

The ICLEI Case Studies series is now available online. The Series dates back to the late 1990s and chronicle locally-based projects that support sustainability. Each study documents:

• the local context of the project
• the anatomy of the project
• results
• lessons learned
• the project's replication potential
• budgeting and financial

ICMA TV

ICMA TV is a web television channel dedicated to covering the events and issues of importance to International City/County Management Association (ICMA) members. The channel is regularly updated with new films, features and coverage on topics which emerge at home and overseas.

Idaho Grow Smart Awards

Idaho Smart Growth created the Grow Smart Awards program in 2005 to recognize exemplary efforts in planning and development that keep our communities vibrant and our lands healthy.

Idaho Smart Growth Awards

Idaho Smart Growth announced winners of its 2007 Grow Smart Awards at a ceremony held Novermber 15, 2007.

Idaho Smart Growth Awards -- 2008

Now in its fourth year, Idaho Smart Growth's statewide ''Grow Smart'' awards program recognizes the successful use of smart growth principles to encourage vibrant communities and healthy lands through sensible growth. Winners of the 2008 competition are featured on this website.

If You Build It They Will Come -- Transportation Facts

If You Build It They Will Come is a two-page fact sheet from NRDC that describes how smart growth land-use strategies place a premium on what Americans value: shorter trips to and from the office and other destinations, opportunities to travel conveniently without having to drive, pedestrian-friendly sidewalks, and amenities like restaurants, shops, and libraries within walking distance of their homes.

imagineCALGARY plan

What are your hopes and dreams for Calgary's future? By answering these four simple questions, Calgarians began the process of shaping their city's future. Launched in January 2005 with the goal of producing a 100-year vision for Calgary based on what today's Calgarians want their city to look like, more than 18,000 Calgarians have added their voices to imagineCALGARY, making this the largest community visioning process of its kind anywhere in the world.

Implementation Issues for Transit Sensitive Suburban Land Use Design.

Milwaukee, WI: Center for Urban Transportation Studies,1995. Efforts to incorporate public transport service into suburban areas in the United States have had limited success. Travel patterns are highly diverse with trips from many origins to many destinations and few concentrated corridors of demand. Recently, however, there has been an emergence of new approaches to suburban land use design in the United States which is more transit friendly. These include traditional neighborhood development projects, pedestrian pockets and corridor based design. This paper discusses the issues that are involved in the implementation of such techniques

Implementing Smart Growth Streets

The U.S. EPA Office of Development, Community and Environment (widely known as the ''Smart Growth'' office) is sponsoring a study on ''Implementing Smart Growth Streets'' that is being conducted by ICF International and Ellen Greenberg. Readers of Smart Growth Online are invited to participate in this work by bringing candidate case studies to the attention of the project team.

Improving Conditions for Bicycling and Walking

A best practices report that provides information on pedestrian and bicycle projects that have been recognized for increasing walking and bicycling and improving user safety in communities across the US.

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.

Inclusive Pedestrian Environments: Resources and Recommendations

Inclusive Pedestrian Environments, funded by Project ACTION, addresses pedestrian environments as a key factor in the nation's access to and use of public transportation by people with disabilities. The intent was to produce a comprehensive, annotated collection of current materials that address the training of practitioners and the creation, design and maintenance of accessible pedestrian environments that would identify gaps in the current body of knowledge and patterns of training and practice in order to enable ESPA and others to focus future activities.

Increasing Physical Activity Through Community Design

Increasing Physical Activity Through Community Design focuses on how to make communities more bicycle-friendly and walkable.

Index of Smart Growth Scorecards

The Growth Management Leadership Alliance has prepared a resource listing numerous scorecards development by states and cities throughout the U.S. to help determine if a project meets principles of smart growth.

Indiana University Sustainability Podcasts

The Sustainability Podcast Series features sustainability initiatives at Indiana University. These online audio resources covering a variety of topics are available for free.

Innovative Solutions for Creating More Affordable Housing

HUD Secretary Mel Martinez announced the establishment of the Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse (www.regbarriers.org), a new website dedicated to increasing affordable housing opportunities. This groundbreaking project is an exciting opportunity to assist builders and developers in overcoming state and local regulatory barriers to providing more affordable housing.

Institute for Comprehensive Community Development

The Institute for Comprehensive Community Development was established to advance the field of comprehensive community development and the positive impact it has in urban and rural communities across the country. This is done by:

• Building the capacity of community development practitioners;
• Providing on-site support and technical assistance to comprehensive community development initiatives in cities across the U.S.;
• Applying lessons learned through research and performance evaluation to continually improve on-going comprehensive community development initiatives and to develop new initiatives;
• Supporting the development of public policies which integrate government programs in order to effectively facilitate and support comprehensive community development;
• Communicating broadly the best there is in practice and theory in the field of community development.

The Institute is a place where the community development field can take what it learns from practice and use it as a base from which to provide training, to promote research in comprehensive community development, and to investigate the public policies that would best advance this work locally and nationally. The Institute is the locus where practice and theory meet, and where experimentation and innovation – grounded in real-world experience – flourish.

The Institute for Comprehensive Community Development is a venture of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC).

Integrating Planning and Public Health

Integrating Planning and Public Health, published by the APA Planning Advisory Service, examines collaborations between planners and public health professionals committed to building healthy communities. It outlines the five strategic points of intervention at which planners and public health professionals can coordinate their efforts, and uses case studies to illustrate the specific tools used in such collaborations. The report also examines the role of universal design in creating healthy communities.

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.

International City/County Management Association (ICMA)

Founded in 1914, ICMA is the professional and educational association for more than 8,000 appointed administrators and assistant administrators serving cities, counties, other local governments, and regional entities around the world. ICMA is also the organizational ''home'' for the Smart Growth Network, an independent membership organization that assists its members in identifying strategies and tools to protect the health and welfare of their communities through the integration of environmentally sound decision making and economic growth. ICMA also produces the SGN bimonthly newsletter, Getting Smart!

International Making Cities Livable
Mixed Use Design Winner -- 2007

The 2007 International Making Cities Livable Mixed-Use Design Award was presented to Anderson Pacific LLC, in recognition of their significant contribution to reviving the principles of true urbanism in their development of Livermore Village, California.

Intown Living: A Different American Dream

The American dream of a single family home on its own lot is still strong, but a different dream of living and prospering in a major city is beginning to take hold. After decades of abandonment by the middle class, a detectable number of people are moving into urban downtown areas.

Introduction to New Urbanism

Introduction to New Urbanism is a PowerPoint presentation from CNU that introduces the key principles of New Urbanism, describes the growth and development challenges around which the movement has rallied, and provides examples of New Urbanism playing a strong role in improving communities.

Introduction to Smart Growth: More Choices for Our Families

This presentation has been developed through a collaborative project involving individuals and organizations operating under the guidance of Smart Growth America. Research assistance was provided by the U.S. EPA. The presentation is intended to be used by individuals and organizations committed to helping communities achieve the objectives of Smart Growth. If you have any questions about the use of this presentation, please contact John Bailey (jbailey@transact.org) at Smart Growth America.

Is My Community Elder Friendly?

The Elderberry Institute offers a two-page questionnaire, ''Is My Community Elder Friendly?'' that will score a community based on a series of graded questions.

Is Your City a Great City?

The Project for Public Spaces (PPS) offers a checklist on its website that provides benchmarks of a Great City.

Issue Papers from TrailLink 2007

Issue papers from TrailLink 2007, hosted by the by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in August 2007 in Portland, Oregon, are now available online. This event featured the launch of the 2010 Campaign for Active Transportation, a nationwide campaign that aims to elevate biking and walking as mainstream transportation options in communities across America.

JAMA -- Barriers to Children Walking to or from School

The Journal of the American Medical Association reports on barriers to children walking to school in its Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (November 2, 2005).

James Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards Nominations 2009

Nominations are now open for the 2009 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards. This annual competition recognizes individual leaders who are advancing innovative and effective solutions to significant issues in California.

Joint Center For Sustainable Development

The Joint Center for Sustainable Communities is a collaboration between the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) and the National Association of Counties (NACo). Its primary mission is to provide a forum for cities and counties to work together to develop long-term policies and programs that will lead to job growth, environmental stewardship, and social equity the three pillars of sustainable communities. The Joint Center helps local elected officials build sustainable communities by promoting community leadership initiatives, providing technical assistance and training, and conducting community policy and educational forums. It works with the SGN to create programs and resources targeted at local elected and environmental officials to encourage, facilitate, and promote their sustainable communities projects

Jumpstarting the Transit Space Race

ReConnecting America's report Jumpstarting the Transit Space Race: How the New Administration Could Make America Energy-Independent, Create Jobs and Keep the Economy Strong tackles the expansive issue of inadequate transportation facilities in many of the U.S. urban and suburban areas and how a comprehensive program to enhance alternate transportation options could have a positive ripple effect throughout the economy.

June 2008 Getting Smart! Newsletter

The June 2008 edition of Getting Smart! is now available for all Smart Growth Network members in the Members Section. This issue takes a look at the critical role citizens play in advocating for smart growth, and attempt to answer the question, ''What can I do?''

Kaiser Permanente Community Fund

The Kaiser Permanente Community Fund (KPCF) at Northwest Health Foundation was established in late 2004 to advance the health of the communities served by Kaiser Permanente Northwest.

Kansas City's Metro Green: 1,144 Miles of Public and Private Trails, Open Spaces

MetroGreen is a proposed 1,144-mile interconnected system of public and private open spaces, greenways and trails designed to link seven counties in the Kansas City metropolitan area.

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.

Kids on the Move

''Kids on the Move in Halton-Peel,'' a project of The Centre for Sustainable Transportation, was conducted from March through September 2003. The project took its name from the European Union publication Kids on the Move, manual for European local government officials, teachers, and others who want to create better ways of making children's mobility more environmentally sound, safer, healthier, more helpful, and more enriching.

