Smart growth encourages communities to craft a vision and set standards for development and construction which respond to community values of architectural beauty and distinctiveness, as well as expanded choices in housing and transportation. It seeks to create interesting, unique communities which reflect the values and cultures of the people who reside there, and foster the types of physical environments which support a more cohesive community fabric. Smart growth promotes development which uses natural and man-made boundaries and landmarks to create a sense of defined neighborhoods, towns, and regions. It encourages the construction and preservation of buildings which prove to be assets to a community over time, not only because of the services provided within, but because of the unique contribution they make on the outside to the look and feel of a city.

Guided by a vision of how and where to grow, communities are able to identify and utilize opportunities to make new development conform to their standards of distinctiveness and beauty. Contrary to the current mode of development, smart growth ensures that the value of infill and greenfield development is determined as much by their accessibility (by car or other means) as their physical orientation to and relationship with other buildings and open space. By creating high-quality communities with architectural and natural elements that reflect the interests of all residents, there is a greater likelihood that buildings (and therefore entire neighborhoods) will retain their economic vitality and value over time. In so doing, the infrastructure and natural resources used to create these areas will provide residents with a distinctive and beautiful place that they can call “home” for generations to come.

Resources

59th annual AIA Honor Awards

The 59th annual Honor Awards will be hosted by The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Seattle chapter on November 9, 2009. The event honors architects for their creative solutions and resourceful projects. With the theme “Improv\Improve,” this year’s Honor Awards will celebrate the agility, inventiveness and foresight architects bring to their work in this era of change – improvising and reacting quickly to new constraints, and going above and beyond to improve the built environment.

AIA Seattle received over 175 submissions — both envisioned and realized — ranging from commercial to residential and beyond. Projects are reviewed by a distinguished jury. Winning projects are first announced at the live Awards presentation. All projects submitted will be available to view online beginning October 20th at the link below.

Tickets also can be purchased online at the link below. Advance ticket sales end at 5pm, Sunday, November 8, 2009. Tickets also are available at the door the night of the event.

$25,000 Scholarship Program -- Yestermorrow Design/Build School

An anonymous donor has created a $25,000.00 scholarship fund at Warren, Vermont's Yestermorrow Design/Build School. Yestermorrow Design/Build School inspires people to create a better, more sustainable world by providing hands-on education that integrates design and craft as a creative, interactive process.

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

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

Housing Policy Debate Journal

Housing Policy Debate (HPD) from the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech is an online journal that provides a venue for original housing and urban affairs research on a broad range of domestic and international topics. Subjects include the analysis of real estate and market trends, land use regulations, and metropolitan development patterns.

Monocle's Top 25 Most Livable Cities

In the July 2009 Metropolis, writer Mason Currey responds to Monocle magazine's annual ranking of the world's top 25 most livable cities -- and finds American cities wanting.

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.

Viewpoints, Scenic America's Quarterly Newsletter

Viewpoints, Scenic America's newsletter, covers the latest developments in scenic conservation.

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.

11 Most Endangered Places Nominations

America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places is the National Trust's annual program to identify and raise awareness of historic sites at risk. Completed nominations for the 2006 program must be postmarked by January 18, 2006.

2004 American Community Survey

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

2004 Most Endangered Sites

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

2005 APA Planning Awards

The American Planning Association (APA) has announced the winners of its 2005 National Planning Awards. These awards honor the cutting-edge achievements of the planning profession and those involved in creating communities of lasting value.

2005 Better Community Awards -- Florida

Each year, 1000 Friends of Florida honors successful efforts to save special places, fight sprawl, and build better communities in our rapidly growing state. The 2005 Better Community Awards recognizes individuals, organizations, public-private partnerships, local governments, and agencies that, through visionary leadership and planning, have brought about positive and lasting change in their community or region or the state.

2005 City Livability Awards

Mayors Gregory J. Nickels of Seattle, Washington, and Douglas H. Palmer of Trenton, New Jersey, have been awarded First Place honors in the 2005 City Livability Awards Program, sponsored by The U.S. Conference of Mayors and Waste Management.

2005 International Awards for Livable Communities

The International Awards for Liveable Communities is the world’s only Competition for local communities that focuses on environmental management and the creation of liveable communities.

2005 Rudy Bruner Awards

The Bruner Foundation has announced winners of the 2005 Rudy Bruner Awards. Projects receiving recognition include the Portland Streetcar Project and downtown Silver Spring revitalization.

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 Sustainable Tourism Awards

Smithsonian magazine and Tourism Cares for Tomorrow will co-sponsor the 5th Annual Sustainable Tourism Awards.

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 Award for Smart Growth Excellence -- New York State

The New York State Association of REALTORS annual Award for Smart Growth Excellence recognizes the successful efforts of communities within our state to incorporate the principles of smart growth into their projects, policies and programs.

2006 Awards for Excellence in Historic Preservation

In an effort to recognize State Historic Preservation Offices and staff for outstanding programs and service, the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers introduced the NCSHPO Awards for Excellence in Historic Preservation. The awards were presented at the 2006 Annual Meeting on March 14.

2006 Conservation Awards Nominations

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) and the National Association of Counties (NACo) announce the second annual County Leadership in Conservation Awards Program, in partnership with the National Association of County Planners and the National Association of County Parks and Recreation Officials. This Award recognizes leadership, innovation, and excellence in local land conservation and park creation by county leaders across America.

2006 Conservation Awards Winners

Six winners and twelve finalists were announced for the second annual County Leadership in Conservation Awards sponsored by the The Trust for Public Land and National Association of Counties (NACo). The Awards recognized leadership, innovation, and excellence in local land conservation and park creation by county leaders across America.

2006 DIFA-Award

The DIFA-Award, launched in 2001, aims to involve policy-makers, those actively involved in urban development and those affected by it in a wide-ranging dialogue on the future of the city. Deadline for the 2006 DIFA-Award is November 30, 2005.

2006 Five Star Restoration Grants

The National Association of Counties, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the Wildlife Habitat Council, in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and other sponsors, are pleased to solicit applications for the 2006 Five-Star Restoration Matching Grants Program.

2006 Green Roof Award of Excellence -- Civic

The Civic Award of Excellence will be presented to a person (in North America) who through a substantiated action has advanced the public policy debate on green roofs. The 2006 contest has been extended to accept nominations until March 15th, 2006 (midnight EST).

2006 Green Roof Award of Excellence -- Research

The Green Roof Award of Excellence in Research honors a person or research team who has made an outstanding contribution to the field of green roof research in North America. The nomination process is open to the private and public sector. The contest has been extended to accept nominations until March 15th, 2006 (midnight EST).

2006 Lindbergh Foundation Awards

The Lindbergh Foundation administers several awards and events each year to fulfill its mission. The Foundation offers the Lindbergh Award to an individual for his or her significant contributions toward the Lindbergh's vision of a balance between technological advancement and environmental preservation. An annual event is held around the time in May when Lindbergh took-off on his famous New York-to-Paris flight, and takes place in different cities around the United States.

2006 Main Street Award Winners

The National Trust for Historic Preservation announced the winners of the 2006 National Main Street Awards, which include the Main Street Leadership Awards and Great American Main Street Awards, at the opening plenary session of National Main Streets Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, in June 2006.

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 National Land Conservation Awards

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) and the National Association of Counties (NACo) have named six counties in the 2006 County Leadership in Conservation Awards, recognize leadership, innovation, and excellence on local land conservation and park creation initiatives by county leaders across America.

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.

2006 Yoshiyama Award for Exemplary Service to Community

The Hitachi Foundation presents the Yoshiyama Award for Community Service each year to ten high school seniors from throughout the United States on the basis of their community service activities. The Nomination process for the 2006 Award closes April 3, 2006.

2007 AFT Steward of the Land Award -- Profile

Sandy and Rossie Fisher of Brookview Farm in Manakin-Sabot, Virginia, have received American Farmland Trust's (AFT's) 2007 Steward of the Land Award for their leadership in farmland protection and environmental stewardship.

2007 APA Colorado Chapter Awards

Winners of the 2007 APA-Colorado Chapter Awards will be recognized Thursday, October 4, 2007 during the chapter's annual conference award's banquet in Colorado Springs.

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 Better Community Awards Nominations -- Florida

Each year, 1000 Friends of Florida honors successful efforts to save special places, fight sprawl, and build better communities in this rapidly growing state. The 2007 Better Community Awards will recognize individuals, organizations, public-private partnerships, local governments, and agencies that, through visionary leadership and planning, have brought about positive and lasting change in their community or region or the state.

2007 Better Community Awards Winners -- Florida

1000 Friends of Florida has announced winners of its 2007 Better Community Awards competition.

2007 Environmental Quality Awards

The EPA's Region 2 Environmental Quality Awards honor non-profit, environmental and community groups, individual citizens, environmental education and business organizations and members of the news media. The honor is given to those individuals or organizations that have made significant contributions to improving the environment in EPA Region 2.

2007 Farm Policy Reform: Creating Healthy Farms, Healthy Food and a Healthy World

2007 Farm Policy Reform: Creating Healthy Farms, Healthy Food and a Healthy World outlines the American Farmland Trust's ambitious and comprehensive campaign to strengthen American agriculture and expand the public benefits of U.S. farm policy.

2007 National Planning Awards -- Call for Entries

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

2007 Regional Conservation Priorities List

The Washington Smart Growth Alliance is now accepting nominations for its 2007 Regional Conservation Priorities List. Last year's inaugural Regional Conservation Priorities List garnered over 20 spots in the local media, including an editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

2007 School Planning Awards

The Council of Educational Facility Planners (CEFPI) presents its 84th Annual International Conference in Toronto, Ontario, October 6-9, 2007. This event will include an awards ceremony honoring exceptional planning and inspired architectural design of high quality learning environments.

2007 Sustainability Award Winners -- Berkeley

The Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Sustainability (CACS) at the University of California-Berkeley presents the annual Sustainability Award to outstanding members of the Cal Community.

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.

2008 Accredited Land Trusts

The Land Trust Accreditation Commission, an independent program of the Land Trust Alliance, awarded accreditation to 39 land trusts from across the country at its 2008 inaugural awards ceremony. This is a milestone for the land conservation community.

2008 AFT Steward of the Land Award -- Profile

American Farmland Trust is proud to recognize Nash Huber of Nash's Organic Produce as our 2008 Steward of the Land. The award recognizes Huber for his leadership in protecting agricultural land, local food and the environment.

2008 AIA Honors and Awards Recipients

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has posted on its website a comprehensive list of all Honors and Awards recipients for 2008.

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 Better Community Awards -- Florida

1000 Friends of Florida has announced winners of its 2008 Better Community Awards competition.

2008 Better Community Awards Nominations -- Florida

Each year, 1000 Friends of Florida honors successful efforts to save special places, fight sprawl, and build better communities in this rapidly growing state. The 2008 Better Community Awards will recognize Florida's leading citizens, public servants, programs and communities that are contributing to an enhanced quality of life in this state.

2008 Comprehensive Planning Grants -- Wisconsin

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle has announced comprehensive planning grants for 149 local governments throughout Wisconsin, 1000 Friends of Wisconsin reports. This funding will help communities develop and adopt locally created plans to address long-term needs, promote economic development, and guide future land use decisions.

2008 Evergreen Cities Act -- Washington State

The 2008 Evergreen Cities Act (Washington State, HB 2844) was signed into law by Governor Christine Gregoire on April 1, 2008. This landmark legislation represents a commitment by the State of Washington to improving its urban forests.

2008 John W. Gardener Leadership Award Nominations

Submit your nominations now for the 2008 John W. Gardner Leadership Award, which recognizes an individual whose leadership in or with the nonprofit community has been transformative and who has mobilized and unified people, institutions, or causes that improve lives.

2008 National Planning Awards

The American Planning Association and its professional institute, the American Institute of Certified Planners, have announced the nine recipients of the 2008 National Planning Excellence, Achievement, and Leadership Awards.

2008 National Preservation Awards

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has announced the 21 recipients of the 2008 National Preservation Awards at its national conference, held this year in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

2008 National Preservation Conference Speeches

Speeches from the 2008 National Preservation Conference are now available on the National Trust for Historic Preservation website. If you missed any of these key sessions, or just want to revisit a great talk, streaming audio from the Plenary Sessions and Special Lectures can be accessed at your convenience.

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.

2008 Sustainability Award Winners -- Berkeley

The Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Sustainability (CACS) at the University of California-Berkeley presents the annual Sustainability Award to outstanding members of the Cal Community. Winners of the 2008 competition are featured on the CACS website.

2008 UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development Speaker Series

Ecofoot, the official website of the Office of Campus Sustainability at Michigan State University, provides a listing for its 2008 UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development Speaker Series. Participating in the Fall 2008 speaker lineup are Ritu Primlani, Richard Louv, and Tom Princen.

2009 City Park Facts

2009 City Parks Facts is a report published by the Trust for Public Land that has methodically researched urban parks across the United States and created a database on acreage, facilities, staffing, budgets, usership, and more. This information is then broken in to sections throughout the report with information such as acres of parkland by city or agency, total spending on parks per resident by a selected city, a series of top 10 lists for facilities (dog parks, pools, skateboard parks etc.) per 10,000 residents, and interesting parks with notable statistics such as most visited, oldest and largest. Information for over 20,000 individual parks for the 77 largest cities in the United States has been collected for this report.

The Trust for Public Land is a national non-profit land conservation organization that conserves land for people to enjoy. Since 1972, the Trust for Public Land has worked with landowners, community groups, and national, state and local agencies to complete more than 3,900 land conservation projects in 47 states. Since 1994, they have helped states and communities pass over 330 ballot measures, generating almost $25 billion in new conservation related funding.

2009 Detroit Community Development Awards

The 2009 Detroit Community Development Awards will be presented September 18, 2009. This event, sponsored by Detroit LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation), will recognize the individuals and organizations working tirelessly to achieve success in Detroit neighborhoods.

2009 Hines Student Urban Design Award

Teams representing Columbia University, Kansas State University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Miami have been selected as the finalists for the seventh annual ULI (Urban Land Institute) Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition. The finalist teams were charged with the design of a development site in the city of Denver. A $50,000 prize will be awarded to the winning team; and an additional $30,000 will be split among the remaining finalist teams.

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 Maine Downtown Achievement Awards

The Maine Downtown Center is seeking nominations for its 2009 Downtown Achievement Awards. The deadline for submitting nominations has been extended to March 20, 2009, at 4:00 pm.

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.

2009 Sustainability Awards

The Fraser Basin Council of British Columbia congratulates recipients of its 2009 Sustainability Awards.

2009 Sustainable San Mateo County Awards

Winners of the 2009 Sustainable San Mateo County Awards and Green Building Awards were honored at the 10th Annual Awards Event held on March 18, 2009 at the South San Francisco Conference Center.

2010 Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition

The ULI/Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition, now in its eighth year, offers graduate-level students the opportunity to form their own multidisciplinary teams and engage in a challenging exercise in responsible land use. Student teams comprising at least three disciplines will have two weeks to devise a comprehensive design and development program for a real, large-scale site fraught with challenges and opportunities. Submissions will consist of boards that include drawings, site plans, tables, and market-feasible financial data.

ULI will announce this year’s competition site on January 18, 2010, which is the day the competition officially gets underway.

The winning team will receive $50,000 and the finalist teams $10,000 each.

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 National Preservation Awards

Each year the National Trust for Historic Preservation celebrates the best of preservation by presenting National Preservation Awards to individuals and organizations whose contributions demonstrate excellence in historic preservation.

The Trust invites you to nominate a deserving individual, organization, agency, or project for a National Preservation Award. The postmark deadline for all award nominations, including the Trustees' Awards, National Trust/Advisory Council on Historic Preservation Award, National Trust/HUD Secretary's Award, the Peter H. Brink Award for Individual Achievement, and National Preservation Honor Awards, is March 1, 2010. Those nominations not selected to receive a Trustees', ACHP, HUD, or Peter H. Brink Award will automatically be considered for an Honor Award.

The 2010 nomination brochure can be downloaded at the link below. The nomination form can be completed electronically, but must be submitted by mail.

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.

5th World Environmental Education Congress -- Call for Papers

The Organizing Committee of the 5th World Envronmental Education Congress is accepting abstract proposals for its May 10-14, 2009 event in Montreal, Canada.

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 Citizen’s Guide to Participating in Florida’s Growth Management Process

1000 Friends of Florida have produced A Citizen’s Guide to Participating in Florida’s Growth Management Process, a handbook that provides a brief overview of the Florida's Growth Management Act, and then focuses on how citizens can become effective advocates for better planning in their communities.

A Citizen’s Guide to Protecting Historic Places

A Citizen’s Guide to Protecting Historic Places from the National Trust for Historic Preservation is a primer that reviews the five cardinal land use principles that make up effective historic preservation ordinances, and includes the historic background of historic preservation.

A Civic Gift

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

A Community Guide to Saving Older Schools

National Trust for Historic Preservation. 2000. This booklet demonstrates through case studies that older school buildings can successfully adapt to new technology and the latest educational mandates.

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 Greener Plan for Affordable Housing

A Greener Plan for Affordable Housing: How States are Using the Housing Credit to Advance Sustainability is a report with a national focus that summarizes elements in state plans for allocating federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits in the areas of smart site locations, energy and resource efficiency, and healthy living environments.

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 Preserving Agricultural Lands in the Chesapeake Bay Region

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) has released A Guide to Preserving Agricultural Lands in the Chesapeake Bay Region: Keeping Stewards on the Land, a report on how the loss of prime farmland is threatening the region's agricultural industry, and ways to preserve farmland for the future.

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 Guide to Tax-Advantaged Rehabilitation 2009

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is updating its A Guide to Tax-Advantaged Rehabilitation, featuring the latest information on the historic rehabilitation tax credit in an easy question-and-answer format. Sample worksheets help readers estimate the value of the credit for their projects.

A Guide to Transportation Enhancements -- Call for Submissions

The National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse (NTEC) is currently seeking submissions to include in A Guide to Transportation Enhancements. The guide utilizes case studies to examine transportation enhancements, and is NTEC's most popular publication.

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 Nation in Transition: What the Urban Age Means for the United States

In an address to a gathering of the Urban Age in New York City on May 4, 2007, Bruce Katz argues that contrary to popular opinion, the United States exemplifies the world's drive towards urbanization, and that to remain prosperous, the U.S. must recognize the central lesson of the Urban Age: that the ability of the U.S., or any nation, to compete globally and meet the great environmental and social challenges of our time rests largely on the health and vitality of major cities and metropolitan areas.

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 National View of Agricultural Easement Programs: Report 4

When do agricultural easements effectively preserve farmland from urban influences? A National View of Agricultural Easement Programs, the fourth in a series of reports from the American Farmland Trust, answers the question by examining five different tests of effective farmland protection as applied to the experiences of 46 easement programs in 15 states.

A New Hampshire Model Community

Over the past several months the AIA150 team and Durham officials, residents, and stakeholders have been working together to articulate a vision for a redeveloped Mill Plaza property in Durham, New Hampshire. Work has now begun to translate this vision from words to sketches.

A New Housing Policy: Imagine the Possibilities

A New Housing Policy: Imagine the Possibilities is a PowerPoint based on the keynote speech given by National Multi Housing Council (NMHC) President Doug Bibby to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors on April 28, 2009.

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 Preservationist's Guide to the Federal Transportation Enhancement Provision

The second edition of Building on the Past, Traveling to the Future: A Preservationist's Guide to the Federal Transportation Enhancement Provision is now available from the Federal Highway Administration and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This booklet answers questions about Transportation Enhancement activities and illustrates the role TE funding can play in revitalizing communities, preserving historic resources, and stimulating cultural tourism. It also offers case studies of successful projects from across the United States.

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 Road Map for Accelerating Farmland Protection in New York

Picking Up the Pace: A Road Map for Accelerating Farmland Protection in New York from the American Farmland Trust (AFT) looks at the growing number of areas in Upstate New York that are challenged by the task of managing sprawling development while maintaining their quality of life and community character.

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 Destinations

The Center for Transportation Studies (CTS) at the University of Minnesota has published a study Access to Destinations: Monitoring Land Use Activity Changes in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Region that presents an effort to track and model land use change in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Region.

Access to Nature and Regional Equity: Portland-Metro Region

Access to Nature and Regional Equity is a summary of results from the Coalition for a Livable Future's Regional Equity Atlas Project, a collaborative effort with Portland State University's Population Research Center to elevate issues of social equity in public discourse and regional policy by developing a common language and baseline of information relating to regional equity in the Portland-Metro region.

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.

Access to the Waterfront

Across the country, conflicts over access to beaches, shorelines, and waterways are increasing as our coastal towns and communities undergo major demographic and economic changes. As the various regions and states confront access challenges, they are recognizing the need to identify and share the tools and solutions that are being used throughout the nation. Access to the Waterfront: Issues and Solutions Across the Nation examines trends in coastal access throughout the country and highlights solutions and success stories.

Achievement in Environmental Justice Award -- 2007 Call for Entries

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a call for entries to the 2007 Achievement in Environmental Justice Award. The award will recognize industry organizations, such as a member of business or a member of industry, for their achievement in addressing environmental justice issues or achieving the goals of environmental justice in a manner that results in positive impacts to a community.

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 Great Federal Public Spaces

Achieving Great Federal Public Spaces is a valuable tool for federal and non-federal public building property managers seeking to evaluate and improve their lobbies, atriums, plazas, courtyards, and other public spaces.

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.

ACHP Guide to Historic Preservation Funding

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) offers this online guide that outlines the range of historic preservation funding options that are currently available.

Across Local Borders

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

Active 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 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 -- 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 (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 -- 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 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 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.

Adirondack Park Smart Growth Funding

The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), in partnership with the Adirondack Park Agency and the Department of State, is soliciting Adirondack Park Community Smart Growth Grant applications from municipalities located wholly or partially within the Adirondack Park.

Adobe Community Grants

Adobe supports strategic programs and partnerships that help make these communities better, stronger, and more vibrant places to live, work and do business; its focus areas for giving and grants programs are designed to increase Adobe's impact in the community through support of more organizations, and strengthen Adobe's role as a corporate partner by creating deeper, stronger, and richer partnerships.

Aesthetics, Community Character, and the Law

Scenic America/APA.2000. This publication helps land-use planners and citizens understand the law of aesthetics and the legal tools available to help their communities maintain their special features and sense of place.

Affordable Housing Built Responsibly Grants

Through the Affordable Housing Built Responsibly grant program, The Home Depot Foundation administers millions of dollars in grants each year to nonprofit organizations whose missions align with the Foundation's interests in supporting the production and preservation of affordable, efficient and healthy housing.

The Home Depot Foundation makes grants to 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charities in the United States and to charitable organizations in Canada. Support is given to programs and projects that align with the Foundation's mission and grant criteria.

To better support its mission, The Home Depot Foundation awards most of its grants by directly soliciting proposals from high-performing nonprofit organizations with the demonstrated ability to create strong partnerships, impact multiple communities and leverage grant resources. In order to identify potential future nonprofit partners or respond to unique community revitalization opportunities, a limited amount of unsolicited grant funding is set aside to be awarded through a competitive process.

UPDATE: Community Tree Grants
The Home Depot Foundation has combined its community trees grant program with its Affordable Housing Built Responsibly grant program. The Foundation remains firmly committed to supporting the planting of trees and the development of greenspace in order to provide communities with the many economic, social and environmental benefits of the urban forest. This change in programming structure reflects the foundation’s understanding that it is more effective to support the creation of healthy and sustainable communities through the integration of our focus areas.

Preference is given to proposals that include community engagement that result in the production, preservation, or financing of housing units for low- to moderate-income families. The most promising proposals incorporate a number of “green” building design practices. Also, proposals that clearly demonstrate how tree strategies integrated with affordable housing production/preservation create healthier, more vibrant communities will have a distinct advantage.

For this grant cycle, letters of inquiry are due July 1, 2010. Full project proposals are due September 15, 2010.

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.

Affordable Housing Grants

WAMU.com, a Washington Mutual, Inc., web site, partners with nonprofit organizations by investing in their efforts to build stronger communities. One program offers grants on affordable housing and community development.

After Katrina: New Solutions for Safe Communities and a Secure Energy Future

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) offers this report on how Hurricane Katrina exposed deficiencies in past and current planning practices and energy choices, and provides alternatives to both that may help communities maintain a level of safety in the face of future disasters.

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.

Agenda for a Sustainable America

Agenda for a Sustainable America is a comprehensive book that assesses U.S. progress toward sustainable development and a roadmap of necessary next steps toward achieving a sustainable America.

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 in Place Reading List

The National Aging in Place Council (NAIPC) publishes an Aging in Place Reading list featuring recommended books and articles. Featured titles include ''The Senior Solution: A Family Giude to Keeping Seniors Home for Life'' and ''Retirement Life By Design.''

Aging in Place: A Toolkit for Local Governments

Aging in Place: A Toolkit for Local Governments 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 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.

Agricultural Funding Sources

The Alternative Farming Systems Information Center (AFSIC) provides a listing of farming and agriculture-related funding opportunity resources on its website. AFSIC specializes in identifying resources about sustainable food systems and practices, in support of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) effort to ensure a sustainable future for agriculture and farmers worldwide.

Agriculture and Smart Growth

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

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 Baltimore Design Awards

The American Institute of Architects (Baltimore) has selected 13 projects for recognition in design, preservation, and integration into the natural environment.

AIA Chicago Sustainable Design Awards

The Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA Chicago) has announced its first-ever Sustainable Design Awards as part of its annual Design Excellence Awards program, which honors the construction and renovation work of local architects.

AIA Connecticut Design Awards

The American Institute of Architects Connecticut (AIA Connecticut) Design Awards celebrate the accomplishments of Connecticut architects and the excellence of Connecticut architectural projects.

AIA Connecticut Public Service Award

The American Institute of Architects Connecticut (AIA Connecticut) Public Service Award is a biennial program that recognizes those individuals or groups who have demonstrated public service in activities related to a single project or for ongoing public service.

AIA Green Building Awards -- 2008

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment (COTE) has announced winners of its 2008 ''Top Ten Green Projects.'' Each project was evaluated on ten measures, documented extensively on the COTE Web site, which include design innovation, community context and land use, longevity, bioclimatic design, water and energy conservation, materials, and indoor environment.

AIA Green Projects

Each year the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment selects projects from across the United States as shining examples of sustainable design. This year eight buildings and one urban design design plan have achieved this distinction, now called the Green Project Awards.

AIA Honor Awards 2006

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced the 2006 recipients of the AIA Institute Honor Awards, the profession’s highest recognition of works that exemplify excellence in architecture, interior architecture, and urban design.

AIA Housing and Community Design Awards -- 2010

Applications are currently being accepted by the Housing and Custom Residential Knowledge Community of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), in conjunction with the Office of the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, for the 2010 AIA Housing and Community Design Awards. These annual awards recognize excellence in residential housing design, particularly in affordable housing, community-based design, participatory design, and housing accessibility.

AIA Housing Awards 2007 -- Call for Entries

The AIA Housing and Custom Residential Knowledge Community and the American Institute of Architects announce the new face of the Housing Awards Program. Previously known as the AIA Housing Committee Awards, the program is now called the AIA Housing Awards. New categories and guidelines are now available for the 2007 program.

AIA National Honor Award Winners 2008

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced the 2008 recipients of the AIA Institute Honor Awards, the profession's highest recognition of works that exemplify excellence in architecture, interior architecture and urban design.

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 Seattle 2009 Honor Awards

AIA Seattle is accepting nominations in its 2009 Honor Awards. This year's awards follow the theme ''Improv/Improve'' -- celebrating the agility, inventiveness and foresight that AIA Seattle members bring to their work in this era of change.

AIA Seattle Scholarship Recipients

Through a commitment initiated by the AIA Seattle Diversity Roundtable in 1986, AIA Seattle has established two funds to advance professional diversity through support of students from disadvantaged and under-represented backgrounds at the University of Washington College of Architecture and Urban Planning: the AIA Seattle Diversity Scholarship, and the Denice Hunt K-12 Internship.

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 -- 2008

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Center for Communities by Design announces the 2008 Sustainable Design Assessment Team Program (SDAT) Request for Proposals. The RFP solicits applications for inclusion in the Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) 2008 program.

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.

AIA/ALA Library Building Awards

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced the eight recipients of the 2005 AIA/ALA Library Building Awards.

AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Project Awards -- 2008

The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment has posted results from their 2008 Top Ten Green Awards.

AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Projects -- 2009 Nominations

The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (AIA/COTE) invites your entry to the 2009 Top Ten Green Projects Awards.

AICP Outstanding Student Awards

The American Planning Association (APA) has announced winners of its 2008 AICP Outstanding Student Awards competition. The AICP Student Project Awards recognize outstanding class projects or papers by a student or group of students in Planning Accreditation Board-accredited planning programs that contribute to advances in the field of planning.

AICP Student Project Award -- 2008 Nominations

Faculty and students often participate in community-based planning activities. The American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) is particularly interested in connecting education and practice. The 2008 AICP Student Project Award highlights student projects demonstrating planning practice within a community. The project may be the result of field work, internships, plan preparation, studios, working with public planners, citizens, etc.

Alaska Brownfields

The State of Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Division of Spill Prevention and Response, maintains a webpage on their Contaminated Sites Program that describes DEC's brownfields reuse and redevelopment initiative (RRI).

Alcan Prize for Sustainability 2005

Alcan Inc. and The Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) have awarded the US$1 million Alcan Prize for Sustainability to Aga Khan Planning and Building Service of Pakistan.

Alcan Prize for Sustainability 2006

The Alcan Prize for Sustainability identifies and recognizes not-for-profit, civil society and non-governmental organizations for their contributions to economic, environmental and/or social sustainability.

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.

Alcan Prize for Sustainability 2008

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.

All Development is Not Created Equal.

Planning Commissioners Journal, Fall 1998. Why communities should not lower their standards under the guise of generating economic development.

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.

America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places 2005

America's heritage is at risk from coast to coast -- and beyond. The National Trust for Historic Preservation notes some of the most at-risk places in its annual list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

America’s Most Livable Cities

Browse the list of this decade's Most Livable Communities, honored by Partners for Livable Communities, a national non-profit organization that has been working at the frontlines of livability for over twenty-five years.

American Citizen Planner

American Citizen Planner Consortium is partnering with affiliates at educational institutions around the United States to form the nation's leading land use education consortium.

American Farmland Trust Introduces New Website

The American Farmland Trust has redesigned its website to promote its vision for change: A vision of well-managed, protected farm and ranch land that provides open space, clean water, healthy food, wildlife habitat and a renewed connectedness between the farm community and the rest of America.

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 Society of Landscape Architects Awards -- 2007 Call for Entries

Each year, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Professional Awards honor the best in landscape architecture from around the globe, while the ASLA Student Awards program gives us a glimpse into the future of the profession.

American Society of Landscape Architects Awards -- 2008 Call for Entries

Each year, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Professional Awards honor the best in landscape architecture from around the globe, while the ASLA Student Awards program gives us a glimpse into the future of the profession.