Kids Walk to School

To support the national goal of better health through physical activity, the Center for Disease Control's Nutrition and Physical Activity Program has developed this community-based program that aims to increase opportunities for daily physical activity by encouraging environments in which children can walk to and from school.

KidsWalk-to-School

To support the national goal of better health through physical activity, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Nutrition and Physical Activity Program has developed KidsWalk-to-School. This is a community-based program that aims to increase opportunities for daily physical activity by encouraging children to walk to and from school in groups accompanied by adults.

KnowledgePlex

KnowledgePlex is a comprehensive interactive resource for the affordable housing and community development field. Designed for practitioners, scholars, and policy makers, the website offers practical solutions and innovative ideas, timely news and authoritative information, and collaboration with other housing leaders.

Kodak American Greenways Awards Program -- 2008

The Kodak American Greenways Awards Program, a partnership project of the Eastman Kodak Company, The Conservation Fund, and the National Geographic Society, provides small grants to stimulate the planning and design of greenways in communities throughout America.

Land and People Magazine

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) is offering free subscriptions to its magazine, Land&People, a full-color, semi-annual, national magazine that documents the lands we love and the people who work to protect them.

Land Policy Institute Ask the Expert

Ask the Expert forums at Michigan State University's Land Policy Institute include nine online discussion forums for public dialogue with academic and other experts related to land use, economic development, and sustainability.

Land Use and Driving: The Role Compact Development Can Play in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

This new report concludes that compact development is a key component in efforts to mitigate climate change. Given that the United States will grow by more than 130 million people by 2050, with research showing the majority will continue to choose living in metropolitan areas, land use will continue to be critical to lowering overall greenhouse gas emissions by reducing driving and energy consumption.

Land Use and Driving: The Role Compact Development Can Play in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions summarizes the research and findings of three in-depth studies on land use – Moving Cooler, Growing Cooler, and Driving and the Built Environment. The publication focuses on how the three reports connect land use, driving, and energy consumption. While sprawl has long been recognized for its effects on combined housing and transportation costs, quality of life, and infrastructure, the report points out that more compact development can dramatically have positive environmental implications.

The ULI report identifies the trends in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and shows that there is a potential for reducing VMT by 8 to 18 percent between now and 2050, when compact development makes up at least 60 percent of all future development. According to demographic trends, the development needed to accommodate major metropolitan growth has not yet been built. This presents a major opportunity to shape land use patterns that help curb the development of sprawling, automobile-oriented suburbs. Even though consumer demand will drive the amount of compact development, policy and regulatory changes will be essential for it to work as an effective climate change strategy. While there are financial obstacles and regulatory challenges to compact development, interest and policy support are continually gaining traction in the promotion of more livable, sustainable communities.

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 Use Presentations

MPOs in the Atlanta and San Francisco regions used DOT funds to promote smart growth through planning studies and transportation improvement projects. Learn how they are implementing a regional approach to linking transportation and land use planning through nonprofit and public sector agency efforts.

Landscape Rating System

The Sustainable Sites Initiative has released the nation's first rating system for the design, construction and maintenance of sustainable landscapes, with or without buildings. A partnership of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the U.S. Botanic Garden, the Initiative's rating system represents four years of work by dozens of the country's leading sustainability experts, scientists and design professionals, as well as public input from hundreds of individuals and dozens of organizations to create this essential missing link in green design.

The rating system works on a 250-point scale, with levels of achievement for obtaining 40, 50, 60 or 80 percent of available points, recognized with one through four stars, respectively. If prerequisites are met, points are awarded through the 51 credits covering areas such as the use of greenfields, brownfields or greyfields; materials; soils and vegetation; construction and maintenance. These credits can apply to projects ranging from corporate campuses, transportation corridors, public parks and single-family residences. The rating system is part of two new reports issued from the Initiative, The Case for Sustainable Landscapes and Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009, both available for download at www.sustainablesites.org.

To test the rating system, the Sustainable Sites Initiative opened a call for pilot projects in conjunction with the release of the rating system. Any type of designed landscape is eligible, so long as the project size is at least 2,000 square feet. The call will remain open until February 15, 2010, and the initiative will work with and oversee the projects during the two-year process. More information about the pilot projects is available at www.sustainablesites.org/pilot.

LANDVisions International Design Competition

From September 2005 to February 2006, entrants from around the world are now asked to imagine new possibilities for designing a comprehensive view of Philadelphia's urban fabric that creates a new relationship between ecology and the built environment.

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.

Leadership for Active Living Strategies

One of the most important issues our communities face today is a staggering increase in the rates of obesity and chronic disease. Active living offers an opportunity for leaders to address this issue and to help improve the health and vitality of our communities. The 22-page Action Strategies Booklet lists more than 25 strategies and tactics local and state governments can use to support active living.

Leadership for Healthy Communities

Based in Washington, D.C., Leadership for Healthy Communities is a $10-million national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation designed to support local and state government leaders nationwide in their efforts to reduce childhood obesity through public policies that promote active living, healthy eating and access to healthy foods.

Leadership for Healthy Communities Action Toolkit

Developed by 11 policy-maker associations participating in the Leadership for Healthy Communities program, the Leadership for Healthy Communities Action Toolkit provides targeted strategies, stakeholders, policy and program options, directions on how to start programs, resources that can help inform the process, and examples of how other states and localities have achieved progress.

Learning for Sustainability

Learning for Sustainability is a book from SoL, the Society for Organizational Learning, that was written to spark conversation and encourage dialogue about how to develop the confidence and capabilities to create a world we will be proud to leave our grandchildren.

Learning for Sustainability

Learning for Sustainability is the first New South Wales three-year environmental education plan. It aims to build the capacity of the whole community to be engaged in making environmental improvements and living sustainably.

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.

LEED for Neighborhood Development -- FAQs

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has prepared this Frequently Asked Questions sheet for their LEED for Neighborhood Development program.

LEED for Neighborhood Development -- Public Comment Period

The LEED for Neighborhood Development Rating System integrates the principles of smart growth, urbanism and green building into the first national system for neighborhood design. LEED certification provides independent, third-party verification that a development's location and design meet accepted high levels of environmentally responsible, sustainable development. LEED for Neighborhood Development is a collaboration among U.S. Green Building Council, the Congress for the New Urbanism and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

LEED for Neighborhood Development 2009 -- 1st Public Comment

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) invites the public to participate in the first public comment period for the proposed draft of the LEED for Neighborhood Development 2009 Rating System.

LEED for Neighborhood Development Pilot List

LEED for Neighborhood Development -- the pilot rating system launched jointly by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) is off to a promising start. A total of 238 developments have signed up to participate in the pilot program, which will be the first national certification system for sustainable neighborhood design and development.

LEED for Neighborhood Developments -- Draft for Comment

A preliminary pilot draft of the LEED-ND Rating System under development by the LEED for Neighborhood Developments Core Committee is being made available for comments. The comments made during this period will aid the LEED-ND Core Committee in revising the preliminary pilot draft and producing a draft which will be the LEED-ND Pilot Rating System.

Lifelong Communities: A Regional Guide to Growth and Longevity

Lifelong Communities: A Regional Guide to Growth and Longevity from the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) is a report that documents the results of the Lifelong Communities charrette. It focuses on the core principles that go into making a Lifelong Community: connectivity, good pedestrian access and transit, neighborhood services and retail, opportunities for social interaction, an array of dwelling types, community design that promotes active living and consideration for existing residents.

Lifetime Homes; Lifetime Neighborhoods

The United Kingdom government has published Lifetime Homes, Lifetime Neighbourhoods: A National Strategy for Housing In An Ageing Society, a major new housing strategy giving older people greater choice and addressing the challenges of an ageing population.

Linking Smart Growth and Active Living and Health

This series of PowerPoint presentations were part of a Local Government Commission event examing the connections between community design and active living. Creating Vibrant Neighborhoods for Our Growing Latino Population was held May 2004 in Visalia, California.

Linking the New Economy to the Livable Community.

Palo Alto: Collaborative Economics, April 1998. This paper was written in response to the absence of economy in the discussions about new Urbanism and Livable Communities. Thus this paper aims to interject this concern into the debate, highlighting the economic benefits of livability and smart growth, and defining the place of new urbanism in the new economy.

LISC Grants

Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) provides technical and financial resources to help community development organizations become strong and stable neighborhood institutions characterized by effective and responsible fiscal management and capable of carrying out a range of community revitalization activities. Through its local program offices, LISC provides grant funding to assist organizations develop affordable housing, commercial and retail space, and community facilities, as well as other community development activities.

Livability 101

Livability 101: What Makes a Community Livable? is designed by the American Institute of Architects’ Center for Communities by Design to help public officials, and all others actively engaged in this civic dialogue, understand the basic elements of community design and take advantage of existing tools, strategies, and synergies at the policy, planning, and design levels so that their communities can reach their full potential.

Livability Innovation Fund Grants -- New Mexico

The Local Government Division (LGD) of the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) is the sponsor of this Livability Innovation Fund grant program for enhancing -- through planning and design -- the livability of New Mexico communities.

Livable Centers Initiative

The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) is now accepting applications for the 2005 Livable Centers Initiative (LCI) studies. The LCI Program is open for funding to government jurisdictions and non-profit organizations in the 18-county Atlanta Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) boundaries (includes all of 13 counties and portions of 5 additional counties).

Livable Cities

From the website: The International Making Cities Livable Council (IMCL) is an interdisciplinary, international network of individuals and cities dedicated to making our cities and communities more livable.

Livable Communities Awardees -- 2007

The AARP and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) will present the groups' co-sponsored 2007 Livable Communities Award to two builders, two developers and one remodeler for forward thinking in the field of home and community design. The Livable Communities Award honors builders, developers and remodelers that create attractive, well-designed homes and communities, which are safe, comfortable and accessible for people of all ages and abilities.