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.

America's Distinctive Dozen Destinations -- 2008

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has announced the 2008 List of America's Dozen Distinctive Destinations®. Each year since 2000, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has selected 12 vacation destinations across the United States that offer an authentic visitor experience by combining dynamic downtowns, cultural diversity, attractive architecture, cultural landscapes and a strong commitment to historic preservation and revitalization.

America's Dozen Distinctive Destinations -- 2010 Nominations

The National Trust for Historic Preservation's Dozen Distinctive Destinations® program recognizes unique cities and towns across the country working to preserve their historic character, promote heritage tourism, enhance their community and encourage others to enjoy all they have to offer.

America's Favorite Farmers Market Contest

American Farmland Trust (AFT) is holding the first-ever America's Favorite Farmers Markets™ contest to raise national awareness about the importance of supporting fresh food from local farms and farmers.

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.

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.

An Economic Development Toolbox

An Economic Development Toolbox from the American Planning Association is a practical guide to economic development that will help local governments analyze their economies and incorporate economic goals into comprehensive plans. It explains the forces that shape local economies and shows officials and planners how they can influence those factors by encouraging the development of infrastructure and promoting regional cooperation in creating jobs.

An Urban Agenda for an Urban Age

Before the international Urban Age conference in Berlin, Bruce Katz, Vice President and Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at The Brookings Institution, argued that if cities are the organizing units of the new global order, then a broad range of policies and practices at the city, national, and supra-national levels need to be reevaluated and overhauled around new spatial realities and paradigms.

Ann Arbor Greenbelt Map

In November 2003, the residents of Ann Arbor overwhelmingly passed the Open Space and Parkland Preservation Millage, also known as the Ann Arbor Greenbelt and Parkland Program. The purpose of the Greenbelt Program is to protect both working farmland and natural areas, as well as identifying and conserving those lands that are integral to the protection of the City of Ann Arbor's source groundwater and the Huron River -- a portion of which is designated a state scenic river.

Annual Urban Forestry Awards -- Mississippi

Each year the Mississippi Urban Forest Council (MUFC), in partnership with the Mississippi Forestry Commission and the U.S. Forest Service, recognizes and honors cities, individuals, civic groups and businesses that have demonstrated success with urban forestry and green infrastructure.

APA -- Great Places in America -- Neighborhoods and Streets

The American Planning Association (APA) celebrates the first 10 Great Streets and 10 Great Neighborhoods designated through its new national program, Great Places in America. Launched in Spring 2007, Great Places in America celebrates places of exemplary character, quality, and planning.

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 Journalism Awards 2006

APA's annual Journalism Award honors newspapers ''for public service rendered in the advancement of city and regional planning through outstanding journalism.'' The award is presented to a newspaper in each of three classes: circulation below 50,000, circulation of 50,000 to 100,000, and circulation above 100,000.

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 Releases Report on Regional Affordable Housing Programs

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

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.

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.

April Planning Magazine

The April 2009 issue of Planning, the magazine of the American Planning Assocation, contains features on energy, stalled growth in suburbs, the stimulus bill, and more.

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.

ARRA Prevention and Wellness Funding: Communities Putting Prevention to Work

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Procurement and Grants Office has published a funding opportunity announcement entitled, ''American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: Communities Putting Prevention to Work.'' Approximately $373 million will be available in fiscal year 2009 to fund thirty to forty awards.

ASCE-NCS Sustainability Award -- 2007 Entries

The American Society of Civil Engineers, National Capital Section, is seeking entries for its 2007 Sustainability Award. This award is established to recognize either private-industry outreach initiatives/programs or public legislation/programs in the Washington DC metropolitan area that advance or promote the responsible and sustainable development of infrastructure, the built environment, or the conservation of natural resources. Deadline for submissions is February 28, 2007.

Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy

The Ashden Awards reward outstanding, inspirational and innovative local sustainable energy schemes that both protect the environment, tackle climate change and make real improvements to people's quality of life. The Awards are designed to encourage wider take-up of local energy solutions worldwide -- proving to the public and policy makers alike that such schemes offer viable, practical ways of tackling poverty, resource shortages and climate change.

ASLA 2005 Awards

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has announced the recipients of its 2005 Professional Awards. The awards will be presented on October 10, 2005, at the ASLA Annual Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

ASLA Awards -- Call for Entries, 2006

Each year, the American Society of Landscape Architects' Professional Awards honors the best in landscape architecture from around the globe, while the ASLA Student Awards program provides a glimpse into the future of the profession.

ASLA Call for Presentations -- 2009 Annual Meeting

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) 2009 Annual Meeting and EXPO will be held September 18-21 in Chicago at the Lakeside Center, McCormick Place. The theme of the meeting is ''Beyond Sustainability: Regenerating Places and People.''

ASLA Communications Honor Award -- 2008

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) presented its 2008 Communications Honor Award to ah'bé landscape architects of Culver City, California, for the film ''So What?''

ASLA Community Service Award

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has announced that Kevin Shanley, ASLA, president of The SWA Group, will receive the Society’s 2005 Community Service Award, to be presented during its Annual Meeting October 7-10 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

ASLA Professional Award Winners -- 2007

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has announced the recipients of its 2007 Professional Awards.

ASLA Professional Award Winners -- 2008

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has announced the recipients of its 2008 Professional Awards.

ASLA Professional Awards -- 2009

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has announced the recipients of its 2009 Professional Awards.

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.

ASLA Professional Awards 2009 -- Call for Entries

Each year, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) hosts the ASLA Professional Awards to honor the best in landscape architecture from around the globe.

ASLA Student Awards

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has announced the recipients of its 2005 Student Awards. The awards will be presented during the ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO, October 7-10, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

ASLA Student Awards -- 2007 Recipients

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has announced winners of its 2007 Student Awards. Representing the top student honors in the profession, ASLA will present the awards to 25 projects from 22 colleges and universities at the ASLA Annual Meeting in San Francisco. The ceremony and reception will take place on October 8, 2007, and is sponsored by Landscape Forms.

ASLA Student Awards -- 2008 Recipients

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has announced winners of its 2008 Student Awards. Representing the top student honors in the profession, will present the awards to 20 projects from 11 colleges and universities at the ASLA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. The ceremony and reception will take place on October 6, 2008 and is sponsored by Landscape Forms.

ASLA Student Awards -- 2009 Call for Entries

Each year, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Student Awards give us a glimpse into the future of the profession by recognizing student work in the field.

Student categories in the 2009 competition are ''Student Community Service Award'' and ''Student Collaboration.''

ASLA Student Design Awards -- 2006

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has announced the recipients of its 2006 Student Awards. The awards will be presented during the 2006 ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO and 43rd IFLA World Congress, October 6-10, 2006, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

ASLA Videos

The American Society of Landscape Architects has a web presence on YouTube for ASLA videos.

Assessing the Wealth of Nature: Using Economic Studies to Promote Land Conservation Instead of Sprawl

Assessing the Wealth of Nature summarizes how land-use and conservation decisions can be influenced by informing a community of the economic benefits of natural habitat, and provides guidelines for conducting sound economic studies.

Athena Medal Award -- 2007

The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) has selected David Lewis as the latest recipient of the Athena medal for lifetime achievement in urbanism. The medal, whose recipients are chosen by CNU's board of directors, was presented to Lewis by CNU President and CEO John Norquist in a ceremony in Pittsburgh November 6, 2007.

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 Regional Commission Public Affairs Show

''The Shape of Things to Come'' is a quarterly, 30-minute public affairs program produced by the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC). The show focuses on the issues, challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for the Atlanta region.

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.

Award for Municipal Excellence

The Awards for Municipal Excellence identify and showcase outstanding city and town programs that improve the quality of life in America’s communities. Winners of this award exemplify excellence in city governance, best practices in municipal policy, and models to follow to improve the lives of their citizens.

Awards for Municipal Excellence -- 2006

The Awards for Municipal Excellence identify and showcase outstanding city and town programs that improve the quality of life in America’s communities.

Awards for Municipal Excellence -- 2008 Call for Nominations

The National League of Cities (NLC) is pleased to announce the 2008 Awards for Municipal Excellence, an awards competition that identifies and showcases outstanding city and town programs that improve the quality of life in America's communities.

Awards of Excellence for Community Trees -- 2007

The Home Depot Foundation, in partnership with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, recently announced the opening of the application period for the Second Annual Awards of Excellence for Community Trees. The Home Depot Foundation believes that the urban forest is one of the essential building blocks for healthy, livable communities impacting our social, environmental, economic and overall well being -- and that the simple act of planting a tree has the power to be the catalyst for significant ecological improvements and profound community change.

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.

Award-Winning Healthy Schools

The Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI) lists on its website CEFPI Award-Winning Healthy Schools.

Balanced Growth Implementation Project -- Minnesota

1000 Friends of Minnesota and the Community Growth Institute are partnering to assist three Minnesota communities in the implementation of their balanced growth visions. Cities involved in this program are the City of Northfield (Rice County), Florence Township (Goodhue County), and the City of Mayer (Carver County).

Baltimore Community Foundation Fund for Neighborhoods -- Baltimore Area of Maryland

The Baltimore Community Foundation (BCF) Fund for Neighborhoods provides funding for neighborhoods, one of nine areas in which BCF focuses its strategic grantmaking. BCF seeks to advance the ideals of a welcoming environment, open access and civic engagement-with all of its privileges and responsibilities-in every area of community life.

Baltimore County Forest Sustainability Project

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

Bank of America Community Development

Bank of America has established several programs that support sustainable community regional planning.

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.

Bank of America Neighborhood Excellence Initiative -- 2006

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

Bank of America Neighborhood Excellence Initiative -- 2007

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

Barn Again! Awards

Since 1988, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Successful Farming magazine have partnered to present the Barn Again! awards to barn owners who put forth exceptional efforts to preserve and maintain their historic barns.

Barriers to Environmental Design in Maryland

Barriers to Environmental Design in Maryland, a report by 1000 Friends of Maryland, examines the barriers that continue to discourage environmental design in Maryland and offers suggestions for how State and local governments can remove these roadblocks and help foster more environmentally responsible decisions in conceiving and constructing landscapes.

Basic Design Guidelines for Businesses and Historic Districts

Design guidelines for businesses and historic districts is the focus of this free, three-page fact sheet from Scenic America.

Bay Area Community Foundation

The Bay Area Community Foundation works with individuals, families, businesses and organizations to create permanent endowment funds that help our region meet the challenges of changing times. The Foundation is located in Bay City, Michigan, and serves Bay and Arenac Counties.

The Foundation invests and administers these funds and then uses their earnings to award grants each year to many of the humanitarian, educational and cultural organizations in this remarkable region we call home. The Foundation goes beyond simply making grants that advance charitable activities - we also identify current and emerging issues, stimulate local resources to address those needs and help our region prepare for the future.

For more information,visit the link below.

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.

Bay Area Smart Growth Fund -- San Francisco Bay Area, California

The Bay Area Smart Growth Fund I, LLC invests in retail, office, commercial, industrial, multi-family and select single-family housing opportunities that may make a measurable impact on the economic and social revitalization of neighborhoods in the 46 targeted communities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Beginning Farmer Funding Sources

The Center for Rural Affairs features a ''Beginning Farmer Financing Programs'' page on its website. This resource includes web and telephone contact information for several programs designed to assist beginnning farmers.

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.

Benefits of Street Parking: Three Studies

The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) has posted three 2008 studies showing the benefits of street parking on main streets by CNU Board member Norman Garrick and Wesley Marshall, both of the University of Connecticut.

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 Awards 2008

Since 1993, the Office of Sustainable Development in Portland, Oregon, has hosted the BEST Awards -- Businesses for an Environmentally Sustainable Tomorrow. These awards have been presented annually to Portland area companies demonstrating excellence in business practices that promote economic growth and environmental benefits.

Best Practice in Regeneration Awards

The theme for the 2005 BURA Awards for Best Practice in Regeneration is Imagination, innovation, inspiration and determination. The British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA) invites entries from across Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and all regions of England for the 2005 awards.

Best Practices for Preservation Organizations

Best Practices for Preservation Organizations from the National Trust for Historic Preservation provides preservation easement holding organizations with guidance on the operation of easement programs and organizational best practices by applying Land Trust Standards and Practices.

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 Practices in the Production of Affordable Housing

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

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 Community Awards -- Florida

Each year, 1000 Friends of Florida honors successful efforts to save special places, fight sprawl, and build better communities in this rapidly growing state. The 2007 Better Community Awards will recognize individuals, organizations, public-private partnerships, local governments, and agencies that, through visionary leadership and planning, have brought about positive and lasting change in their community or region or the state.

Better Models for Commercial Development

Better Models for Commercial Development is a one-of-a-kind publication from The Conservation Fund that shows how communities can improve the design and siting of new commercial development.

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.

Better Models for Development in Pennsylvania

Better Models for Development in Pennsylvania is a 134-page book that offers officials and citizens dozens of ideas and examples of ways to balance conservation with economic development.

Better Models for Development on the Eastern Shore

Better Models for Development on the Eastern Shore is a unique publication for improving the design and siting of new commercial development on the Eastern Shore. This booklet, co-published with the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy was written for elected officials, planning commissioners, developers and interested citizens on the Delmarva Peninsula. Better Models shows how new commercial development can be made more attractive, more efficient and more profitable.

Better Models for Urban Supermarkets

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

Beyond 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.

Beyond Gray Pinstripes 2003

Beyond Grey Pinstripes 2003: Preparing MBAs for Social and Environmental Stewardship highlights six cutting-edge schools preparing future executives with a solid training in environmental and social impact management.

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

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

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 Funding

Bicycle and pedestrian projects are broadly eligible for funding from almost all the major Federal-aid highway, transit, safety, and other programs. Bicycle projects must be ''principally for transportation, rather than recreation, purposes'' and must be designed and located pursuant to the transportation plans required of States and Metropolitan Planning Organizations. This page lists funding sources for bicycle and pedestrian projects.

Bicycle Friendly America

The League of American Bicyclists coordinates the Bicycle Friendly America family of programs, which recognize states, communities, and businesses for their efforts to promote bicycling and provides roadmaps to improve. The League is helping build a bicycle-friendly America, and its 2009 U.S. Bicycle-Friendly State Rankings provides a 50-state rankings list.

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 Friendly Community Grants

The Bicycle Friendly Communities Campaign is an awards program that recognizes municipalities that actively support bicycling.

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.

Big Box Evaluator

Big box retail stores can have significant positive and negative impacts on the economy, environment, and character of local communities and their surroundings. The Big Box Evaluator is an on-line tool designed to be an unbiased information resource for citizens and government officials who want to know more about ''big box'' retail stores and their potential positive and negative impacts on the local community.

Bike and Build

Bike and Build raises funds for affordable housing projects through. Riders select one of several coast-to-coast routes and receive sponsor pledges for the trip. Over five seasons, Bike and Build has contributed $1,144,231 to housing groups to fund projects planned and executed by young adults; this includes $391,327 donated from the summer of 2007.

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.

Bikeways to Prosperity

Bikeways to Prosperity, a research article from the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences, examines a North Carolina study in benefits gained from investment in bicycle facilities in the Outer Banks to determine if investment in additional facilities throughout the state would be justified.

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.

Bill Moyers' Interview with Michael Pollan -- Podcast

In this podcast, Bill Moyers sits down with Michael Pollan, Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley, to discuss what direction the U.S. should pursue in the often-overlooked question of food policy.

Biodiversity Grants -- Living Lands Project

Living Lands is a new Defenders of Wildlife project to increase the capacity of local land trusts to protect, enhance and restore native wildlife habitat and biodiversity. The project will support this work through financial and technical assistance.