Livable Communities for All Ages

The U.S. Administration on Aging (AoA) and the Center for Home Care Policy and Research are now accepting applications for the Models of Livable Communities Competition.

Livable Communities Publications and Resources

The Houston-Galveston Area Council includes on its website a section featuring Livable Communities publications and presentations. These documents, generally available online for free as PDFs and Powerpoints, cover several topic areas and include resources from several local events.

Livable Communities@Work

This new publication series being from the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities focuses on the practical aspects of how we create smarter, more livable communities for all. Each and will highlight successful strategies, explore tensions created by competing issues, and generally help spur informed debate on critical topics.

Livable Houston Video: ''Regional Commuter Rail Connectivity Study''

The findings from a ''Regional Commuter Rail Connectivity Study'' were presented at the Livable Houston Initiative meeting on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC). A video of this presentation is now available online.

Livable Landscapes: By Chance Or By Choice?

Livable Landscapes: By Chance Or By Choice? explores the changing relationship between people and the land in northern New England. This documentary features stories of average citizens taking a stand against sprawl and making postive choices about their communities' growth and change.

LivCom Bursary Award -- 2006

The Bursary Award, part of the Livable Communities Awards, is open, free of charge, to communities participating in the Community Awards. The Award will be made for an initiative that supports the objectives of The LivCom Awards.

LivCom Livable Community Awards -- 2006

The Livable Communities Awards (LivCom) is the world’s only Awards Competition focussing on Best Practice regarding the management of the local environment. The objective of LivCom is to improve the quality of life of individual citizens through the creation of ‘liveable communities’. Registration deadline for the 2006 LivCom Livable Community Awards Awards is May 31, 2006.

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 Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity

''Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity,'' a 2009 report from The National Academies Press, presents a menu of recommended action steps for local government officials to consider in their efforts to prevent childhood obesity in their community.

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.

Local Government Commission

The LGC is a twenty-year-old nonprofit membership organization that offers education, training, and technical assistance to local areas seeking to implement innovative long-term solutions that further economically and environmentally sustainable land use patterns. The LGC began working on land use and community livability issues in 1991 with the drafting of the Ahwahnee Principles for Resource-Efficient Communities. Through its national initiative, the Center for Livable Communities, the LGC offers assistance on key issues, including compact development, infill development, transit-oriented and mixed-use development, and public participation tools. New in 1999 are guidebooks on residential street design and smart economic development. The LGC also produces slide presentations, workshops, and conferences, and through the Center's hotline (800/290-8202), it offers resources, networking, and referrals

Local Planning: Contemporary Principles and Practice

Local Planning: Contemporary Principles and Practice is the all-new edition of the popular book, The Practice of Local Government Planning, which has been the valued resource for preparing for the AICP exam. This new edition helps the reader understand the complexities of planning at the local level, and prepare to make decisions in a challenging environment.

The book:

• Demonstrates the breadth of planning challenges, the diversity of solutions, and lessons from the past
• Describes the historical, governmental, legal, and community context of planning
• Presents the challenges that planners will need to address in the decade ahead
• Provides useful, current examples of leading planning practices
• Helps planners and nonplanners apply well-reasoned strategic thinking in their planning challenges
• Unravels the complexity of planning at the local level to help readers make decisions in a difficult environment
• Helps students of the profession bridge the gap between theory and practice

Local Planning: Contemporary Principles and Practice focuses on emerging issues and future challenges, offering useful, current examples of leading planning practices. The organization and content of the book will help planners and nonplanners who manage the work of planners apply well-reasoned strategic thinking to their planning challenges, and will help students of the profession bridge theory and practice.

Local Tools for Smart Growth: Practical Strategies and Techniques to Improve Our Communities

Stories, tools and lessons learned from communities thoughout the nation on how to employ planning and development policy to improve quality of life and achieve smart growth goals.

Location Efficient Mortgages

The Location Efficient Mortgage (LEM) is a mortgage that helps people become homeowners in location efficient communities. These are convenient neighborhoods in which residents can walk from their homes to stores, schools, recreation, and public transportation. People who live in location efficient communities have less need to drive, which allows them to save money and improves the environment for everyone.

Location Efficient Mortgages Brochure

This brochure provides an overview of Location Efficient Mortgages® (LEM), a program that increases the amount of money homebuyers in urban areas are able to borrow by taking into account the money they save by living in neighborhoods where they can shop at nearby stores and use public transit, rather than driving to work and to the mall.

Loop Lanes.

Planning Commissioners Journal. An innovative alternative to the traditional cul-de-sac can provide shared common open space and other benefits to residents.

Louisiana Speaks Regional Plan

Louisiana Speaks is the long-term community planning initiative of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. The Louisiana Speaks Regional Plan document lays out a clear plan based on Louisianians' aspirations for the future, and it provides specific actions to get there.

Low Carbon Urbanism Campaign

Low Carbon Neighborhoods, High-Quality Living is an initiative from the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) that emphasizes how neighborhoods are one of the best remedies for combating climate change.

M.A. Urban Environmental Leadership

Lesley University's M.A. in Urban Environmental Leadership gives students an opportunity to study the complete picture of the urban environment and gain a understanding of the human forces that shape it.

MA State Sustainability Guide

The Massachusetts State Sustainability Planning and Implementation Guide, written by the State Sustainability Council in collaboration with Program staff, is a guidebook providing agencies with goals and actions that can be taken to initiate and advance sustainability efforts.

Main Street Conference -- Call for Presentations

August 1, 2007 is the deadline for educational educational session proposals for the 2008 National Main Streets Conference. Share your experiences, raise your visibility among industry professionals and help us explore this year's conference theme, ''Enriching Main Street Through Entrepreneurship and Diversity,'' by submitting your proposal today.

Main Street Leadership Awards -- 2008

The 2008 Main Street Leadership Awards were presented to three individuals and organizations that have demonstrated long-term support of the Main Street movement. Award recipients were announced during the Opening Plenary of the National Main Streets Conference in Philadelphia in March, 2008.

''Main Street... when a highway runs through it A Handbook for Oregon Communities''

The Main Street Handbook was created to assist local communities in their efforts to balance often competing interests: the desire for a vital, pedestrian-friendly downtown with the desire for efficient movement of through traffic.

Make Your Community Walkable

AARP's discussion on how to make your community walkable is the topic of this January 2005 web resource.

Making a Difference for Older Adults and the Environment

The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) has produced three case studies that document examples of local government programs and policies fostering healthy communities and lifestyles for older adults by promoting smart growth.

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 Land Development Regulations Work for Smart Growth

This presentation discusses the kinds of land development regulations found in many communities. It explains how outdated land development regulations may inhibit smart growth and how such regulations can be revised to promote it instead. The presentation and all images contained in it may be used for non-commercial, educational purposes. Available in PowerPoint, PDF, and HTML formats. Presented by the Smart Growth Network Partners.

Making Sense of Place: Phoenix, the Urban Desert

Making Sense of Place -- Phoenix: The Urban Desert is a one-hour documentary film about urban growth and change in and around Phoenix, Arizona. In only half a century, Phoenix has expanded from a small desert town into the sixth-largest city in the country.

Making Smart Growth Work

This 170-page book provides an in-depth look at the underlying principles of smart growth, explains how developers and planners have applied them, and how the public and private sectors can collaborate to make smart growth effective.

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 Active Living Communities

This report in ICMA’s active living series provides an introduction to the health impacts of a sedentary lifestyle and the connections between health, community design, and public policy.

March 2008 Getting Smart! Newsletter

The latest issue of Getting Smart! is now available for all Smart Growth Network members in the Members Section. This edition of Getting Smart! examines the unique role that local government managers play in implementing smart growth.

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.

Maryland Safe Routes to School

The Maryland Department of Transportation's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee recently released the Maryland Safe Routes to School Guidebook. The Maryland Department of Health & Mental Hygiene's (DHMH) Center for Preventive Health Services participated in the development of the guidebook.

Maryland Smart Growth Listening Session Online

The State of Maryland has created an online ''listening session'' where residents can provide their views and opinions on the future of growth and development in the state. The online survey takes about 15 to 20 minutes to complete.

Maryland Sustainable Communities Funds

The Maryland Sustainable Communities Initiative -- a collaboration of agencies in the Governor's Smart Growth Sub-Cabinet -- will provide access to new resources for updating local comprehensive plans. For State Fiscal Year 2009, up to $500,000 will be awarded through the Sustainable Communities Initiative. Funds may be used for revisions to existing plans or for specific elements of plans that are new or need to be updated.

Maryland Tool Box

Governor's Office of Smart Growth. This one-stop resource for individuals, communities, builders and environmentalists contains the many programs offered by Maryland State agencies in support of Smart Growth principles and the Maryland Smart Growth Program.

Massachusetts Agency Sustainability Planning and Implementation Guide

The Massachusetts State Sustainability Planning and Implementation Guide is a comprehensive guidance document written by the State Sustainability Council in collaboration with Program staff.

Massachusetts Funding for Smart Growth

The Smart Growth Technical Assistance Grant Program, offered by the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EOEEA), provides grants of up to $30,000 per community to implement smart growth zoning changes and undertake other activities that will improve local and regional sustainable development practices.

May 2007 Getting Smart! Newsletter

The latest issue of Getting Smart! is now available for all Smart Growth Network members in the Members Section. This edition of Getting Smart! focuses on the aging of America and related challenges and opportunities. Featured articles include ''Get Ahead of the Age Wave with Smart Growth,'' ''The Senior Transportation Challenge: Signs of Hope,'' ''Active Living for Older Adults,'' and more, including articles on age-related living in Atlanta; Scottsdale, Arizona; and Central Virginia.