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 America

Blueprint for America is a comprehensive community service program of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) initiated by AIA members in their local communities.

Blueprint for America Initiatives

Blueprint for America Initiatives are part of the nationwide community service program launched by American Institute of Architects to mark the organization's 150th anniversary. In communities across the country, AIA members donating their time and expertise are collaborating with citizens to find and implement ways to enhance their communities.

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.

Blueprints for Successful Communities

Blueprints for Successful Communities is an education and technical assistance program of The Georgia Conservancy that is designed to facilitate community-based planning efforts across the state.

Boston Architects -- 2009 Call for Design Awards Program Nominations

Each year the Boston Society of Architects (BSA), often in collaboration with other organizations, sponsors awards programs to honor design excellence in Massachusetts, throughout New England and elsewhere.

Boston Green Awards 2008

In April 2008, the City of Boston and Mayor Thomas M. Menino recognized the winners of the 2008 Green Awards. Celebrating both local businesses and residents, the 2008 awards were expanded to include a non-profit category and a special bike-friendly business award for companies engaged in bike-friendly activities.

Boston Indicators Project -- Nominate an Innovation

The Boston Indicators Project offers new ways to understand Boston and its neighborhoods in a regional context. It aims to democratize access to information, foster civic discourse, and track measures of progress and shared goals in ten sectors.

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.

Boston Schoolyard Funding -- Boston, Massachusetts

The Boston Schoolyard Initiative (BSI) was formally launched in 1995 as a public/private partnership to help revitalize Boston's schoolyards.

Breaking the Codes

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

Breakthroughs, May 2010

This year's third edition of Breakthroughs has just been released by HUD’s Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse. In this issue, you'll read about Maryland's efforts to promote affordable housing for military households, a new California law that focuses on the environment and affordable housing, and impact fee cuts to increase housing affordability.

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 Buildings Back

Abandoned properties are a plague across the United States, from rust belt cities like Detroit and Buffalo to small towns like Lima, Ohio, and Waterloo, Iowa. Even in Sunbelt cities such as Houston and Las Vegas, abandonment is a major problem, as investment flows to the periphery, leaving the older, inner neighborhoods behind. In Bringing Buildings Back, author Alan Mallach provides policymakers and practitioners with the first in-depth guide to understanding and dealing with the many ramifications that this issue holds for the future of our older cities.

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.

Brownfield Communities Network

Brownfield Communities Network is a national network of local communities working to demonstrate how the cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated property can be an effective tool for community revitalization.

Brownfield Redevelopment Funding

Through its Project Learning Program (PLP), the Center for Creative Land Recycling (CCLR) assists nonprofits, municipalities, and community organizations in tackling brownfield redevelopment projects. Each year, CCLR awards several PLP grants to communities and organizations, providing them with the financial and technical assistance necessary to address brownfield-related issues such as: contamination and remediation, economic feasibility, regulatory facilitation, financing, and community-based decision making. Once awarded funding, grantees often retain outside consultants to assist with community-consensus building, economic feasibility studies, site reuse planning, and site design.

Brownfield Redevelopment Solutions

Working with a stakeholder group, Envision Utah has developed a multi-disciplinary tool to expedite the land redevelopment process without sacrificing environmental and land-use standards.

Brownfield Showcase Communities

Brownfield Showcase Communities are designated by a multi-agency partnership to demonstrate the benefits of collaborative activity on brownfields. Part of the Brownfields National Partnership begun in 1997, Brownfields Showcase Communities bring together the resources of more than 15 federal agencies to address local cleanup and reuse issues in a more coordinated manner.

Brownfield to Parks Examples

Since the 1970's, The Trust for Public Land (TPL) has been helping to transform used land into gardens and parks. TPL has posted on its website recent examples -- snapshot portraits of communities where brownfields are giving way to gardens, parks, greenways and open space.

Brownfields 2009-2013 Annual Conference RFP

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is accepting proposals from eligible entities and non-profit organizations for financial assistance to assist non-federal personnel in participating in three national Brownfields conferences to be planned and held over a five-year period, beginning in 2009.

Brownfields and Sustainable Development

Region 8 of the U.S EPA offers an online toolkit for tackling brownfields restoration that help remediation efforts to be profitable for the community, restorative for the environment over the long term, and sustainable.

Brownfields Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund and Cleanup Grant Guidelines -- U.S. EPA, 2010

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announces the availability of funds and solicits applications from eligible entities and non-profit organizations for its competitive 2010 ''Brownfields Grant program: Assessment Grants, Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) Grants, and Cleanup Grants.''

Brownfields Assistance -- Illinois

The Illinois Bureau of Land (BOL) is responsible for the protection and restoration of land and groundwater resources in the State of Illinois. The BOL administers a broad variety of solid and hazardous waste management and cleanup programs, including Brownfields Assistance.

Brownfields Case Study: Hercules, California

This case study from the Local Government Commission examines how the town of Hercules, California, reclaimed a 426-acre brownfield site in the middle of town.

Brownfields Center

The Environmental Law Institute's Brownfields Center provides essential information on brownfields cleanup and redevelopment with a focus on the concerns and needs of community groups across the country. The Center's goal is to encourage and support effective citizen participation in the redevelopment of brownfields.

Brownfields Cleanup Success Stories

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is publishing brownfield cleanup success stories accomplished through its Revolving Loan Fund (RLF). brownfields at-a-glance are fact sheets that contain vital statistics and a project overview for each story, including key accomplishments and outcome.

Brownfields Funding -- Maryland

The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), Site Assessment/State Superfund Division can perform a Phase I and Phase II Site Assessment at selected sites at no cost to the property owner or interested party. MDE, through a grant with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has funds to conduct assessments at Brownfields properties throughout the State of Maryland.

Brownfields Funding Awards -- 2008

Communities in 43 states, two Tribal Nations and two territories will share over $74 million in EPA Brownfields grants in 2008 to help revitalize former industrial and commercial sites, turning them from problem properties to productive community use.

Brownfields Funding California

In 2000, Governor Gray Davis signed into law the ''Cleanup Loans and Environmental Assistance to Neighborhoods (CLEAN) Program'' establishing new financial incentives to encourage property owners, developers, community groups and local governments to redevelop abandoned and underutilized urban properties in California. Links on this website provide information on the program.

Brownfields Grants from CCLR

The Center for Creative Land Recycling (CCLR) awards Project Learning Program (PLP) grants that range in size up to $25,000 per project, year-round, on a merit-based schedule.

Brownfields Land Recycling Program -- Phoenix

The city of Phoenix Brownfields Land Recycling Program is accepting applications for financial and technical assistance for redevelopment projects that meet program requirements. A total of $2 million is available during the next five years to businesses, property owners, developers and nonprofit organizations for redeveloping environmentally contaminated property known as brownfields.

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 of Dreams

Detroit Free Press writers Steve Neavling and John Gallagher report on how efforts to reclaim brownfields in the Detroit region are beginning to pay dividends, as once-abandoned land becomes useful to the community.

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 Policy and Research: August 2009

The August 2009 Brownfields Policy Research Newsletter from Northeast/Midwest Institute includes links to recent reports and white papers plus an analysis of how brownfields projects would be eligible under the proposed Livable Communities Act of 2009.

Brownfields Policy Research Newsletter -- September 2008

The September 2008 Brownfields Policy Research Newsletter from Northeast/Midwest Institute (NEMW) includes links to recent reports and white papers plus a feature article, ''State-Facilitated Tax Increment Financing for Brownfields Redevelopment.''

Brownfields Policy Research Newsletter from NEMW

The Northeast/Midwest Institute (NEMW) publishes the Brownfields Policy Research Newsletter, a monthly publication highlighting policy research and legislative information that will assist brownfields and community redevelopment practitioners to make progress in their communities.

Brownfields Redevelopment

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking proposals for Smart Growth and Brownfield Redevelopment. Proposals are due by 5:00 pm on August 24, 2004.

Brownfields Redevelopment -- Indiana

The Indiana Finance Authority (IFA) offers financial assistance for brownfields redevelopment in the form of site assessment grants, low-interest loans, petroleum remediation grants, and more.

Brownfields Redevelopment -- Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy offers a focus on brownfields in the Community Lots section of their website. This focus section is specifically tailored for the needs and concerns of nonprofit community-based organizations (CBOs) that want to undertake brownfield redevelopment.

Brownfields Redevelopment Toolbox for Disadvantaged Communities

Case Studies, site-specific tools, and planning for brownfields remediation in disadvantaged communites are all part of the Brownfields Redevelopment Toolbox for Disadvantaged Communities from the Northeast-Midwest Institute and the Disadvantaged Communities Network.

Brownfields Redevelopment: Best Practices Report

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

Brownfields Resource Guide for Rural and Small Communities

Published by the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) Research Foundation under a cooperative agreement with EPA, Brownfields Resource Guide for Rural and Small Communities is a guide that provides a range of resources for brownfields efforts.

Brownfields to Green Space

Brownfields to Green Space is a fact sheet from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) that describes the financial hurdles met by groups and communities seeking to convert brownfields to usable green space, and the positive effects new green spaces have on communities.

Brownfields Tools for Disadvantaged Communities

The Northeast-Midwest Institute, the Sustainable Community Development Group and The Ferguson Group have launched a U.S. EPA-sponsored initiative to provide brownfields tools and technical assistance to local communities that are seeking to overcome economic and neighborhood disadvantage.

Brownfields Training Grants

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Brownfields Cleanup and Redevelopment (OBCR) has issued a revised announcement of a funding opportunity for the Brownfields Training, Research, and Technical Assistance Grants and Cooperative Agreements Program.

Brownfields Training, Research and Technical Assistance Grants

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posts on its website Training, Research, and Technical Assistance Grant Fact Sheets. These Fact Sheets, viewable as PDF or HTML documents, describe various programs throughout the United States that are receiving funds from the EPA's Technical Assistance Program.

Brownfields: State of the States

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

BrownfieldSource.org

BrownfieldSource.org is a comprehensive online resource for brownfields news and information.

BSA Research Grants

The Boston Society of Architects has initiated a program to promote research in architecture. With a focus on design as research, this program encourages inquiry not only on specific research topics but also on how design itself (the design process and the results of design) constitutes research as well.

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.

Build the Future, Brick by Brick

Build the future, brick by brick in the LEGO® Brick to the Future: 2055 building challenge, sponsored by The LEGO Group and National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Building a Better Urban Future

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

Building a Greener Future: Zero-Carbon Housing

This 2006 report from the United Kingdom's Department for Communities and Local Government outlines a plan to provide zero carbon housing for new residential construction in England by 2016.

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 Cities in the Virtual World

Planning Magazine from the American Planning Association (APA) discusses new Internet technologies -- specifically, the social networking capabilities referred to as Web 2.0 -- that are providing new ways to design and plan.

Building Commons and Community

Building Commons and Community documents 45 years of the late Karl Linn's legacy creating neighborhood spaces for communities and by communities. In this richly-illustrated landscape-format hardcover book, Linn presents his philosophies and practical wisdom to help people use the resources they find in their own surroundings to create welcoming shared spaces.

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 from the Best of the Northern Rockies

In response to unprecedented growth in the Northern Rockies, the Sonoran Institute launched an innovative effort to guide a vision for development that reflects and protects the unique natural and architectural assets of the West. Building from the Best of the Northern Rockies (BBNR) promotes this alternative vision for growth, highlighting what good development looks like in the West. It documents and celebrates new developments in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho that embody this vision.

Building Green Sustainable Communities

Building Green Sustainable Communities, a special report from Local Initiatives Support Corporation, highlights the group's green projects, including training for green jobs; construction of new affordable housing and retrofit of existing homes; urban farms and farmers markets; and green schools and environmental education programs.

Building Green: Onus or Bonus

A Green Buildings Matrix is available from the April 2005 Zoning Practice, the American Planning Association's newsletter that helps guide you as you write and administer smart development codes.

Building Green: Overcoming Barriers in Philadelphia

Building Green: Overcoming Barriers in Philadelphia is a report from the Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) that identifies obstacles to green building in Philadelphia and recommends solutions to dissolving those barriers.

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 Healthy, High Performance Schools

Building Healthy, High Performance Schools: A Review of Selected State and School District Initiatives illustrates policies, programs, and practices to incorporate a high-performance approach in school planning, design, and construction.

Building Sustainable Communities

Building Sustainable Communities is the Local Initiatives Support Corporation's (LISC's) plan to help community residents transform distressed neighborhoods into healthy and sustainable communities of choice and opportunity -- good places to work, do business and raise children.

Building Sustainable Communities: Duluth

Building Sustainable Communities is an LISC website feature that includes a focus on the Duluth, Minnesota, neighborhood of Central Hillside -- one of the oldest and most historic neighborhoods in Duluth, where efforts to preserve the past and secure the future are paying off.

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 Together'' Highlights

The Enterprise Foundation's 2004 Annual Network Conference, ''Building Together: Partnerships for Successful Community Development,'' examined how the community development industry can accomplish more for low-income families by strengthening relationships with current partners and reaching out to new ones.

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.

BURA Charitable Trust Awards for Community Regeneration

The 2005 BURA Awards seek to identify and promote projects that are truly inspired and driven by local people and that aim to raise community spirit and improve the quality of life of local people.

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 Farmland Conservancy Grants

The State of California's Department of Conservation Farmland Conservancy Program provides grants to local governments and qualified nonprofit organizations.

California Farmland Conservancy Program

The California Department of Conservation's Farmland Conservancy Program seeks to encourage the long-term, private stewardship of agricultural lands through the voluntary use of agricultural conservation easements. The CFCP provides grant funding for projects which use and support agricultural conservation easements for protection of agricultural lands.

California Greening Schools Initiative

The California Green Schools Initiative has compiled a list of resources as a starting place for parents, teachers, and school administrators who are interested in finding ways to cover the costs of greening their schools.

California Historic Preservation Local Government Assistance

The California Office of Historic Preservation (OHP) provides technical assistance to California’s city and county governments to aid them in developing and implementing historic preservation programs within the broader context of overall community planning and development.

California Land and Water Conservation Fund

The California Department of Parks and Recreation offers this guide to the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) program, administered nationally by the National Park Service, provides funds to federal agencies, the 50 states and 6 territories.

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 Pilot Projects: LEED for Neighborhood Development Pilot Rating System

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is soliciting projects to be part of the pilot program for its LEED for Neighborhood Development Rating System. Up to 120 pilot projects will be selected to participate in the pilot program.

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 Building Design Projects

Sterling College recently began to renovate its facilities and dorms to make these historic Vermont buildings more energy efficient. In keeping with the mission of the college, it was apparent that this development should be done in an ecologically sustainable way.

Campus Environmental Yearbook

Each year, Campus Ecology gathers case studies for the Campus Environmental Yearbook to document and celebrate the great work being done at colleges and universities across the country

Campus Sustainability Assessment Framework

The Campus Sustainability Assessment Framework (CSAF) examines campus sustainability by looking at the interconnectedness of People and Ecosystems in maintaining the balance of life on this planet.

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 -- 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.

Case Study of State Incentives: Proposals to Make Strategic Investments in Brownfields Redevelopment

The Northeast-Midwest Institute partnered with ICF International to create this Case Study of State Incentives, which advises a state on the potential to modify and expand its brownfields incentives.

Case Study: Gardening in the San Diego School District

The Local Government Commission (LGC) has posted this case study of gardening in the San Diego School District. Students at Rosa Parks Elementary School in the San Diego, California, can enjoy the benefits of a community garden right on their school's campus. The school is located in the City Heights neighborhood where residents are predominately Latino, African-American and Southeast Asian, and 54.5 percent of families earn incomes below the federal poverty level.

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.

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 Champions Awards

The Urban Land Institute-Orlando will honor exceptional community leaders, initiatives and projects dedicated to sustainability and excellence at its Central Florida Champions Awards 2008, to be held September 24, 2008, in Orlando, Florida.

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

Forward Scotland is accepting nominations for the first-ever Champions for Sustainable Communities Awards, to be held on 18 March 2008 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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.

Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of Sprawl

Henry Holt & Company, Inc., 1999. In this book Richard Moe presents cases of communities that have used preservation as a tool to fight decay and sprawl to become vibrant places, making the case that historic preservation is good for America's communities.

Charrettes for Sustainable Communities

Charrettes for Sustainable Communities is a PowerPoint presentation that includes slides and a script, describes charrettes and explains how they can be used to improve the planning process in your community.

Charrettes: A Community Planning Tool that Improves Public Participation (PowerPoint Presentation)

This PowerPoint presentation, which includes both slides and a script, describes what a charrette is and how it can be used to improve the planning process in your community.

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.

Check Your Success: A Guide to Developing Indicators for Community-Based Environmental Projects

Check Your Success is a guide to developing indicators for community-based environmental projects. It's designed for groups that are working on environmental protection at a community level, and will boost efforts to improve your community by helping you develop indicators to measure your success. It also will show you how your group can move beyond a narrow focus and start thinking about how your activities can be used to address the connections between the environment, economy and society.

Chesapeake Bay Grant Programs

The Chesapeake Bay Trust has issued several request for proposals for its 2007-2008 grants cycle. A July 13, 2007 deadline applies for the Stewardship Grants Program, the Environmental Education Grants Program, and the Urban Greening Grant Program.

Chesapeake Bay Trust Mini-Grants: Summer 2009 Deadlines

The Chesapeake Bay Trust's Mini Grants program awards up to $5,000 for projects that address one or more of the Trust's grant making priorities. The majority of Mini Grant applications are submitted by schools for field experiences and on-the ground student service projects.

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 Eat Local Live Healthy Campaign

''Chicago: Eat Local, Live Healthy'' is a City of Chicago strategy to coordinate aspects of the local and regional food industry in ways that enhance public health and create food-related business opportunities.

Child Care Facilities: Quality by Design

This paper, published by Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), describes the interaction between building design and the quality of child care in more detail, offers examples of effective efforts to create superior child care facilities, and recommends further steps to bring the issue more squarely into the discussion of what both communities and children need for health, growth, and success.

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.

Children and Nature Network Community Action Guide

The Children and Nature Network (C&NN) was created to encourage and support people and organizations working toward the goal of reconnecting children and nature. C&NN provides a critical link between researchers, individuals, educators, organizations, businesses and government agencies dedicated to children's health and well-being.

Choice Neighborhoods Funding -- 2009

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced the availability of $113 million in HOPE VI funding in a July 14, 2009 keynote address on the future of urban revitalization at the National Press Club during the Brookings Institution's event, ''From Despair to Hope: Two HUD Secretaries on Urban Revitalization and Opportunity.''

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.

Citistates Weekly Columns

The Citistates Group is a network of journalists, speakers and civic leaders focused on building competitive, equitable and sustainable 21st century metropolitan regions.

Citizen Planner Online

Citizen Planner Online is designed to equip volunteer community leaders with the technical knowledge and leadership skills needed to perform their duties more effectively. It was created to provide a convenient training opportunity for busy citizens and professionals involved in complex land use issues.

Citizen Planner Online Glossary

Citizen Planner offers a glossary of planning-relate terms on its website, Citizen Planner Online. This alphabetical index covers the full spectrum of planning and development topics.

Citizen Planners Resource Kit

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy offers U.S. planning boards a complimentary Citizen Planners Resource Kit. The Citizen Planners Resource Kit was developed for distribution to local planning boards and commissions across the U.S. as part of the Lincoln Institute’s mission to reach out to citizen planning commissions through educational programs, publications, multi-media resources, and its website.

Citizen Surveys for Local Governments

Citizen Surveys for Local Government: A Comprehensive Guide to Making Them Matter from ICMA is a 2009 book that shows how to put your citizen survey results to work for you, to improve performance and efficiency.

City Mayors Profiles

In a range of profiles of mayors from Asia, Africa, Europe and The Americas, City Mayors' editors and freelance writers examine what makes an outstanding mayor. They also ask city leaders which of their policies and actions have been particularly successful and could be emulated by other cities.

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 Parks: Facts and Figures 2009

The 77 largest city park systems nationwide provide more than 1.3 million acres of parkland, providing close-to-home outdoor experiences in an ailing economy, according to a City Parks: Facts and Figures report released by The Trust for Public Land (TPL).

City Parks: When There's Nothing to Conserve -- Create!

When There's Nothing to Conserve -- Create! is a publication from the Trust for Public Lands (TPL) that describes how, from Boston to San Francisco, successful parks have been created out of former factories, home sites, office buildings, railyards, parking lots, landfills, and even highways.

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.

City/County Collaborations on Brownfields

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

CITYgreen

American Forests. This GIS software program, used for land-use planning and policy-making, helps people understand the value of trees to the local environment .

CITYGreen Environmental Education

American Forests' environmental education program provides students with a real world learning experience while providing teachers an innovative yet well organized program for teaching science, math and Geographic Information Systems.

Civic Leadership Awards

The National Trust for Historic Preservation presented the Main Street Leadership Awards in May 2004 at the opening session of the 2004 National Main Streets Conference, the annual conference of the National Trust Historic Preservation's Main Street Center.

Civic Participation and Smarter Growth

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

Civic Trust Awards 2005

The Civic Trust Awards recognize the very best in United Kingdom architecture, urban design, landscaping and public art. They are awarded to projects of the highest quality design, but only if they are also judged to have made a positive contribution to the local environment -- and helped improve the places where we live.

Civic Vision Award -- AIA Houston

The American Institute of Architects-Houston (AIA) honored Houston Tomorrow's David Crossley with its Civic Vision Award at AIA Houston's Annual Meeting on October 30, 2008.

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.

Clean Ohio Fund

The Clean Ohio Fund was established to preserve green space and farmland, improve outdoor recreation, and revitalize blighted neighborhoods by cleaning up and redeveloping polluted properties.

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.

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@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.

CNT Building -- LEED Platinum

The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) moved into an eighty-year-old former textile factory in 1987, leaving its home in downtown Chicago for a transit-friendly neighborhood on Chicago’s near Northwest Side. CNT renovated the upper two floors of the building in a then energy-efficient manner, in accordance with the organization's philosophy of promoting urban sustainability. The building became the first non-toxic one in Illinois and CNT earned an award for having the most energy-efficient building in the state.

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 Athena Award 2009

The Congress for the New Urbanism has named Grady Clay and Rob Krier as recipients of the 2009 Athena Medal. They join a list of others honored with the award for their work in laying the foundation for the New Urbanism movement.

CNU Athena Awards

The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) has named winners of the 2007 CNU Athena Awards. The 2007 Athena Medal, presented at CNU XV in Philadelphia, recognizes those who have laid the foundation for New Urbanism.

CNU Audio from 2007 Illinois Charter Signing Ceremony

Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) has provided audio recordings from speakers at the CNU-Illinois Charter signing ceremony, held in March 2007. Speakers at this event included Ray Gindroz, who spoke about Rebuilding Lost New Orleans; Sam Sherman, who spoke about Philadelphia's Exploding Market; and Emily Talen and Neal Payton, who focused on Housing Affordability.

CNU Charter Awards 2006

CNU invites professionals from around the world to submit their projects to the 2006 Charter Awards. The Charter Awards honor exceptional designs that complement and enhance their built and natural environments, including projects that repair or reshape these contexts. Entries are due January 31, 2006.

CNU Charter Awards 2006 -- Students and Faculty

CNU extends a special invitation to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty, to submit projects to the Charter Awards 2006. These projects will be subject to a special set of criteria and will be reviewed independently of professional submissions. Entries are due January 31, 2006.

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 2009 Honorees

The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) announces the recipients of its 2009 Charter Awards, the annual prize honoring the best of the New Urbanism.

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 Charter Awards Nominations 2008

The Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) is accepting nominations for its 2008 Charter Awards, recognizing achievements in design, planning, and development that meet the exacting standards of the Charter of the New Urbanism.

CNU Charter Awards Nominations 2009

The Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) is accepting nominations for its 2009 Charter Awards, recognizing achievements in design, planning, and development that meet the exacting standards of the Charter of the New Urbanism.

CNU New England Awards

The Congress for the New Urbanism-New England recognized five winners at its First Annual CNU New England Awards. These awards recognize the best of new urbanist plans, programs, designs, and projects based upon the principles set forth in 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.

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.

Codifying New Urbanism

Codifying New Urbanism describes New Urbanist essentials, the steps to putting New Urbanism to work in your community, and the successes of 12 communities who have followed the approaches described in the report.

Collaborative of High Performance Schools Project List

The Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) facilitates the design, construction and operation of high performance schools: environments that are not only energy and resource efficient, but also healthy, comfortable, well lit, and containing the amenities for a quality education. The CHPS Project List provides an at-a-glance view of school districts from across the country that are building high performance schools using the CHPS Criteria.

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 Brownfields Foundation Due Diligence Grants -- Colorado

The Environmental Due Diligence Pilot Program is seeking communities that are proactively pursuing economic development opportunities. The EDD Program will conduct Phase I Environmental Assessments on a property or multiple properties within selected communities. Alternatively, area-wide assessments could be conducted for a main street, industrial district, business park, or other geographic area.

Colorado Community Revitalization Awards

The Governor's Awards for Downtown Excellence annually 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.

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.

Colorado Heritage Planning Grants

The Colorado Heritage Planning Grant Program is designed to recognize and reward those communities cooperatively planning to manage growth.

Combating Problems of Vacant and Abandoned Property

Combating Problems of Vacant and Abandoned Properties is a report from the U.S. Conference of Mayors that details best practices for rehabilitating abandoned properties in 27 U.S. cities.

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.

Common Ground Digest -- May 2008

Common Ground Digest from The Conservation Fund is the organizations's monthly e-newsletter and features the latest in conservation and land protection news, from land acquisitions to sustainable programs to special initiatives.

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 Award Winners -- 2006

An Erie County project that gave a former drive-in movie theater a second act as the Tom Ridge Environmental Center captured the top honor in the 2006 Commonwealth Design Awards. 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania bestowed honors upon 15 projects in 10 counties that represent the best examples of smart growth design from across Pennsylvania. The nonprofit 10,000 Friends presented its annual awards at a public event at The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. PNC Bank, a part of The PNC Financial Services Group Inc., is title sponsor for the awards program.

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 by Design PowerPoint

Communities by Design is a presentation that outlines the American Institute of Architects' mission and illustrates the AIA's ten livability principles.

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 Action Grants

The Gannett Foundation supports local organizations in communities served by Gannett Co., Inc.

Community Action Grants: Washington, DC Region

The Gannett Corporation's Community Action Grants program makes grants to eligible organizations in the communities in which Gannett does business, including the Washington, DC Metro area.

Community Assistance Grant Program

To help communities begin the planning process toward smart growth, northeast Ohio's Smart Growth Education Foundation (SGEF) has established a grant program to provide ''seed'' money to help pay for professional planning help.

Community Assistance Grant Program

To aid communities to begin the planning process, the Smart Growth Education Foundation has established a grant program to provide seed money to help pay for professional planning help.

SGEF will fund up to 40% of an eligible project with the maximum amount not to exceed $4,000 for any single project. However, each project will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and, if a project demonstrates ''extraordinary compliance'' with multiple Smart Growth principles, a higher level of funding could be considered.

One-half of the grant amount will be paid at the outset of the project; the second half will be paid when the project is completed. SGEF generally expects that the project will be completed within 12 months.

This is a unique service of an HBA that is to be part of an HBA organized Smart Growth Education Foundation that actually grants funds to local governments, so that they can implement ''Smart Growth'' zoning. The reality is local governments coming to an HBA Foundation for funding that will foster the goals of both entities.

Community Building: How to Do It, Why It Matters

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

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

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

Community Culture and the Environment: A Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place

This Environmental Protection Agency guide is a technical document designed to help environmental professionals engage human communities in the processes of creating, implementing, and sustaining environmental protection efforts. It is based on elements of social science theory and methodology (e.g., anthropology, cultural geography, political science, economics, and sociology) that are relevant to defining and understanding the connections between community life and environmental issues.

Community Design Assessment: A Citizens’ Planning Tool

The Community Design Assessment: A Citizens’ Planning Guide by Kennedy Smith and Leslie Tucker provides a step-by-step process for evaluating the design and visual impact of buildings and corporate graphics in your community in order to guide decisions about future development.

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 Financial Institutions Fund

The Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (the Fund) provides financial assistance awards and technical assistance grants to Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) that have comprehensive business plans for creating demonstrable community development impact through the deployment of capital within their respective Target Markets for community development purposes.

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 Engagement Guide

The Community Engagement Guide from KnowledgeWorks Foundation, Ohio's largest public education philanthropy, is an essential resource for community and school change efforts.

Community Food Projects Grants Program 2010

Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) invites applications for the Community Food Projects Competitive Grants Program (CFPCGP) for fiscal year (FY) 2010 to support: (1) the development of Community Food Projects with a one-time infusion of federal dollars to make such projects self-sustaining; and (2) Planning Projects to assess the food security needs and plan long-term solutions to help ensure food security in communities. CSREES anticipates that the amount available for support of this program in FY 2010 will be approximately $5,000,000.

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 Forest Report

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

Community Foundation for the Alleghenies -- Pennsylvania

Through grantmaking activities, the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies serves nonprofits in Bedford, Cambria, Indiana, and Somerset Counties in western Pennsylvania.

Community Garden Grants

Project Orange Thumb is a grant program that provides community garden groups with the tools and materials they need to reach their goals for neighborhood beautification and horticulture education.

Community Growth Options -- Minnesota

1000 Friends of Minnesota and their University of Minnesota partners, the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs and the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, are managing the Community Growth Options (CGO) initiative, a six-year program funded by the McKnight Foundation and designed to deliver to small, fast-growing communities financial and other assistance for community planning, ordinance development, and implementation.

Community Growth Options -- Minnesota

Community Growth Options, a 1000 Friends of Minnesota program, is designed to deliver to small, fast-growing communities financial and other assistance for community planning, ordinance development and implementation.

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 Indicators

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

Community Indicators Consortium

The Community Indicators Consortium (CIC) is an active learning network and community of practice among persons and organizations interested or engaged in the field of community indicators and their application. CIC is organized around the belief that information sharing across areas of interest is a key element in successful work to benefit people and their concerns about their communities.

Community Innovations Grants

The Boston Foundation announced $19 million in new grant awards to more than 100 nonprofit organizations serving Greater Boston. While the wide range of these grants speaks to the rich complexity of life in the region, each individual funding decision reflects a strategic commitment to increase impact, opportunity and innovation within the organizations that serve area residents.

Community Involvement Grants

Small differences in a community can make a large difference in the world. Tom's of Maine supports and encourage your efforts to get involved with its Community Involvement Grants program. In November 2009, Tom's of Maine will award five 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations with $20,000.

Community Involvement in Brownfield Redevelopment

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

Community Jobs in the Green Economy

Community Jobs in the Green Economy, a collaborative effort between the Apollo Alliance and Urban Habitat, emphasizes the potential of the ''green economy'' to generate quality jobs in the nation's low-income communities and communities of color.

Community Land Trusts: Leasing Land for Affordable Housing

This article from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy's Land Lines newsletter discusses how a community land trust (CLT) can be a useful tool for lower-income families to help purchase and finance housing.