Mayors' Institute on City Design Video

The Mayors' Institute on City Design is a partnership program of the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Architectural Foundation, and the United States Conference of Mayors. This video provides an overview of the organization, illustrating the benefits of shared knowledge in tackling difficult urban design and liveability issues.

Mean Streets 2000

Surface Transportation Policy Project. 2000. This report finds that dangerous streets are discouraging people from walking and may be contributing to serious health problems.

Mean Streets 2004

The Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) has issued Mean Streets 2004, a study reveals that walking remains the most dangerous mode of transportation, and some areas of the country are becoming markedly more dangerous.

Measuring the Air Quality and Transportation Impacts of Infill Development

In Measuring the Air Quality and Transportation Impacts of Infill Development the U.S. EPA illustrates how regions can calculate the transportation and air quality benefits of infill, based on standard transportation forecasting models used by metropolitan planning organizations across the country.

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.

MetroFuture: Updating Boston's Regional Roadmap

MetroFuture is the Boston Metropolitan Area Planning Council's (MAPC) recent initiative to update MetroPlan, the agency's 1990 regional roadmap. This large-scale participatory initiative will develop a vision for the Metro Boston region’s future and a strategy to get there.

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 Safe Routes to School Handbook

The Michigan Safe Routes to School Handbook is a comprehensive resource that will help your school start and sustain a Safe Routes to School program. The Handbook includes information on:

Michigan’s Promoting Active Communities Award

The Promoting Active Communities Award (PAC) is an online assessment of a community’s environments and policies related to promoting and supporting physical activity. Michigan communities that complete the PAC and earn enough points are recognized with a Promoting Active Communities Award at a state-level award ceremony.

Minneapolis Sustainability Indicators

Produced by the City of Minneapolis, this publication list steps to creating a sustainable Minneapolis.

Minnesota Environmental Assistance Grants -- 2009

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has officially announced the opening of the Fiscal Year 2009 Environmental Assistance Grant Round for application. The Minnesota Legislature established this environmental assistance grant program to provide financial assistance in the development of environmentally sustainable practices in Minnesota through voluntary partnerships and goal-oriented, economically driven approaches to pollution prevention and resource conservation.

Missing the Bus: How States Fail to Connect Economic Development with Public Transit

A 50-state survey of economic development subsidy programs -- such as loans, grants, and tax incentives -- reveals that not one single state effectively coordinates its economic development spending with public transportation planning.

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.

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.

Missoula Institute for Sustainable Transportation

MIST, the Missoula Institute for Sustainable Transportation, is a citizen-based non-profit organization based in Missoula, Montana. MIST works mainly on local and regional issues, with an eye on international development. ''Our strength is in our volunteers, interns, working groups and community projects.'' To guide its day-to0day work, MIST has crafted this community vision:

Imagine: Active walking and cycling cultures; extensive transit systems that run on renewable energy; bicycle station and car share options; safe and flowing vehicle movement; networks of greenway corridors that connect people and open space; an awareness and understanding of transportation issues and impacts.

MIST includes the Free Cycles Community Bicycle Program. Leran more about MIST and its activities at the link below.

Mixed Income Transit-Oriented Development Action Guide

The Mixed Income Transit-Oriented Development Action Guide is an online tool designed to help local jurisdictions and planners develop strategies to create mixed-income, transit-oriented development (MITOD) around planned transit stations. This interactive site was developed by the Center for Transit Oriented Development in cooperation with the Federal Transit Administration and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Action Guide walks users through three critical data gathering and analysis components of plan development: Existing Conditions Analysis, MITOD Strategies Analysis, and MITOD Opportunities Analysis. These three areas of analysis are composed of questions—to be answered by the planner—that span several subjects: demographics, housing, real estate markets, land capacity, and neighborhood stability. Each question highlights key information that will be used to help local jurisdictions select and direct policy tools to achieve their MITOD goals.

Mixed-Income Housing Near Transit: Increasing Affordability With Location Efficiency

The latest booklet in the Center for Transit-Oriented Development's series of ''100'' and ''200'' manuals is now available. These booklets explain the theory and best practices of transit-oriented development.

The TOD 201 booklet Mixed-Income Housing Near Transit: Increasing Affordability With Location Efficiency discusses how providing for a mix of incomes in walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods near transit improves the already considerable benefits of having mixed-income neighborhoods by significantly reducing transportation costs.

Creating mixed-income TOD deepens the affordability of housing because families can get by with one less car or no cars -- resulting in the savings of thousands of dollars per household annually.

The book includes 11 strategies for encouraging mixed-income TOD housing, with studies an photos illustrating successful examples.

Model Smart Land Development Regulations

The American Planning Association's (APA's) Research Department has created 11 model Smart Growth Codes for Land Development. The model codes are ordinances and regulations that advance smart growth objectives in towns, cities, and counties. This project goes well beyond promoting the concepts of smart growth and moves into fundamental repair of the regulatory system.

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.

Montana Smart Growth Coalition Checklist

The Montana Smart Growth Coalition has created a quantitative checklist of criteria to determine if a development project is truly smart growth and deserves MSGC's support during permitting and marketing.

Montana's Smart Growth Coalition Checklist

The Montana Smart Growth Coalition has created a quantitative checklist of criteria to determine if a development project is truly smart growth and deserves MSGC's support during permitting and marketing. A developer may use an MSGC endorsement for marketing purposes after the development is half built out.

More Walking and Bicycling Event Proceedings

''More Walking and Bicycling'' is the title of this event, hosted by 1000 Friends of New Mexico on January 21, 2007. Mark Fenton, considered one of the nation's foremost experts on walking for health and fitness, was the guest speaker.

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.

myurbanist blog

The Seattle blog myurbanist provides insight into the city's next steps to encourage placemaking and pedestrian life, with seven principles derived from the author’s examples from Australia, Italy and Malta.

The blog’s author is Chuck Wolfe, Principal of Charles R. Wolfe, Attorney at Law, who practices in Seattle and also teaches at the University of Washington.

NACo Center for Sustainable Communities Awards -- 2005

The National Association of Counties' (NACo) Center for Sustainable Communities has announced the winners of its 2005 awards program, recognizing innovative counties for creative county led partnerships to develop sustainable communities.

NAR Smart Growth Action Grants -- 2009

To increase the effectiveness of state and local REALTOR® association efforts in creating livable communities, the National Association of Realtors' (NAR's) Smart Growth Action Grant program is available to support your efforts to implement programs and activities that position REALTORS® as leaders in improving their communities by advancing smart growth.

NAR Smart Growth Action Grants -- 2010

To increase the effectiveness of state and local REALTOR® association efforts in creating livable communities, NAR’s Smart Growth Action Grant program is available to support your efforts to implement programs and activities that position REALTORS® as leaders in improving their communities by advancing smart growth.

The rational for REALTOR® involvement in local land use issues is compelling: the healthier the community, the more attractive it will be to homebuyers. However, land use issues often require long-term efforts on the behalf of advocates. NAR’s Smart Growth Action Grants are intended to help your association and members initiate and sustain an active role in bringing smart growth development principles to your community.

Education and coalition building are hallmarks of successful smart growth efforts. The grants can be used to further activities to develop a community vision through a community planning workshop or joining a coalition that is working toward a similar community vision. Additionally, grant funds may be used to support green building activities, such as working with state or local officials to develop green building/energy efficiency policies for your community.

Applications are due April 2, 2010.

NAR Smart Growth Grants

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has established a grant program to help members implement programs and activities that position realtors as leaders in improving their communities by advancing smart growth. NAR will consider applications twice in 2005, first-round applications are due to NAR on June 30th.

For more information please visit the resource link below.

NAR Smart Growth Grants -- Spring 2008

To increase the effectiveness of local association efforts in creating livable communities, the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) has established a grant program to assist your efforts to implement programs and activities that position REALTORS® as leaders in improving their communities by advancing smart growth.

National 4-H Council Community Tree Planting Grants

The National 4-H Council offers grants at the community, county, and state level for young people and adults to take action on issues critical to their lives, their families, and their communities. Grant recipients are expected to take the lead in the design of the project, the proposal writing process, implementation, and evaluation of funded projects.

National Association of Counties

NACo is a full-service organization that provides legislative, research, technical, and public affairs assistance to its members. Created in 1935 to provide a strong voice for county officials in the nation's capital, NACo continues to ensure that the nation's 3,072 counties are heard and understood in the White House and in Congress. The association acts as a liaison with other levels of government, works to improve public understanding of counties, serves as a national advocate for counties, and provides counties with resources to help them find innovative methods to meet the challenges they face. NACo is working with the SGN on developing information tailored to the needs of both rural and urban county officials to help them address growth, infrastructure needs, and environmental health.

National Association of Local Government Environmental Professionals

NALGEP is a nonprofit association representing local government officials who are responsible for ensuring environmental compliance and implementing environmental programs. NALGEP's diverse membership includes environmental managers and commissioners, solid waste coordinators, and public works and planning directors. NALGEP has launched the Smart Growth Business Partnership, a project convening corporate leaders and local officials to determine how businesses can support smart growth principles and practices. The project is examining the impacts of sprawl on business and the need for businesses and localities to promote better development practices.

National Award for Smart Growth Achievement -- 2007 Call for Entries

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now accepting applications for the sixth annual National Award for Smart Growth Achievement. This competition is open to public-sector entities that have successfully used smart growth principles to improve communities environmentally, socially, and economically. Entry deadline is April 3, 2007; winners will be recognized at a ceremony in Washington, DC, in November 2007.

National Award for Smart Growth Achievement -- 2008 Call for Entries

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is accepting applications for the seventh annual National Award for Smart Growth Achievement. This competition is open to public-sector entities that have used smart growth principles to improve communities environmentally, socially, and economically. Applications are due on April 7, 2008.