Community Lots Website

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy offers the Community Lots project, an online resource designed to help community-based organizations (CBOs) move beyond their traditional role of housing development and into the community at large.

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 Planner Pro

The Community Planner Pro™ CD-ROM, included as part of The Enterprise Foundation's Community Development Library, helps nonprofit, community-based organizations engage neighborhood residents in the process of developing practical action plans for their community.

Community Preservation in Action

Community Preservation in Action features articles about completed or planned projects that preserve and enhance quality of life in Massachusetts communities.

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 Grants -- Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Department of Community and Economic Development sponsors the Community Revitalization Program. This program provides grants for community revitalization and improvement projects which in the judgment of the Department will improve the stability of the community; promote economic development; improve existing and develop new civic, cultural, recreational, industrial and other facilities; assist in business retention, expansion, stimulation and attraction; promote the creation of jobs and employment opportunities; or enhance the health, welfare and quality of life of citizens in the Commonwealth.

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 Vermont Forum on Sprawl and the Conservation Law Foundation, Community Rules is a guidebook for local planners, concerned citizens, and others who want to achieve smart growth in their communities through better planning, zoning, and permitting.

Community Schools National Awards of Excellence -- 2007 Call for Entries

The Community Schools National Awards of Excellence honor community schools and community-wide initiatives that have been operating for three or more years and have demonstrated positive results for students, families and/or communities.

Community Services Block Grant Program -- Community Economic Development

The Office of Community Services will award Community Economic Development discretionary grant funds for operational projects to Community Development Corporations that are experienced in implementing economic development projects. The purpose of these grants is to create new employment and business development opportunities for low-income individuals. Deadline for applications is May 12, 2006.

Community Trees Grants

Green Communities now offers Community Trees Grants, in partnership with The Home Depot Foundation, to affordable housing developers to strategically incorporate trees into their site plans. This program focuses on the remarkable economic, social and environmental contributions trees make to communities. The Foundation views trees as an untapped resource that can be used to help cities deal with the pollution of our air and water, cool our city streets, reduce crime, reduce asthma and improve our overall health.

Community Trees: A Living Investment

Communities need effective tools to help them manage one of their greatest assets—their trees. To help meet this need, the U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry worked with State partners to develop the DVD Community Trees: A Living Investment. This high-resolution DVD promotes the value of trees in our lives and in our communities using validated scientific research and citizen testimonials. The videos included on the DVD educate community members who can help build stronger tree care programs to ensure that urban forests are as healthy and well managed as possible.

The videos include a discussion about proper tree care and provide the next steps on how to get involved in community forestry efforts.

The DVD was produced for decisionmakers, community advocates, and citizens. The 2-minute video helps decisionmakers understand the benefits of community trees so they can make stronger, valid arguments for supporting tree care programs. The 6-minute video targets community tree advocates to expand their depth of understanding about how trees impact property values, save energy, and make communities more livable. It emphasizes that these benefits are greatest in communities that manage their trees. The 20-minute video is intended for a more general audience. Scientists provide detailed explanations about the services community trees provide, and citizens speak on a more personal level about how trees have improved their lives and the livelihood of their communities.

Community: The Structure of Belonging

How is community built? It's more than roads and buildings—it's human connections. The author suggests six kinds of conversation that can help you convene participatory processes to build a real sense of community, as well as design processes that foster a sense of belonging in your community's physical spaces. He examines citizenship and leadership, offering practical ideas for citizens, officials, and planners to transform fractured towns into real communities.

CommunityViz Planning Software

The Orton Family Foundation announces that it is making its CommunityViz® planning software available to communities at a new, reduced cost of $185, removing a significant barrier to access to communities across the country in need of effective planning tools and methods.

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 Report

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

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.

Comprehensive Guide to Sustainable Municipal Planning

The Alberta Urban Municipalities Association has produced a Municipal Sustainability Planning Guide to help communities proactively address current challenges and move towards a sustainable future where a strong economy and participative governance models protect ecological integrity and contribute to a vibrant cultural scene and strong social cohesion.

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.

Congress for the New Urbanism: CNU 17 Call for Academic Papers

Every year, the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) invites academic paper submissions for presentation at the annual Congress. CNU 17, to be held in Denver, Colorado from June 10-13, 2009, will focus on the theme of ''Experiencing the New Urbanism: The Convenient Remedy,'' and promises to be an exciting opportunity to share new experiences and ideas.

Connecticut Brownfields Cleanup Grants

The Connecticut Brownfields Redevelopment Authority (CBRA) has developed programs that encourage brownfield redevelopment by reducing costs, eliminating environmental uncertainly, and simplifying the regulatory process.

Connecticut Environmental Assistance Programs

The Connecticut Office of Brownfield Remediation and Development (OBRD) provides a list of State of Connecticut Environmental Assistance Programs on its website.

Connecticut Urban and Industrial Sites Reinvestment Tax Credit Program

The Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development offers an Urban and Industrial Sites Reinvestment Tax Credit Program. This economic development tool designed to drive investment to the state's urban centers and other economically distressed communities without depleting valuable state bond dollars.

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.

Connectivity Newsletter: Community Investing on the Move

Community Investing on the Move is the theme of The National Neighborhood Coalition's Summer 2005 issue of Connectivity. This issue examines the sources of capital investment in low income neighborhoods, and features information about socially responsible investing, CDFIs, CRA, and community credit unions.

Conservation and Native Landscaping Award -- 2006

The 2006 Conservation and Native Landscaping Awards Program, sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Chicago Wilderness, recognizes park districts, municipalities and corporations that make extensive and creative use of native landscaping to support native species of plants and animals that comprise the Chicago Great Lakes region's outstanding biodiversity.

Conservation and Native Landscaping Award -- 2007

The 2007 Conservation and Native Landscaping Awards Program, sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Chicago Wilderness, recognizes park districts, municipalities and corporations that make extensive and creative use of native landscaping to support native species of plants and animals that comprise this region's outstanding biodiversity.

Conservation and Native Landscaping Awards -- 2005

The 2005 Conservation and Native Landscaping Awards Program recognizes park districts, municipalities and corporations that make extensive and creative use of native landscaping to support native species of plants and animals that comprise the region's biodiversity. Application deadline for the 2005 program is Wednesday, July 27, 2005.

Conservation Awards 2005

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) has announced winners of the 2005 Conservation Awards. Six counties in six different states have received top honors in first of a planned annual awards competition that recognizes efforts to protect and restore critical environmental and habitat areas.

Conservation Finance Handbook

Conservation Finance Handbook is a how-to guide that explains the complex process of securing federal, state, and private conservation funds and -- most importantly -- researching, designing, and passing a local, voter-approved conservation finance measure.

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.

Conservation Options for Connecticut Farmland

This guide describes farmland protection options and programs available in Connecticut and answers some frequently asked questions about agricultural conservation easements.

Conservation Tax Incentive 2008

The 2008 U.S. Farm Bill renews a powerful tax incentive which has helped conserve a million or more acres of farms, ranches and natural areas across the U.S. The incentive had expired January 1, but is now retroactive to the beginning of the year and will last through 2009.

Conservation: An Investment that Pays

Conservation: An Investment That Pays from Trust for Public Land is intended to help agency personnel and community conservationists make the case for conservation as a long-term economic investment.

Conserving the Green Network

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

Conserving the Washington-Baltimore’s Green Network

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

Context-Sensitive Signage Design

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

Counties and Local Food Systems

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

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 Communities of Learning: Schools and Smart Growth

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

Creating Community-Based Brownfield Redevelopment Strategies -- Resource List

The Creating Community-Based Brownfields Redevelopment Strategies Resource List from the American Planning Association contains books, articles, and government document citations. The list is part of a continuous process and may be considered a literature review as well as a resource list for the project.

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 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 Quality Places: Successful Communities By Design

This program of the Mid-America Regional Council aims to foster the design of quality places in communities throughout the Kansas City region. Its 20 principles serve as a guide to quality development.

Creating Safer, More Livable Communities Through Planning and Design.

Proceedings APA Online National Conference, Boston, 1998. Tempe AZ: ASU College of Architecture and Environmental Design P, 1999. Municipalities throughout the country are recognizing the potential benefits of supporting programs which focus on the physical environment and crime. As a result, many planners and designers are entering a new realm of their ultimate responsibility: to protect the public general health, safety, and welfare.

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 the Future 2007 Awards

Creating the Future: The Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC) Awards for Sustainable Communities is the theme of this event, to be held in London, England on June 7, 2007. Formerly the Deputy Prime Minister's Awards for Sustainable Communities, Creating the Future celebrates achievement in the public, private and third sectors.

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.

CUI Brownie Awards -- 2007 Award Winners

Winners of the Canadian Urban Institute's (CUI's) annual Brownie Awards were announced at a presentation dinner on October 18, 2007 during the 8th annual Canadian Brownfields Conference in Montreal.

CUI Brownie Awards 2005

The Canadian Urban Institute's annual Brownie Awards program recognizes leadership, innovation and environmental sustainability in brownfields redevelopment across Canada. Working with key industry and professional organizations, the Canadian Urban Institute presents its awards at its Brownfields conference, held in October each year.

CUI's Urban Leadership Awards Nominations -- 2008

The Canadian Urban Institute's (CUI's) Urban Leadership Awards program honors those that have made a profound and lasting impact on the quality of urban life.

Cultivating Community Gardens

Cultivating Community Gardens: The Role of Local Government in Creating Healthy, Livable Neighborhoods is a fact sheet from the Local Government Commission (LGC) that offers case studies, best management practices, resources and tools for policymakers to develop creative, cost-effective solutions that reduce barriers and facilitate the creation of community garden programs.

Cultures of Cities: A New Online Data Bank

This online data bank gives a panorama of present transformations in European cities. The reports focus on the main themes discussed at the 4th Biennial of Towns and Town Planners in Europe.

D.C. Historic Preservation Grants

Beginning January 2007, District of Columbia homeowners within specific historic districts will be eligible to receive a grant valued at 35% of applicable D.C. income taxes toward the expenses of rehabilitating their homes.

Dangermond Fellowship

ASLA, the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF), and Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) are partnering to offer the Dangermond Fellowship for graduate students studying landscape architecture in the United States to encourage the use of geographic information systems (GIS) as a framework for exploring integrated approaches to landscape analysis, planning, design, and management.

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.

Decisions for the Earth

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

Delaware Food Exchange

The Delaware Food Exchange lets you sell, give away or trade things you don't want with people who do, like an online garage sale. There's lots of free stuff available, plus it's good for the environment. You can also post requests for items that you need.

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.

Delmarva Farmland Strategy Project

American Farmland Trust (AFT) initiated the Delmarva Farmland Strategy Project to bring new tools to communities that are struggling with how to accommodate change and growth while retaining a profitable agricultural sector.

Demonstrating the Economic Benefits of Integrated, Green Infrastructure

This paper will provide a compelling argument for municipalities to pursue means of developing integrated approaches in the development of services and infrastructure.

Denny Park -- Green Communities

Green Communities is a five-year, $550 million initiative to build more than 8,500 environmentally healthy homes for low-income families. Created by the Enterprise Foundation / Enterprise Social Investment Corporation in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council, Green Communities will transform the way America thinks about, designs, and builds affordable communities.

Design and Development: Infill Housing Compatible with Historic Neighborhoods

National Trust for Historic Preservation. 1989, revised 1998. Explores the design and development processes behind compatible infill housing with strategies for new housing on vacant lots.

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 Assistance Program

The Design Center at the University of Minnesota's college of architecture and landscape architecture offers technical assistance to communities in a variety of ways. Throughout the web site you will find information, facts, and educational materials.

Design Awards 2007 -- Maryland

AIA Maryland's 2007 Annual Meeting and Design Awards is September 27 at the Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center in College Park. This year’s event will feature a talk and tour of the building by its designer -- alumnus and world-renowned architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen, FAIA. Additionally, AIA Maryland holds its first annual Student Design Awards competition in conjunction with its regular design competition.

Design Awards Programs -- Boston Society of Architects

Each year the Boston Society of Architects (BSA), often in collaboration with other organizations, sponsors awards programs to honor design excellence in Massachusetts, throughout New England and elsewhere.

Design Center Image Bank

The Design Center Image Bank contains over 17,000 images, including low-level oblique aerial photographs and eye-level images. The focus of the collection is the Twin Cities metropolitan region in Minnesota and dates from the early 1990s through the present.

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 Aging Review

The Design for Aging Review, 6th edition, is a compilation of over 70 projects submitted for a 2001-2002 competition in the areas of assisted living, continuing care retirement communities, nursing homes and more.

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 for Health Summit Report

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

Design for Livability: Call for Presentations

The American Institute of Architects Seattle (Washington) (AIA Seattle) is seeking provocative presentations and discussion topics from a wide range of viewpoints for ''Design for Livability: Sustainable Cities,'' a forum set for October 15-16, 2009.

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.

Designation of 22 New National Recreation Trails

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar recently designated 22 trails in 13 states as newly recognized National Recreation Trails, adding more than 525 miles of trails to the National Trails System.

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 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 Greenways

Greenways can protect natural landscapes, allow wildlife to move freely, and offer residents ways to connect with nature. Designing Greenways: Sustainable Landscapes for Nature and People shows how to incorporate greenways into your community, and the pitfalls to avoid when developing them.

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.

Designing Schoolyards & Building Community

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

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.

Desktop Tool for Revitalizing Planning

The Community Revitalization Desktop Guide is a new desktop computing tool created to help Pennsylvania communities plan revitalization efforts. This tool from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development provides a comprehensive model for community revitalization, and is based upon city and town revitalization efforts over the past thirty years.

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.

Developing Sustainable Planned Communities

Developing Sustainable Planned Communities from the Urban Land Institute provides down-to-earth, reality-based insights into designing and developing sustainable planned communities that are environmentally responsible, attractive to the market, and profitable.

Development Incentives -- Seattle Department of Planning and Development, Seattle, Washington

The Seattle Department of Planning and Development maintains a Development Incentives section on its website. This feature provides an overview of incentives by project type, as outlined by city Green Building staff, to help you achieve your green building goals.

Development of Excellence Awards

The Atlanta Regional Commission and the Livable Communities Coalition are joint partners in the promotion of the Developments of Excellence Awards program.

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.

Directory of Federal Programs for Environmentally-Related Education

The Directory of Federal Grant-Making Programs for Environmentally-Related Education, published by Campaign for Environmental Literacy (CEL), is designed to help meet the need of the environmental education community for easily accessible and reasonably comprehensive information about federal funding programs. It also helps enable the Campaign for Environmental Literacy to track and analyze government grant-making trends, and to provide this information to Members of Congress.

Directory of the New Urbanism 2008

New Urban News Publications offers the 2008 Directory of the New Urbanism, a guide to people and products with experience in quality urbanism linked to the places they have created. The book is a unique portal into the collective wisdom of an ever-growing industry.

Disadvantaged Communities Network: Brownfield Tools and Assistance

The Northeast-Midwest Institute has posted on its website presentations and audio archives from the EPA-sponsored Disadvantaged Communities Network events. The Network was launched in 2006 launched to provide brownfields tools and technical assistance to local communities that are seeking to overcome economic and neighborhood disadvantage.

Disaster Planning for Florida's Historic Resources

1000 Friends of Florida has produced the guidebook Disaster Planning for Florida's Historic Resources to help communities better prepare for catastrophic damage to their landmark buildings and structures, historic districts, and archaeological sites -- resources that embody a community's distinct heritage and are a source of pride for area residents.

Discovering Community Power

Discovering Community Power: A Guide to Mobilizing Local Assets and Your Organization's Capacity is a community-building workbook from the Asset-Based Community Development Institute (ABCD Institute) School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University.