National Award for Smart Growth Achievement 2008

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will present the 2008 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. on November 19, 2008. The Smart Growth Achievement Award recognizes public-sector entities that have used smart growth principles to improve communities environmentally, socially, and economically.

National Award for Smart Growth Achievement: 2009 Call for Entries

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is pleased to announce that applications are now being accepted for the eighth annual National Award for Smart Growth Achievement. This competition is open to public-sector or private sector applicants that have used the principles of smart growth to create better places.

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 Center for Bicycling and Walking Pedestrian Guide

This On-Line Guide outlines some of the typical concerns of pedestrians in the walking environment, and provides information on actions that can be taken by local governments and others to improve conditions for walking.

National Green Building Awards

Do you know of a good candidate for a National Green Building Award? The awards honor advocates, builders, programs, and products in the advancement of the green-home building industry. Six awards in four categories recognize different facets of the residential building community.

National Neighborhood Coalition

NNC promotes a neighborhood focus at all levels of government and throughout society by advocating for programs and policies that foster partnerships between neighborhood organizations, private sector institutions, and government agencies. As a partner in the SGN, NNC is active in research and advocacy. It also convenes member organizations to address the role of neighborhood organizations in smart growth and to relate smart growth to the needs of existing lower-income communities.

National Planning Excellence, Leadership and Achievement Awards Nominations -- 2009

The American Planning Association (APA) will honor outstanding efforts in planning and planning leadership, including cutting-edge achievements and planning under difficult or adverse circumstances, in the 2009 National Planning Excellence, Leadership and Achievement Awards. APA invites you to participate in the celebration of the best in plans and planning by nominating projects and people you think deserving of such recognition.

National Recreation Trails Database

American Trails is working with the National Park Service, the USDA Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the National Recreation Trails Program. The online database contains information on approximately 1,000 National Recreation Trails in all 50 states.

National Smart Growth Conference RFP

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking proposals for organizing a national smart growth conference. This conference will be a multi-disciplinary event that focuses on diverse smart growth issues and attracts a diverse audience of practitioners, researchers and policy makers. This conference should be at least a 3 full days and should be convened in January or February 2009.

National Trails Fund

National Trails Fund grants help give local organizations the resources they need to secure access, volunteers, tools and materials to protect America’s cherished public trails.

National Trust for Historic Preservation

Chartered by Congress in 1949, the National Trust has more than 270,000 members and seven regional offices to help communities preserve their heritage and the livability. The trust promotes downtown revitalization as a major alternative to sprawl through its National Main Street Center as well as through public policy advocacy, conferences, and technical assistance. It has published several books describing techniques for minimizing sprawl and promoting smart growth; these include Smart States, Better Communities (a compendium of ideas for smart growth policies at the state level), Better Models for Superstores: Alternatives to Big-Box Sprawl, and How Superstore Sprawl Can Harm Communities (And What Citizens Can Do about It). SGN members can receive these publications at a discounted rate from the trust.

National Vacant Properties Campaign

Vacant properties and abandoned buildings present communities with complex challenges. Crime, arson and reduced property values are just a few of the problems that vacant properties bring to neighborhoods, and solving these problems is surprisingly difficult.

Natural Resources Defense Council

NRDC is a nonprofit organization with more than 400,000 members nationwide; its mission is to preserve the environment, protect the public health, and ensure the conservation of wilderness and natural resources. NRDC pursues these goals through research, advocacy, litigation, and public education.

Neighborhood Design and Aging

The Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute at North Dakota State University has released Neighborhood Design and Aging: An Empirical Analysis in Northern California, a report that explores residential and travel choices of the elderly.

Neighborhood Scale Planning Tools

Sprawling urban development and auto-dominated streets make it nearly impossible for people to integrate walking or bicycling into their daily routines. As national physical activity levels decrease and obesity rates increase, local leaders are looking for ways to incorporate smart growth or livable communities principles into their general plans so people can safely and conveniently walk and ride a bicycle for transportation and exercise.

While many communities subscribe to livability principles, local governments often encounter difficulty implementing them. All too often the broad ''smart growth'' objectives that are included in a general plan lack the detail and legal framework that is necessary to effectively guide actual development. As a result, development is less compact, and less conducive to walking and bicycling than was originally envisioned. This six page fact sheet offers tips, tools, and case studies to help communities align planning with the implementation of walkable community design.

For more information please visit the resource link below.

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.

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 Audio from 2008 Smart Growth Speaker Series Events Now Available

New audio recordings are now available from seven Smart Growth Speaker Series events at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Audio from the April through October 2008 events can be accessed through the Smart Growth Online website 24 hours a day.

New Community Design to the Rescue

National Governors Association, 2001. This report explains how states and communities can encourage New Community Design -- mixed-use, mixed-income, walkable development that is distinctly different from sprawl -- by eliminating institutional barriers in the marketplace.

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 England Grassroots Environment Fund -- 2008 Small Grants Program Applications

The New England Grassroots Environment Fund (NEGEF) is designed to foster and give voice to grassroots environmental initiatives in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The Fund provides grants to fuel civic engagement, local activism, and social change.

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 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 Geographies of the American West: Land Use and the Changing Patterns of Place

Land Use and the Changing Patterns of Place is a sweeping diagnosis of land use trends in the West and a prescription for better planning and policy decisions. Authored by 2005-2006 Orton Family Foundation Fellow and University of Colorado-Boulder Professor of Geography, William Travis, this is the first book in a series that explores the complex land use issues underlying many of the nation's most pressing social problems while highlighting new models and visions for vibrant and sustainable communities.

New Governors' Institute to Support Leadership in Good Community Design and Sound Planning

Responding to a growing number of requests from states for assistance in managing growth, three former governors with a long history of promoting smart growth -- Christie Whitman (New Jersey--also former EPA Administrator), Parris Glendening (Maryland) and Angus King (Maine) -- today joined EPA and the National Endowment for the Arts in announcing a new Governors' Institute on Community Design. The Institute is intended to support governors' leadership in good community design and sound planning.

New Jersey Future 2006 Smart Growth Awards -- Nominations

New Jersey Future’s Smart Growth Awards honor the town officials, developers, contractors, architects and corporations who have the courage to resist status quo growth patterns and have instead adopted smart growth values and design principles. The deadline for submissions to the 2006 Awards is Friday, January 6, 2006.

New Jersey Future 2006 Smart Growth Awards Winners

New Jersey Future’s Smart Growth Awards honor town officials, developers, contractors, architects and corporate leaders who have the courage to resist status quo growth patterns and instead adopt smart growth values and design principles.

New Jersey Future 2008 Smart Growth Awards Winners

More than 300 guests celebrated New Jersey Future's 7th Annual Smart Growth Awards on June 5, 2008, at the Newark Club in Newark.

New Jersey Future 2009 Smart Growth Awards Winners

More than 300 people attended the 2009 New Jersey Future Smart Growth Awards on June 3, 2009 at the Newark Club, where seven projects were recognized in the 2009 competition.

New Jersey Future Smart Growth Awards 2007 -- Call for Nominations

New Jersey Future's Smart Growth Awards honor plans and developments in all parts of the state that exemplify sound land use practice through the implementation of smart growth principles and the State Development and Redevelopment Plan.

New Jersey Smart Growth Success Stories

The State of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs has produced a webpage featuring success stories from communities that employ smart growth guidelines.

New Jersey's Pedestrian Safety Initiative

In 2006, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, recognizing the link between safety and physical activity, launched a five-year, $74 million Pedestrian Safety Initiative (PSI). The PSI, a partnership between the New Jersey Department of Transportation (DOT), Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC), and the Department of Law and Public Safety, will implement a three-pronged strategy to increase safety for pedestrian users through engineering, education, and enforcement.

New Markets Tax Credit Program to Benefit Urban Commercial Districts

The New Markets Tax Credit is a federal program that offers investors such as local banks a 39 percent tax credit over seven years for loans and equity investments in businesses that serve low- and moderate-income residents.

New Partners for Smart Growth 2006 Conference: Call for Program Ideas

The New Partners for Smart Growth organizers have issued a Call for Program Ideas for their Fifth Annual Conference, to be held in Denver, Colorado, January 26-28, 2006.

New Partners for Smart Growth 2007 Conference: Call for Program Ideas

The New Partners for Smart Growth organizers have issued a Call for Program Ideas for their Sixth Annual Conference, to be held in Los Angeles, California, February 8-10, 2007.

New Partners for Smart Growth 2007 Powerpoints

More than 220 PowerPoint presentations from the 2007 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference are now available on Smart Growth Online, courtesy of the Local Government Commission (LGC).

New Partners for Smart Growth 2008 Powerpoints

More than 230 PowerPoint presentations from the 2008 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference are now available on Smart Growth Online, courtesy of the Local Government Commission (LGC).

New Partners for Smart Growth 2009 Powerpoints

More than 230 PowerPoint presentations from the 2009 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference are now available on Smart Growth Online, courtesy of the Local Government Commission (LGC).

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 Schools Better Neighborhoods: What If

''What If,'' a website and document from New Schools Better Neighborhoods, proposes that schools be designed as the centers of their communities, and allowances made so they can be used for varied events and services.

New Schools for Older Neighborhoods

Local Government Commission. 2002. The case studies highlighted in this report illustrate the need for ''neighborhood-based'' schools and show how they can improve neighborhoods by helping them become more compact, livable and walkable.

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 Tool for Community Stewardship Available for Download

The Economic Profile System (EPS) is a tool for community stewardship. This term describes locally driven initiatives that strive to protect the ecological and cultural values of an area, while meeting a community’s economic and social needs.

New Urbanism and the Booming Metropolis Presentations

Video and presentations from CNU XVI, the Congress for the New Urbanism's April 3-6 event in Austin, Texas, are now available online. Nearly 1500 attendees worked on solutions to climate change, household gasoline dependency, and troubled real estate markets.

New Urbanism Articles

Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) has prepared a 13-page bibliography listing of academic articles about new urbanism.

New Urbanism: Best Practices Guide, 4th Edition

The Fourth edition of New Urbanism: Best Practices Guide is the most comprehensive and up-to-date sourcebook on the ideas and techniques of New Urbanism ever published. Thoroughly revised and substantially expanded by the editors of New Urban News, this brand new book explains how New Urbanism came about, what its principles are, and how it is improving communities in the United States and other countries.

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 Urbanism: Comprehensive Report and Best Practices Guide

This definitive reference on new urban ideas, practices, and projects from New Urban Publications, Inc. includes updates and new sections as well as more than 400 illustrations and tables, projects, plans, and renderings.

New Urbanism: Rx for Healthy Places

Share the opportunities and challenges of designing and retrofitting communities that make it easier for people to live healthy lives at New Urbanism: Rx for Healthy Places is the theme of CNU's 18th annual Congress in Atlanta, set for May of 2010.

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.

New York Land Use and Transportation Products

The New York State Department of Transportation's (NYSDOT) Smart Planning Program has developed a number of tools to help illustrate the link between transportation and land use planning and to educate communities about Smart Growth.

New York Main Street Awardees -- 2007

New York Main Street completed its fourth competitive funding round in 2007, after receiving 64 applications that met basic eligibility requirements from 36 different counties.

New York Parks and Trails Funding

Parks & Trails New York's Capacity Building Grants program for park and trail groups provides grants of up to $3,000 to strengthen not-for-profit organizations that are working to build and protect parks and trails in communities across the state.

New York Quality Communities Awards Nominations 2006

The 2006 New York State Governor's Quality Communities Awards for Excellence is open for entries.

New York State Smart Growth Grants

The New York State Smart Growth website offers a comprehensive list of grant opportunities for New York State.

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.

Niagara Community Design Awards 2005

The Niagara Community Design Awards recognize individuals, projects, and programs for the demonstrated vision, leadership, innovation, and overall contribution to building a more pedestrian-focused and economically vibrant Niagara, by design.

NJ Smart Growth Grants & Awards

The New Jersey Office of Smart Growth offers a website that lists grant information for communities in the Garden State.

Notice of funding availability, open space and preservation initiatives, and award notifications are among the items listed on this online resource.

For more information please visit the resource link below.

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.

Nominations Sought for Minnesota's 2003 Environmental Initiative Awards

Each year the Minnesota Environmental Initiative recognizes five innovative projects that exemplify our focus on collaborative approaches to environmental improvement. Nominations for the 2003 Environmental Initiative Awards are due January 31, 2003.

Nominations Sought for TrailLink 2003 Rail-Trail Design Recognition Award

In an effort to promote creative and innovative designs of rail-trails that will inspire future trail designers and communities, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) and the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) invite nominations for the TrailLink 2003 Rail-Trail Design Recognition Program.

Nonmotorized Pilot Program

SmartMobility is a website that reports on the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program (NTPP), which introduced a network of nonmotorized transportation infrastructure facilities in four selected communities that connect directly with transit stations, schools, residences, businesses, recreation areas, and other community activity centers.

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.

Northeast-Midwest Institute

Northeast-Midwest Institute is a nonprofit research and educational organization that works to enhance economic competitiveness and environmental quality. The institute's Urban Environment Program addresses the dual challenges of redeveloping the urban core while improving the built and natural environment in metropolitan regions. Research topics include site cleanup, transportation, air and water quality, housing, education, and land conservation. The institute is unique among Washington policy centers because of its close working relationship with the bipartisan NortheastMidwest Congressional and Senate Coalitions. Institute activities with the SGN include a workbook and conference on infill development, research on federal barriers to smart growth and urban livability, and brownfield cleanup and redevelopment policies.

November 2007 Getting Smart! Newsletter

The November 2007 issue of Getting Smart! focuses on how economic development can be integrated with smart growth. The economic development argument is often one of the most powerful arguments advocates can make for smart growth.

November 2008 Planning Magazine

The November 2008 edition of Planning, a monthly magazine published by the American Planning Association, is now available. Planning offers news and analyses of events in planning, including suburban, rural, and small town planning; environmental planning; neighborhood revitalization; economic development; social planning; and urban design.

NRDC's Smarter Cities Rankings

Smarter Cities, a project of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), is a multimedia web initiative that provides a forum for exploring the progress that American cities are making in environmental stewardship and sustainable growth.

Nuestro Pueblo: Active Living by Design

A publication of 1000 Friends of New Mexico, Nuestro Pueblo focuses on the places where New Mexicans live and work -- whether it's larger cities or rural communities. 1000 Friends of New Mexico works toward growth management that will benefit people throughout the state, creating plans for the future with respect for our past.

Oakland Pedestrian Master Plan

The vision of the Oakland Pedestrian Master Plan is to promote a pedestrian-friendly environment where public spaces -- including streets and off-street paths -- will offer a level of convenience, safety, and attractiveness to the pedestrian that will encourage and reward the choice to walk.

Ohio Green Communities Funding

Ohio Green Communities is a collaboration of the Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing (OCCH), Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHFA) and the Ohio Department of Development's Office of Energy Efficiency and Enterprise with support from National City Community Development Corporation. The collaborative finances affordable homes in Ohio that promote health, conserve energy and natural resources, and provide easy access to jobs, schools and services.

On Common Ground

The Summer 2006 edition of On Common Ground focuses on the New Urbanism, an urban design movement that aims to reform urban planning and real estate development toward building more human-scaled and walkable communities.

On Common Ground: Transportation

The Summer 2009 edition of On Common Ground, the online magazine of the National Associaton of Realtors, addresses transportation issues in the U.S. and examines opportunities for developing a new national transportation strategy.

One Future, Different Paths

The UK Government and Devolved Administrations has launched their new Strategic Framework, One Future -- Different Paths. This was launched in conjunction with the UK Government's new strategy for sustainable development, Securing the Future.

Ontario Community Sustainability Report

The Ontario Community Sustainability Report -- 2007 was produced by The Pembina Institute to evaluate whether policies and plans that use the language of sustainability are being translated into tangible progress on the ground.

Op-Ed Argues for Fiscal Benefits of Smart Growth

This commentary by Bruce Katz and Mark Muro of The Brookings Institution in The Detroit News contends that fostering more compact development in Michigan and elsewhere makes even more sense in hard times, since reform can save taxpayers money.

Open Space for Tomorrow

This study by the Open Space Institute and the Center for Policy Research at the University at Albany finds that local governments in New York’s Capital District are not prepared to handle the heavy toll of sprawl.

Open Space Seattle 2100

Citizens from civic, environmental, business, neighborhood and community groups have joined with the University of Washington to create a 100-year plan for Seattle's open spaces. This collaborative vision reaches from the city limits to the downtown core, creating a comprehensive network of parks, civic spaces, streets, trails, shorelines, and urban forests that will bind neighborhoods to one another, create ecological conduits from the city's ridgelines to its shorelines, and ensure a wealth of green spaces for all citizens to enjoy.

Opolis -- An International Journal of Suburban and Metropolitan Studies

Opolis is a semi-annual, peer-reviewed publication. The journal is broad-based and multidisciplinary, inviting submissions from fields across the social and natural sciences. Likewise, the methods used in articles are equally varied and cover a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Opolis also profiles applied work that address ways of improving metropolitan growth.

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.

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.

Overcoming Obstacles to Smart Growth Through Code Reform

The Local Government Commission’s Smart Growth Zoning Codes: A Resource Guide is intended to help local officials improve community livability through code reform.

Park Equity and Public Health Toolkit

Many elements of a community's environment affect the health of residents, from air and water quality, to availability of transportation and markets, to walkability and access to parks and recreation opportunities. The Park Equity and Public Health Toolkit from the Trust for Public Land (TPL) is designed to engage and inform community leaders as well as parks and health advocates as they consider the built environment in their communities and its effect on a broad range of issues related to health, social justice, the environment, and quality of life.

Parking Alternatives: Making Way for Urban Infill and Brownfields Redevelopment.

Washington DC U.S. EPA: 1999. This guide is intended to: 1- Alert readers to the significance of the urban parking issue, addressing the perspectives of both city planners and developers; 2- Illustrate the environmental, financial, and social implications of providing an over-supply of parking; and 3- Describe cost-effective, environmentally sensitive alternatives to generic parking requirements, providing case study examples of successful commercial real estate development in areas that have implemented parking alternatives.

Parking Spaces, Community Places: Finding Balance through Smart Growth Solutions

Parking Spaces, Community Places: Finding Balance through Smart Growth Solutions from the U.S. EPA is a report that explores how new, flexible parking policies can help communities encourage growth and balance parking needs with their other goals.

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.

Pathways to Campus Sustainability Webinar Series -- 2008

Environmental Health & Engineering is hosting Pathways to Campus Sustainability, a series of webinars designed to provide you with the most up-to-date tools and knowledge necessary to manage a successful campus sustainability program.

Pathways to Planning

The Vermont Forum on Sprawl has developed, in partnership with the Orton Family Foundation, a sophisticated new online tool that acts as an interactive ''consultant'' to citizens and local planners.

PBIC's Image Library

The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (PBIC) offers a searchable collection of more than 1600 images. Categories include Walking, Bicycling, Design and Engineering, and Traffic Calming and Management.

Pedestrian and Bicycle Facilities in California

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) offers Pedestrian and Bicycle Facilities in California: A Technical Reference and Technology Transfer Synthesis for Caltrans Planners and Engineers.

Pedestrian and Bicycling Funding

The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center's (PBIC's) funding sources page provides guidance to planners, engineers, private citizens, advocates, educators, police enforcement and the health community for help in funding pedestrian and bicycle trail projects.