Diversity: Smart Growth for Inclusion

The Winter 2007 edition of On Common Ground focuses on inclusion and diversity. People who care about inclusion and diversity are viewing Smart Growth, which supports a greater diversity and connectivity in the physical pattern of growth, as one tool to bring people together across racial and class lines.

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

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

Downtown Minneapolis Park Space Initiative

In 2007, Trust for Public Land joined the City of Minneapolis and several partners to study how existing park and open spaces can be more successful and financially viable. The Downtown Minneapolis Park Space Initiative report is the result of this study.

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.

Dozen Distinctive Destinations Nominations

Each year the National Trust honors 12 communities from across the country that offer authentic experiences. Give your favorite destination the recognition it deserves by nominating it for the National Trust’s 2006 list Dozen Distinctive Destinations.

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.

EcoIndustrial Strategies

Eco-industrial Strategies explores the key issues involved in eco-industrial development and identifies the stakeholders and their roles in such projects.

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.

Eco-Municipalities: A Model for Sustainable Communities in Wisconsin

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

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.

Economics of Historic Preservation: A Community Leader’s Guide

The Economics of Historic Preservation: A Community Leader’s Guide has been updated by author Donovan D. Rypkema in this 2005 edition. This book is an essential reference for any preservationist faced with convincing government officials, developers, property owners, business and community leaders, or his or her own neighbors that preservation strategies can make good economic sense.

EcoSmart Design Software

EcoSmart is a Web-based software program designed to evaluate the economic trade-offs between different landscape practices on residential parcels.

Edens Lost and Found

Edens Lost & Found, a four-hour PBS series, showcases extraordinary stories of environmental rebirth in four very different American cities: Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Each one-hour program examines the unique environmental, economic and social issues that each of these great cities face.

EDRA Places Awards -- 2007 Call for Nominations

EDRA and Places journal's annual award program recognize good places and how people inhabit them. Awards are offered in Place Design, Place Planning, and Place Research.

EDRA Places Design -- 2006 Award Winners

Six exemplary projects in architecture, planning, landscape architecture, and urban design have been named winners of the 2006 EDRA/Places Awards for Place Design, Place Planning, and Place Research.

edra/Achievement Awards 2006

The Environmental Design Research Association invites applicants for their 2006 Achievement Awards, given in recognition of a specific contribution that advances the field of environmental design research through the generation of knowledge, public service, or professional practice, for a coherent recognizable body of work or activities by an individual or group.

EDRA/PLACES Awards -- 2008 Call for Nominations

EDRA and Places journal's annual award program recognize good places and how people inhabit them. Awards are offered in Place Design, Place Planning, and Place Research.

Educational Facilities Financing Center

Local Initiatives Support Corp. offers the Educational Facilities Financing Center (EFFC) on its website. EFFC provides information on funding programs for charter school facilities and general issues related to charter schools.

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.

ELI Annual Award 2009

The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) is proud to announce that U.S. Senators Mark Udall of Colorado and Tom Udall of New Mexico will be the joint recipients of the 2009 ELI Award for Achievement in Environmental Law, Policy, and Management.

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.

Energy Star Challenge

The ENERGY STAR Challenge is a national call-to-action to improve the energy efficiency of America's commercial and industrial buildings by 10 percent or more. Whether you're associated with a small school or a large corporation, a local government or a national association, a community hospital or a hotel group, a manufacturing plant or an architecture firm -- you can be part of the ENERGY STAR Challenge and help improve the energy efficiency of America's commercial and industrial buildings by 10 percent or more.

Engaging the Future: Forecasts, Scenarios, Plans, and Projects

Engaging the Future: Forecasts, Scenarios, Plans, and Projects is a new book from the Lincoln Institute by authors , Lewis D. Hopkins and Marisa A. Zapata. This richly illustrated volume offer a variety of tools and examples for planners in situations where they are positioned to advocate for a new kind of planning -- one that allows communities to face uncertain and malleable futures with continuous and deliberative planning activities.

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 Conference Presentations

Presentations from Enterprise's annual conference, held November 14–16, 2007, in Cleveland, Ohio, are now available online.

Enterprise Conference Presentations

Conference presentations from Enterprise's Community Conference, held in Cleveland, Ohio, November 14-16, 2007, are now available at the Enterprise website.

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 Receives HUD Funding to Provide Technical Assistance

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) named Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise) as one of nine national organizations receiving funding to help local communities purchase, rehabilitate and resell foreclosed properties in especially hard-hit neighborhoods. The $7.1 million grant to Enterprise is part of a $50 million effort that HUD has launched to help state and local governments address the inventory of foreclosed properties, using the department's Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP).

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.

Enterprise Technical Assistance

Through its local offices, Enterprise provides one-on-one expertise, through its staff or consultants, to help community-based organizations prepare their boards, partners, staff and administration to carry out their work.

Environment Education Grants

The Grants Program sponsored by EPA’s Office of Environmental Education supports environmental education projects that enhance the public’s awareness, knowledge, and skills to help people make informed decisions that affect environmental quality.

Environmental Assistance Grants -- Minnesota

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) Environmental Assistance Grant Program is a competitive, two-stage application process to identify and assist projects that will be most beneficial in meeting the Agency's mission of working with Minnesotans to protect, conserve, and improve Minnesota's air, land and water resources.

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 Design Awards

The Environmental Design Research Association presents several awards annually for design competitions that recognize achievements in active place design, service efforts, and more.

Environmental Education Funding

The Washington State Environmental Education Initiative offers a section on Environmental Education grants on its website.

Environmental Education Grants

The Grant Program sponsored by EPA’s Office of Environmental Education supports environmental education projects that enhance the public’s awareness, knowledge, and skills to help people make informed decisions that affect environmental quality.

Environmental Financial Tools

The Environmental Finance Program (EFP) at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides financial technical assistance to the regulated community and advice and recommendations to the Agency on environmental finance issues, trends, and options. Among the resources offered by the EFP are environmental financial tools: sources of potential funding solutions.

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 Justice Geographic Assessment Tool

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers the Environmental Justice Geographic Assessment Tool, an online searchable database that provides information for preliminary analysis of Environmental Justice areas of concern.

Environmental Justice Grants

The New York State DEC Office of Environmental Justice is now accepting grant applications from community organizations for projects that address environmental and related public health issues. Projects must address multiple harms and risks to communities and communicate project results to the community residents.

Environmental Justice Small Grants Awards

Fiscal Year 2009 marks the 15th anniversary of the U.S. EPA's Environmental Justice Small Grants Program (EJSG). Since its inception in 1994, the Program has awarded more than $20 million in funding to 1,130 community-based organizations, and local and tribal organizations working with communities who are facing environmental justice issues.

Environmental Justice Small Grants Program -- 2008 Call for Applications

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published an Application Guidance document for its 2008 Environmental Justice Small Grants Program. Deadline for applications is June 30, 2008.

Environmental Justice Small Grants Program -- Fall 2006

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) provides financial assistance for local community-based organizations through the Environmental Justice Small Grants (EJSG) Program. Established in 1994, the purpose of this program is to provide financial assistance that will support and empower community-based organizations that are working on local solutions to local environmental and/or public health problems.

Environmental Justice, Urban Revitalization and Brownfields

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

Environmental Justice: The Power of Partnerships

Environmental Justice: The Power of Partnerships is a documentary film from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that tells the story of how one man, a local community organization called ReGenesis, and a handful of partners turned a downtrodden community around. It's about the process of discovering -- after being exposed to environmental contamination -- a public health problem, working together to envision broad solutions, bringing people together, and creating change. It's about a place that ''couldn't get any worse,'' according to one resident, that is now being transformed.

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 Merit Awards -- New England

The U.S. EPA-Region 1 (New England) is now accepting nominations for groups and individuals to be considered for an Environmental Merit Award. The nomination period closes January 22, 2007. The winners will be notified in late March and the Awards Ceremony will be held in Boston in mid April.

Environmental Merit Awards -- New England

For more than thirty years, EPA New England has honored those who have made outstanding contributions on behalf of the region's environment. EPA's Environmental Merit Award program has honored teachers, citizen activists, business leaders, scientists, public officials and others who have made outstanding contributions on behalf of the region's public health and natural environment.

Environmental Planning Handbook

In The Environmental Planning Handbook, Tom and Katherine Daniels clarify complex environmental issues, examine current sustainability efforts, and offer step-by-step guidance for local governments to incorporate sustainable environmental quality into local and regional comprehensive planning.

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 Restoration Program -- New York

Under the Environmental Restoration Program, the State of New York provides grants to municipalities to reimburse up to 90 percent of on-site eligible costs and 100% of off-site eligible costs for site investigation and remediation activities. Once remediated, the property may then be reused for commercial, industrial, residential or public use.

Environmental Stewardship Awards

The Virginia Environmental Stewardship Awards recognize innovative and effective stewardship activities that serve to protect and enhance local and state natural resources.

EnviroTools: State Brownfield Programs

EnviroTools is a website guide to involve your community in the cleanup of a polluted site. To help answer the question: ''How do we clean up this mess?'' EnviroTools has assembled a collection of educational materials on Superfund and Brownfields sites, along with sites cleaned up under state programs. The site also has a section on financing.

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 Accepting Nominations for Watershed Protection Initiative

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is accepting nominations for President Bush's Watershed Protection Initiative. Governors and Tribal leaders are invited to submit nominations for projects that would help promote and advance successes in up to 20 watersheds.

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 Brownfields Cleanup Revolving Loan Fund

The Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) grants provide funding for a grant recipient to capitalize a revolving loan fund and to provide subgrants to carry out cleanup activities at brownfield sites. Through these grants, EPA seeks to strengthen the marketplace and encourage stakeholders to leverage the resources needed to clean up and redevelop brownfields. When loans are repaid, the loan amount is returned into the fund and re-lent to other borrowers, providing an ongoing source of capital within a community.

EPA CARE Grants 2008 -- Reduce Risks from Toxics

The U.S. EPA announces availability of funds for its Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) Program. Proposals are being sought to meet financial assistance needs for eligible entities through the new CARE program.

EPA P3 Award Winners Announced at the 2006 National Sustainable Design Expo

George Gray, Assistant Administrator for U.S. EPA's Office of Research and Development, has announced winners of EPA's 2nd Annual P3 Awards -- People, Prosperity, and the Planet. Six student teams from Appalachian State University, University of Michigan, Lafayette College, Portland State University, University of Massachusetts -- Lowell, and Stanford University won the awards by competing at EPA's National Sustainable Design Expo.

EPA Region 4 Environmental Priorities

EPA Region 4 is soliciting proposals for projects for Fiscal Year 2006 to address regional and state strategic priorities that meet national Regional Geographic Initiative (RGI) and Environmental Priorities Program (EPP) funding criteria.

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 6th Annual Clean Air Excellence Awards

Entries are currently being accepted for EPA's sixth annual Clean Air Excellence Awards. The Clean Air Excellence Awards Program is open to both public and private entities in the United States.

EPA's Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Model

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Model is a handbook for all stakeholders to understand how equitable development and local environmental and/or public health issues can be addressed through the Collaborative Problem-Solving (CPS) Model.

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 Development Funding

FOCUS is a regional incentive-based development and conservation strategy for the San Francisco, California Bay Area. FOCUS unites the efforts of four regional agencies -- ABAG, MTC, the Air District, and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) -- into a single program that encourages future growth in areas near transit and within the communities that surround the San Francisco Bay.

Equitable Development Toolkit

PolicyLink offers the Equitable Development Toolkit, a comprehensive set of policy options to advance economic and social equity.

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.

Equity Capital Competition for Sustainable Businesses

The Parkside Business & Community In Partnership, Inc. (PBCIP) is requesting proposals for its Equity Capital Competition for sustainable businesses. Winners may receive up to $30,000 in start-up/expansion funding, plus other incentives and supportive services.

The purpose of the contest is to attract sustainable and community-based businesses to Haddon Avenue in Camden's (New Jersey) Parkside neighborhood. This competition is one of PBCIP's many green initiatives, which include a planned 24,000 square foot, three-story LEED certified building with retail, restaurant and office space.

The competition runs through January 31, 2010.

Equity Insurance and Equity Mortgage -- Farmland Preservation

Equity Insurance and Equity Mortgage: Evaluating Two Potential Cost-Saving Farmland Preservation Tools for Michigan examines ways to protect and preserve Michigan's valuable and productive farmland. With development projected to claim nearly 40,000 acres of farmland annually, new funding mechanisms are needed to boost the farmland preservation strategy.

EquityBlog

EquityBlog is a project of PolicyLink to help nurture and inspire the nation's equity movement. The strong and growing equity community is united in bringing greater opportunity to all Americans, especially those from low-income communities and communities of color.

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.

Establishing and Operating an Easement Program to Protect Historic Resources

Preservation Books, the publishing arm of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, has published a new edition of Establishing and Operating an Easement Program to Protect Historic Resources, the popular booklet first released in 1980.

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.

Europa Nostra Awards 2008

The ''Europa Nostra Awards'' are granted annually to identify and promote best practices in the conservation of tangible cultural heritage, to stimulate the exchange of knowledge and experience throughout Europe, to enhance public awareness and appreciation of European cultural heritage, and to encourage further exemplary initiatives through the Power of Example.

European Prize for Urban Public Space

The European Prize for Urban Public Space is a biennial competition that recognizes and encourages activities aimed at recovering and creating spaces of cohesion in cities.

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.

Evaluating Scenic Resources

Scenic America.1996. This guide describes a methodology for identifying scenic areas worthy of preservation.

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.

Everyday Democracy

Everyday Democracy (formerly the Study Circles Resource Center) is a national organization that helps local communities find ways for all kinds of people to think, talk and work together to solve problems. The organization works with neighborhoods, cities and towns, regions, and states, helping them pay particular attention to how racism and ethnic differences affect the problems they address.

Excellence in Downtown Revitalization Awards Nominations

The Washington State Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development invites you to submit nominations for outstanding achievements in six areas important to comprehensive downtown revitalization efforts.

Excellence in Energy and Environmental Education Awards -- Massachusetts

The Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs is now accepting applications for the 2008 Secretary's Awards for Excellence in Energy and Environmental Education.

Excellence on the Waterfront Awards Program -- 2006

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. Deadline for entries is June 2, 2006.

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.

Exploring Sustainability in Agriculture

Exploring Sustainability in Agriculture from Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) defines sustainable agriculture by providing snapshots of different producers who apply sustainable principles on their farms and ranches.

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.

Facing the Urban Challenge: Reimagining Land Use in America's Distressed Older Cities-The Federal Policy Role

Recently released by Alan Mallach, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program of The Brookings Institution, this paper touches on the history of economic decline of American cities, noting that while many urban areas enjoyed a significant resurgence during the 1990s, others, such as Detroit and Cleveland, have continued to struggle.

By focusing on five keys areas (strategic planning, reutilizing urban land, investing in transformative change, revitalizing neighborhoods, and addressing affordable housing) Mallach identifies how federal lawmakers can play a major role in shaping the future success of older industrial cities.

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.

Fair and Healthy Land Use

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

Fannie Mae Foundation Grants -- 2005

The Fannie Mae Foundation awards grants to nonprofit organizations that create affordable homeownership and housing opportunities in cities, towns, and rural areas across the United States. These organizations are recognized for building healthy, vibrant communities.

The Foundation awards most of its grants by soliciting proposals from organizations with the demonstrated ability to create strong partnerships with the Foundation. A limited amount of grant funding to be awarded through a competitive process is also available. The next application deadline will be in early 2005, and more information will be available on the Foundation's website by December 31, 2004.

For more information please visit the resource link below.