Pedestrian Facilities Reference Guide

Prepared by the National Center for Bicycling and Walking, this resource guide offers online documents to help design and implement pedestrian facilities.

Pedestrian Facility Guidebook

Guidelines, Fact Sheets and Tools on making communities more pedestrian friendly from the Washington Department of Transportation.

Pedestrian Friendly Planning

The UC Berkeley Traffic Safety Center's mission is to reduce traffic fatalities and injuries through multi-disciplinary collaboration in education, research, and outreach. Their Spring 2004 newsletter examines the link between physical activity and changes to the built environment in light of traffic safety concerns.

Pedestrian Policies and Design Guidelines

The Pedestrian Area Policies and Design Guidelines, produced by the The Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG), a Council of Governments (COG) that serves as the regional agency for the metropolitan Phoenix area, are intended to provide a source of information and design assistance to support walking as an alternative transportation mode.

Pedestrian Safety Programs for Older Adults

The U.S. Department of Transportation invites applications for its Pedestrian Safety Programs for Older Adults.

Pedestrian Safety Workshop Funding

Funding is now available to organizations interested in teaching pedestrian safety workshops focused on older adults in their communities. The Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC) is seeking proposals to fund up to 12 organizations to teach “Pedestrian Safety Workshop: A Focus on Older Adults.” This national course, developed with funding from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), engages communities in addressing pedestrian safety issues that older adults face and provides strategies for improving walking conditions.

Each selected site will be provided $2,500, as well as technical assistance from pedestrian safety experts. To download the RFP, visit the link below. Only government agencies and other not-for-profit organizations are eligible to apply. Project funds are not payable to individuals.

Completed proposals are due Friday May 7, 2010, by 5 PM ET. Applicants should use the Web-based submission process available at the link below. HSRC anticipates selecting the awarded communities in mid-July 2009.

Pedestrians and Bicycles 2006

More than 20 papers on the subject of pedestrians and bicycles are included in Transportation Research Record: The Journal of the Transportation Research Board No. 1982, published by the National Academy of Science.

PedNet

PedNet, the internet mailing list on pedestrian issues, is a joint project of Ottawalk and the Willamette Pedestrian Coalition. Participants include pedestrian advocates, planners and professionals from around the world.

Pennsylvania Rail-Trail Guide

Rails to Trails Conservancy has released the 9th Edition of its Pennsylvania Rails-Trails Guidebook. The 2004 edition provides all the details necessary to enjoy more than 1,200 miles of rail-trail in the Keystone State.

Philadelphia Green City Strategy

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's Green City Strategy calls for significant improvements to the city's open spaces as a means to attract new residents and investment. It also addresses the problem of vacant land and promotes a citywide vacant land greening and management system.

Philadelphia Sustainability Awards 2008

Finalists will be highlighted and the winners will be announced at the Philadelphia Sustainability Awards Ceremony on March 3, 2008 at the Philadelphia Flower Show.

Physical Activity and Health Initiative (PAHI)

California Department of Health Services and in partnership with the University of California, San Francisco, Institute for Health and Aging. The goals of PAHI are to increase physical activity within the population of the state of California, including increasing the proportion of community and neighborhood policies and environments that encourage and support walking and biking.

Picture Smart Growth

This site offers examples of how communities throughout the country are trying to achieve smart growth.

Picturing Smart Growth

Cities and towns across the country are embracing smart growth as a better solution to meet the needs of their growing populations. Picturing Smart Growth from the Natural Resources Defense Council offers images of how 70 U.S. communities could apply smart growth principles that accommodate growth and development while saving open space, revitalizing neighborhoods and helping cool the planet.

Picturing Smart Growth

Cities and towns across the country are embracing smart growth as a better solution to meet the needs of their growing populations.

See NRDC's visions for how 70 U.S. communities could apply smart growth principles that accommodate growth and development while saving open space, revitalizing neighborhoods and helping cool the planet.

Placemaking in a Down Economy

Placemaking in a Down Economy is the topic of this newsletter from Project for Public Spaces (PPS). In the cover story, PPS President Fred Kent discusses how a Placemaking approach to development is emerging as a cost-effective way to revive prosperity in communities across the U.S. and the world, and marks a fresh alternative to the way economic and urban growth have been pursued over recent decades.

Placemaking: Tools for Community Action

This guide provides a starter kit for a community member, city official, planner, or design professional to identify currently available planning tools and to assess their applicability and appropriateness to specific projects or issues, alone or in combination.

Plan-135 -- Introduction to Smart Growth

PLAN-135: Introduction to Smart Growth is a six-month, self-paced course designed for planners, local officials, developers and citizens interested in learning more about smart growth. William Fulton, regarded as one of the nation's leading commentators on urban planning, metropolitan growth, and economic development, provides a thorough introduction to smart growth planning concepts and offers practical analysis of smart growth plans and practices.

Planners Book Service Catalog

Planners Book Service, part of the American Planning Association's website, is the Internet's best source for books, reports, audio and video tapes, computer software, and curricula on planning and related subjects.

Planning Active Communities

Planning Active Communities from the American Planning Association (APA) looks at how planning processes, development regulations, and community participation can be used to ensure that development patterns facilitate everyday physical activity.

Planning and Environmental Law

Planning & Environmental Law is a monthly journal that abstracts the 50 most noteworthy federal and state judicial decisions that pertain to planning and environmental law, and offers commentaries on the wide range of legal topics and issues pertinent to planning and environmental management, authored by the nation’s preeminent scholars and practitioners in the field.

Planning and Urban Design Standards

Planning and Urban Design Standards is a comprehensive sourcebook on everything from regional plans to streetscapes. Edited by the American Planning Association and including extensive illustrations and concise explanations, this book is a quick reference focused on practical applications.

Planning Audioconferences

The American Planning Association and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy offer a series of audio conference programs for training public officials and professionals on planning and development issues. These programs provide a general overview to the topic, provide short case studies of tools and techniques, and offer insight into current trends.

Planning Complete Streets for Aging America

Planning Complete Streets for Aging America from AARP's Policy and Research emphasizes the need for a balanced approach to meeting transportation requirements for all ages.

Planning Magazine, March 2010

The March 2010 issue of Planning finds a ray of hope in the national economy. Read about economic diversity in Michigan, the supermarket as a neighborhood building block, and an excerpt from a new Planners Press book about the essential elements of sustainable design. Members may read the entire issue online. Everyone is invited to read this month's featured article on Maryland's second generation of smart growth.

Planning Policy and Politics: Smart Growth and the States

Updating his two previous books on growth management in the states, John M. DeGrove examines the history and current systems for planning and smart growth in nine states: Oregon, Florida, New Jersey, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, Georgia, Maryland, and Washington.

Planning Your Community's Future

The R/UDAT (pronounced ROO-dat) program is a grassroots approach to help create more livable communities that combines local resources with the expertise of a multidisciplinary team of nationally recognized professionals. The R/UDAT program is offered to communities as a public service of The American Institute of Architects (AIA).

Playbook for Green Buildings and Neighborhoods

The Playbook is a web-based resource that provides strategies, tips, and tools that cities and counties can use to take immediate action on climate change through: Green building, green neighborhoods, and sustainable infrastructure. The Playbook is designed both for communities that are considering making the first steps toward these, as well as for those who want to take existing efforts to a new level.

Policies that Work: A Governors' Guide to Growth and Development

The Governors' Institute on Community Design offers the online resource Policies that Work: A Governors' Guide to Growth and Development. This free resource lays out a systematic approach to smart growth policymaking at the state level. It is designed to provide governors and their staff and cabinet secretaries with hundreds of ideas about policies, administrative actions, and spending decisions that have actually produced smarter growth in other states -- ideas and outcomes that they may be able to replicate in their own states.

Policy Options to Improve Specialized Transportation

The congressional authorization of the surface transportation law, coupled with the growing demand for specialized transportation, presents an opportunity to improve these services for people with mobility limitations. This paper describes specialized transportation; highlights promising practices; and offers policy options for improving these services. Specialized transportation is vital to helping people with mobility limitations live as independently as possible.

The report recommends that policymakers take steps to strengthen coordinated planning, increase support for mobility management, and improve data collection and reporting on these services. Policy options include: increasing overall funding for public transportation, especially specialized transportation; strengthening coordinated planning; continuing to support mobility management; collecting and analyzing smarter data to strengthen programs; expanding program flexibility; and studying the impact of consolidating the Federal Transit Administration’s three specialized transportation programs.

The report is available for free download at the link below.

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.

Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty

Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty is the first major guidebook on peak oil and global warming for local governments in the United States and Canada. It provides a sober look at how these phenomena are quickly creating new uncertainties and vulnerabilities for cities of all sizes, and explains what local decision-makers can do to address these challenges.

Poundbury Series 2009

The Poundbury Series, launched in 2007, is a series of seven lectures and tours which are an essential experience for those involved in the planning, design and building of housing developments in the United Kingdom and beyond.

PowerPoints and Audio: New Partners for Smart Growth 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 more than 60 PowerPoint presentations from select events, or order audio files.

PowerPoints from the 2006 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference

The 2006 New Partners for Smart Growth conference was a national multi-disciplinary event that built on the tremendous success of the first four annual New Partners for Smart Growth conferences, held January 2002 in San Diego, 2003 in New Orleans, 2004 in Portland, and 2005 in Miami.

Conference organizers Penn State and the Local Government Commission (LGC) have made available presentations for most conference sessions as PDF documents in PowerPoint handout format. View presentations from the 2006 New Partners for Smart Growth conference at the resource link below.

Click here to view presentations from the 2005 conference event.

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.

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.

Preserving Opportunities: Saving Affordable Homes Near Transit

Preserving affordable housing near transit means more than simply saving a building -- it means preserving opportunities for low-income families and seniors to access jobs and services. Next to housing, transportation is the second highest household cost for most Americans. Affordable housing located near transit allows families and seniors to live an affordable lifestyle and access employment, education, retail, and community opportunities.

Preserving Opportunities: Saving Affordable Housing Near Transit

Reconnecting America and the National Housing Trust offer Preserving Opportunities: Saving Affordable Housing Near Transit, a report which notes the critical status of affordable housing near transit, and how rental assistance for up to 63% of the examples cited will expire within the next five years.

Prevention Is Primary: Strategies for Community Well Being

Prevention is Primary: Strategies for Community Well Being is an academic text co-edited by Larry Cohen and Sana Chehimi of Prevention Institute along with Vivian Chavez of San Francisco State University. Prevention Is Primary aims to move future practitioners from the margins of prevention to its core by defining the elements of quality prevention efforts, identifying best practices and illustrating the application of prevention principles in a multitude of settings.

Pro Bono Community Planning Team Charrette

In April 2004, the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) sponsored its fourth annual Community Assistance Program community planning charrette in Washington, D.C., the host city for this year's National Planning Conference.

Promising Strategies for Healthy Eating and Active Living Environments

Promising Strategies for Creating Healthy Eating and Active Living Environments offers a comprehensive and cross-cutting review of policy, strategy, and program recommendations to realize this vision. Prevention Institute developed this document for the partnership based on over 200 interviews and conversations with diverse stakeholders and constituencies.

Promoting Active Communities Resource Guide

Promoting Active Communities (PAC) has distilled many policy guidelines to help create a more active community and posted them as a resource guide on their website.

Promoting Active Living Communities

This guide is designed to help you use communication tools to sell your community on the value of active living.

Promoting Energy Efficiency -- Best Practices in Cities

This pilot project from the International Energy Agency (IEA) is the first attempt to address the lack of rigorous and transparent approach to defining best practice in city energy efficiency programmes. The project has provided interesting insights into a range of exciting projects being implemented in cities around the world. However, the potential exists for far greater benefit.

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.

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.

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.

Public Health and the Built Environment

The American Planning Association (APA) has created a talking points webpage on Public Health and the Built Environment. Part of the AIA's Communities by Design program, these talking points provide facts and figures that support the argument for including public health concerns in decisions affecting the built environment.

Putting Schools on the Map: Linking Transit-Oriented Development, Families, and Schools in the San Francisco Bay Area

This new report examines the connections between Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), families, and schools, with a focus on expanding educational opportunities for all children. Taking an exploratory approach to understanding and framing these interconnections, its authors provide a rationale for the linkages at this nexus, presenting ''Ten Core Connections'' between TOD and public education, and highlight five case studies in the San Francisco Bay Area. From these, recommendations are provided for enhancing city-school collaboration in TOD for improved transit use and high-quality educational opportunities.

The report can be downloaded in PDF format from the link below, either with or without appendices.

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.

Qualities of a Great Street

The Project for Public Spaces (PPS) has identified ten qualities that contribute to the success of great streets. Streets account for as much as a third of the land in a city, and historically, they served as public spaces for social and economic exchanges. Great streets incorporate the elements described in the list below.

Rail~Volution 2005 Presentations Online

Rail~Volution has posted on its website more than 130 PowerPoint presentations from its 2005 conference, held in Salt Lake City September 7-10.

Rail~Volution 2005 offered more than 50 workshops addressing nearly every aspect of building livable communities with transit. These workshops 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.

Rail~Volution 2006 Presentations Online

Rail~Volution 2006, held in Chicago, Illinois November 5-8, 2006, offered more than 60 workshops addressing nearly every aspect of building livable communities with transit. These workshops 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.

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.

Rail~Volution 2009: Call for Proposals

Rail~Volution has issued a call for proposals for its 2009 conference, to be held in Boston, Massachusetts, October 30–November 1, 2009. Rail~Volution 2009 will cover the basics and explore emerging topics, ranging from complete streets to value capture to the green economy to high-speed rail.

Rails to Trails Inaugural Green Issue

The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) has released its inaugural ''green'' issue of its magazine, Rails to Trails, an online edition that allows for eco-friendly publishing and outreach.

Rails-to-Trails Trail Link

TrailLink.com is a Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Web site dedicated to providing detailed, up-to-date information on trail access, services and activities.

Rails-Trails Southeast Guidebook

Looking for a level trail where you can enjoy a brisk fitness walk, bike ride, or stroll with the family? All across the country, unused railroad corridors have been converted to public, multiuse trails. Here the experts from Rails-to-Trails Conservancy present the best of these rail-trails in the Southeast.

Rails-with-Trails: Design, Management and Operating Characteristices of 61 Trails Along Active Rail Lines

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. November 2000. This report covers many aspects of rails-with-trails, including the extent and growth of rails-with-trails nationwide, safety performance, liability, trail design and location issues, attitudes of railway companies, obtaining easements for trails, and funding.

Rail-Trail Design Awards

Does your trail have an award-winning design? Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and the American Society of Landscape Architects are proud to present the second Rail-Trail Design Recognition Awards. The awards will be presented at a ceremony during TrailLink 2005, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy's international trails and greenways conference.

RE:Vision -- Changing the World One Block at a Time

How would you rebuild a city block? Where would you start? Where would you end? The Re:Vision Community is here to learn, discuss, share, expound and, ultimately, create a sustainable street that can be the blueprint for cities everywhere.

Realizing the Vision: 2040 Regional Framework Plan

An important new set of tools to help local elected officials and planners make land-use decisions is available from the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC). The 2040 Regional Framework Plan plan is the culmination of an extensive public-involvement process that included 200 workshops where 4,000 participants expressed their vision of how the region should address growth through the year 2040.

Reconnecting Fort Wayne

Fort Wayne, Indiana, faces many challenges today: How to gain and retain new jobs in a changing global economy, how to make the most efficient use of limited natural resources, and how to build a prosperous city for all residents in a way that does not damage the possibility of future generations enjoying continued prosperity. Reconnecting Fort Wayne, a report from the Center for Neighborhood Technology, addresses three major areas of focus for Fort Wayne to achieve its goals: transportation, the knowledge economy, and energy.

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.

Re-Creating Neighborhoods for Successful Aging

The aging of the U.S. population and the rising average life span are transforming current perspectives on growing older, retirement, and senior living communities. To ensure that environments meet the changing needs of older adults, a reconception of housing, communities, and neighborhoods is required. Re-creating Neighborhoods for Successful Aging, a 2008 book from Health Professions Press, provides the foundation for confronting this pressing challenge.

Recreational Trails Nominations

The Coalition for Recreational Trails, a federation of national and regional trail-related organizations, is pleased to announce its 2005 Achievement Awards to recognize outstanding trail projects funded by the national Recreational Trails Program (RTP).

Recreational Trails Program

The U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, offers a Recreational Trails Program Fact Sheet on its website.

Redefining Urban and Suburban America: Volume 3

Redefining Urban and Suburban America: Volume 3 from the Brookings Institution Press describes anew the changing shape of metropolitan America and the consequences for policies in areas such as employment, public services, and urban revitalization.

Redevelopment for Livable Communities ­ Conference Report. Takoma, Washington, 1997.

Using the "D" word (density) often provokes a storm of opposition among neighborhood residents and skepticism about "market demand" among developers. But showing them examples of good redevelopment can generate enthusiasm for creating more walkable compact neighborhoods, and maybe for eliminating a few parking lots.

Reframing the Issues: New Ways of Talking About Affordable Housing and Smart Growth

On Thursday, June 9 at 2 p.m. ET, KnowledgePlex and the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities will present a discussion about new strategies for communicating about affordable housing and smart growth.

Regional Comprehensive Plan: Charting a Course for Southern California's Future

The Regional Comprehensive Plan (RCP) is a problem-solving guidance document that responds to what the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) has learned about the region's challenges through the annual State of the Region report card. Through extensive outreach and input from the RCP Task Force, SCAG's policy committees, subregions, local governments and other key stakeholders, the RCP is a collaborative effort to address our region's challenges and set a path forward.

Regional Conservation Priorities

The Washington Smart Growth Alliance has published Regional Conservation Priorities 2008: A Call to Action, a juried list of programs and projects in the Washington, D.C. are that offer the most promise or of the highest urgency in promoting sustainability in the National Capital Region.

Regional Equity and Smart Growth, 2nd Edition

Regional equity seeks to ensure that individuals and families in all communities can participate in and benefit from economic growth and activity throughout the metropolitan region--including access to high-performing schools, decent affordable housing located in attractive neighborhoods, living wage jobs, and proximity to public transit and important amenities, such as supermarkets and parks.

Regional Smart Growth Platform

The Transportation and Land Use Coalition's (TALC's) partnership of more than 90 organizations works to maintain the San Francisco Bay Area's renowned high quality of life, achieve greater social equity, and protect our natural environment.

Regional Visioning Projects in CA

How is your region planning to accommodate growth in the next fifty years? Check out the highlights of the regional visioning efforts emerging around California and across the nation.

Removing Market Barriers to Green Development

Removing Market Barriers to Green Development is a report from Northeast-Midwest Institute and the Delta Institute that examines what current market dynamics are inhibiting mass adoption of these practices, and what can and should be done to make green development the convention rather than the exception in the U.S.

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.

Request for Information: HUD Sustainable Communities Planning Grant

On April 8, 2010, HUD published a notification requesting entities interested in applying for the Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program to notify HUD of their intent to submit an application. HUD requests that interested organizations call the HUD NOFA Information Center as soon as possible. The NOFA Information Center will ask for your organization name and address, contact name, email, and telephone number. Notification of intent to apply is not a requirement for application, but it helps HUD determine staffing requirements for review and evaluation of applicants. Interested entities are encouraged to begin the grants.gov registration process now as the full five-step process can take two to four weeks to complete.

Applications are expected to be due about June 5, 2010. Eligib