Farm to Table New Mexico

Farm to Table, a Santa Fe, New Mexico non-profit organization, focuses on linking local food and fiber production to local needs by improving communities' access to nutritious, affordable, locally grown and culturally significant foods.

Farmers Market Promotion Program Grants -- 2009

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is accepting applications for competitive grants targeted to helping increase consumption of agricultural commodities by expanding direct producer-to-consumer market opportunities. This is the fourth year of the grant program, the Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP), which was authorized by the Farmer-to-Consumer Direct Marketing Act of 1976 and amended by the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 (the Farm Bill).

Farming on the Edge

American Farmland Trust's Farming on the Edge conference brings together people from all across the country who want to create a sustainable future for America's working lands. It provides a forum for planners, land trusts, conservationists, farmers, ranchers and others to network and share their expertise and experience.

''Farming on the Edge'' State Maps Available

''Farming on the Edge: Sprawling Development Threatens America's Best Farmland'' uses the tool of compelling maps to lay out the threats and gives reasoned solutions-so communities, legislators and individuals can clearly see what needs to be done to protect the country's best farmland.

Farmland and Open Space Funding -- Michigan

The Michigan Department of Agriculture uses five methods for preserving farmland and open space in its Farmland and Open Space Preservation Program.

Federal Funds for the National Historic Preservation Program

The Advisory Council for Historic Preservation (ACHP) publishes on its website an overview of Federal Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) grants-in-aid for State, tribal, and local government programs.

Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credits

The Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives program is one of the Federal government’s most successful and cost-effective community revitalization programs. The Preservation Tax Incentives reward private investment in rehabilitating historic properties such as offices, rental housing, and retail stores.

Federal Policy Ideas for Community Revitalization

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

Fertile Ground

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

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

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

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.

Financial Incentives for Building Green Affordable Housing in Massachusetts

The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC) has produced a two-page chart that provides information on funding resources for building green affordable housing.

Financial Resources for California Brownfields

Financial Resources for California Brownfields is a 2008 publication from the Center for Creative Land Recycling (CCLR) that provides an overview of the available financial mechanisms for funding brownfield redevelopment in California and describes several new and innovative programs.

Financial Resources for California Brownfields -- California

Financial Resources for California Brownfields is a packet that provides an overview of the available financial mechanisms for funding brownfield redevelopment in California and describes several new and innovative programs.

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.

Financing Greenways in the Shenandoah

The Environmental Finance Center (EFC) produced this resource guide to provide information about establishing and financing greenways in the Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. The guide includes links to other online resources on the subject of greenways and trails, and is geared to the region's local government officials, nonprofit organizations, and citizen advocates.

Five Connecticut Brownfields Projects Funded

Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell has announced five brownfield sites across the state will receive a total of $2.25 million to assist in redevelopment efforts under a pilot program proposed by Governor Rell and funded through the state Bond Commission.

FLASLA Receives Florida Planning and Zoning Award for Publication

The Florida Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (FLASLA) has received The Florida Planning and Zoning Association's award for Outstanding Private Study at their annual conference, in Tampa, on June 12, 2009.

Florida 2060

Florida 2060, a research project prepared for 1000 Friends of Florida by the GeoPlan Center at the University of Florida, is a population distribution scenario for the state of Florida. This 2006 report provides details on how the expected doubling of the Sunshine State's population between now and 2060 will affect land use, providing that land use policies do not change.

Florida Brownfields Success Stories

The Florida Brownfields Association (FBA) offers this select list of success stories in its ongoing efforts to promote Brownfields redevelopment in the sunshine state.

Florida Chapter -- APA Awards

The 2006 Florida Chapter of the American Planning Association (FAPA) Awards showcase comprehensive and high-quality plans and regulations -- along with innovative approaches to planning issues -- as models and resources for other Florida 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 Parks in the 21st Century

Florida Parks in the 21st Century, a report from the Trust for Public Land (TPL), catalogues $8.3 billion in both land conservation and park development needs of local governments. Co-produced by the Florida Recreation and Park Association, Florida League of Cities, and TPL, the report catalogues the need for $8.3 billion in land conservation and park development as derived from locally-approved comprehensive plans prepared by Florida's cities and counties.

Florida Parks in the 21st Century: 2008 Report

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

Florida School Garden Competition

The University of Florida sponsors the Florida School Garden Competition, designed to encourage the use of school gardens in elementary schools throughout Florida. The competition invites Florida elementary schools to highlight their school garden programs.

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.

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.

Ford Foundation Grantmaking

The Ford Foundation is a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide. Featured areas in their Asset Building and Community Development grants program are Economic Development and Community and Resource Development.

Foreclosure Response

Foreclosure-Response.org is a website offering resources intended to help states and localities respond to the foreclosure crisis. This site is maintained by the Center for Housing Policy, KnowledgePlex, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and the Urban Institute.

Form-Based Codes: Implementing Smart Growth

Form-Based Codes: Implementing Smart Growth from the Local Government Commission is an eight-page fact sheet that discusses this innovative approach to regulating development and includes case studies and tips for preparing and administering a form-based code.

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.

Fresh Food Financing Initiative Award

The Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, a public-private financing program that provides innovative financing solutions to supermarket operators in underserved communities to improve access to healthy and affordable food, was named one of the Top 50 Government Innovations for 2006 by the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Friends of Midcoast Maine Annual Awards Nominations

Each year, the Friends of Midcoast Maine presents a “smart growth award” at its Annual Meeting. The purpose is to honor and recognize the person (town official, developer, contractor, architect and corporations) who has resisted growth patterns that detract from the economic vitality of our existing, traditional centers and has instead adopted values and smart growth design principles supported by Friends of Midcoast Maine and other smart growth advocacy groups.

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 Rags to Riches: Innovations in Petroleum Brownfields

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

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

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

Frontera Farmer Foundation Grants -- 2009

The Frontera Farmer Foundation is committed to promoting small, sustainable Midwestern farms serving the Chicago area, by providing them with capital development grants. Small local farms, which often struggle financially, are more likely to promote biodiversity by planting a wide range of produce and operate using organic practices. By their artisanal approach to agriculture, the freshness of their product and the variety of their offerings, these farmers insure the highest quality food while they add immeasurably to the fabric of their local rural community.

Funders Interested in Restoring Prosperity in Older Industrial Cities

The Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities offers five PowerPoint presentations from its September 11, 2008 meeting, Funders Interested in Restoring Prosperity in Older Industrial Cities.

Funders' Network: Looking Back

To acknowledge and celebrate its 10th Anniversary in 2009, the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities commissioned Looking Back: Influencing, Networking, Facilitating, a retrospective on the efforts undertaken by the Network and its members over the past ten years.

Funders' Network: Looking Forward

To acknowledge and celebrate its 10th Anniversary in 2009, the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities Looking Forward: Perspectives on Future Opportunities for Philanthropy, a compilation of essays from leading thinkers in the movement for smarter growth policies and practices that challenge philanthropy to think about its role over the next ten years.

Funding Brownfield Redevelopment

The Community/School Partnership for Brownfields Development offers an online guide to funding brownfields redevelopment. The guide is part of the school curriculum developed by the Purdue EPICS team for the ''Our Town Project'' (OTP).

Funding Resources for Farmers Markets

The Farmers' Market Project promotes awareness among farmers' market managers of the increasing attention farmers' markets are receiving from private foundations, national-level non-governmental organizations, and new and existing opportunities for assistance from federal agricultural programs. The Project website includes a funding resources page, which provides information on financial assistance for local markets.

Funding Sources -- Trails and Greenways

National Trails Training Partnership has added a list of funding sources for trails and greenways proponents to the resources and archives section of its website.

Future Vision Winners 2007

Winners of the Future Vision 07 competition were announced at an awards ceremony in central London on June 7, 2007. The winning entries were showcased in front of an audience of 450 sustainable communities professionals.

Gardening with Kids Awards

Kids eat better and develop positive attitudes towards fruits and veggies when they grow and prepare these healthful foods themselves. The Wild Oats Gardening with Kids award will give 10 schools and youth organizations supplies to establish kitchen gardens, and provide tools and training for preparing nutritious meals with the resulting produce.

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.''

Genius of the European Town Square

Genius of the European Town Square, by Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard and Henry L. Lennard, celebrates and analyzes the European Town Square, a living model of community, and explores great Town Squares throughout Europe.

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 It Done: New Tools for Communities

''Getting It Done: New Tools for Communities,'' a conference by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation/Chicago (LISC/Chicago), drew more than 900 individuals from 24 Chicago neighborhoods and 56 cities for workshops, tours, and more.

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 Smart! Newsletter -- September 2006

The latest issue of Getting Smart! is now available for all Smart Growth Network members in the Members Section. The focus of this issue is smart growth in rural areas. Resources and tools related to smart growth are typically geared toward urban or suburban environments. So, what does smart growth mean in rural communities, where land can seem in endless supply?

Getting Started: A Guide for Creating School Gardens as Outdoor Classrooms

Getting Started is a free 51-page guide designed and published by the Center for Ecoliteracy in collaboration with Life Lab Science Program, a national leader in garden-based education.

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 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 to Work: Reconnecting Jobs with Transit

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

Getting Youth Involved in Planning

The Active Living Resource Center offers this two-page fact sheet on getting youth involved in community planning.

GIS and Brownfields

International City/County Management Association (ICMA) has produced a brochure that provides an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS) products and their importance in the brownfields redevelopment systems.

Global Development Awards

The Global Development Network is accepting submissions for the Eighth Annual Global Development Awards and Medals Competition 2007. Carrying prizes in cash and travel worth nearly $240,000, this is the largest international competition on development research.

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.

GLS Greenlinks

As part of an ongoing focus on regional land use issues and as a means of building awareness about the value of green and open space, GLS Greenlinks was formed by the Flint River Watershed Coalition and the University of Michigan -- Flint's Center for Applied Environmental Research -- in the fall of 2003.

Glynwood Harvest Awards 2007

Glynwood Center is preparing for the 5th Annual Harvest Awards which recognize innovative farmers, organizations, and businesses that are supporting sustainable regional food systems. The Center seeks your help in recognizing outstanding work by nominating someone whose work you admire.

Go Green Winston Salem

Celebrate with the City of Winston-Salem as they highlight the city's growing ''Green'' influence in everything from transportation to business, in a week-long celebration. A series of events is planned for September 15-19, including several elementary school presentations with the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system, three unique forums focusing on ''Greening Your Business,'' ''Green Building and Sustainable Community,'' and ''Transportation.''

Going Comprehensive -- Guidebook on Comprehensive Community Development

In Going Comprehensive, a guidebook on comprehensive community development from the Local Initiatives Support Corp., expert practitioners Anita Miller and Tom Burns examine the Comprehensive Community Revitalization Program that produced one of America's most remarkable urban turnaround stories -- New York's once-stricken South Bronx.

Going from Good to Great: Livable Communities Surveys in Ohio

Are Marietta, Ohio, and Clermont County, Ohio, livable communities? This report from AARP reports on results of a telephone survey of the general populations age 45 years and older of Clermont County and Marietta, Ohio, to ask them about what they would need and want as they got older to make their community a great place to grow old.

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.

Golden Lands, Golden Opportunity: Preserving Vital Bay Area Lands

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

Goldman Environmental Prize -- 2007 Awardees

An Irish farmer jailed for his work in opposing Shell Oil's natural gas pipeline through his land and an Icelandic entrepreneur saving North Atlantic wild salmon by brokering innovative fishing rights buyouts with North Atlantic governments and commercial interests are among the winners of the 2007 Goldman Environmental Prize.

Golf Course Environmental Principles

A group of leading golf and environmental organizations have jointly developed a set of principles that seek to produce environmental excellence in golf course planning and siting, design, construction, maintenance and facility operations.

Good Buildings, Better Schools: An Economic Stimulus Opportunity with Long-Term Benefits

Public schools are falling behind in basic repairs and maintenance of buildings and grounds, and are failing to make crucial improvements such as adding science labs, particularly in low-income communities, according to a study by Mary Filardo for the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Federal investment to modernize infrastructure would stimulate the struggling economy by creating quality jobs, boost student and teacher morale and alleviate the financial burden of maintenance backlogs from states and school districts, the study concludes.

Governor’s Awards for Downtown Excellence -- 2006 Nominations

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.

Governor’s Awards for Downtown Excellence -- 2006 Presentations

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. The awards ceremony for 2006 will be held during the Colorado Community Revitalization Association's (CCRA's) annual meeting, scheduled for September 27-29, 2006 in Greeley, Colorado.

Governor's Award for Downtown Excellence -- 2007 Nominations

The Governor's Awards for Downtown Excellence is an annual awards 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.

Governor's Award for Downtown Excellence -- 2008 Award Winners

The Governor's Awards for Downtown Excellence is an annual awards 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. Winners in the 2008 competition are featured in this document.

Grants Available for Community Forestry Projects

Preproposals for Community Forestry Projects grants are due by December 10, 2002. More information on the program that will award grants in the categories of Promotion of Livable Communities through Urban and Community Forestry, Creative and Innovative Urban and Community Forestry Research and Technology Development is available at http://www.treelink.org/nucfac

Grants for Educators -- S.F. Bay Region

The Watershed Project is the sponsor of the Teacher Action Grants (TAG) program, which has distributed almost $380,000 to San Francisco Bay Area educators who have taken Kids in Creeks, Kids in Gardens, and Watching Our Watersheds workshops. By providing seed money in amounts up to $2,000 to cover direct expenses for classroom-based environmental studies, gardening, and restoration projects, Teacher Action Grants have educated and involved tens of thousands of students in local watershed-based projects, and increased awareness about natural resources in Alameda and Contra Costa counties for thousands of residents.

Great American Main Street Awards -- 2009

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has announced winners of its 2009 Great American Main Street Awards (GAMSA). In 2009, the five GAMSA winners range from a colorful mid-Atlantic beach town with year-round appeal, to a Baltimore neighborhood with a seafaring past and a bright future, to California wine country's best-kept secret.

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 Lakes Coastal Planning

The Great Lakes Coastal Communities webpages provide links to institutions addressing coastal resources planning as well as to links for general resources by topic.

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 Places 2007: Great Streets, Great Neighborhoods Nominations

The American Planning Association is launching its annual ''Great Places in America'' Program this year in order to celebrate places of exceptional character, quality, and planning. As part of this new initiative, APA needs your help in suggesting places that are great and merit such designation: they are asking you to suggest your favorite streets and neighborhoods across America, whether they are in your own city or town, in a place you've visited, or in a place you otherwise know about. Ten great streets and 10 great neighborhoods will be recognized by APA during National Community Planning Month (NCPM) in October.

Great Places Awards -- 2009 Call for Nominations

Places: Forum of Design for the Public Realm and EDRA, the Environmental Design Research Association, in cooperation with Metropolis Magazine, announce the twelfth annual Great Places Awards (formerly EDRA/Places Awards) for Place Design, Planning and Research.

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.

Greater Philadelphia Green Business Program

Companies across the Philadelphia metropolitan area are making a public promise to change their daily business practices to reduce impacts on the environment. The Greater Philadelphia Green Business Program's commitment focuses on a checklist of green operational practices designed for office users.

Greater Washington 2050

Greater Washington 2050 is a new regional initiative to improve the quality of life for Washington area residents in the next 50 years by fostering stronger regional awareness, leadership and action today and in the next few years.

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 Competition -- NYC

The New York City Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning & Sustainability, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency Region 2 are co-sponsors of the New York City Green Building Competition. Previously co-sponsored by the Office of Environmental Coordination in 2004 and 2006, this competition has attracted professionals and students from across the nation to present their innovative green building design projects and ideas for New York City.

Green Building Glossary

The National Association of Realtors' (NAR's) Green REsource Council website offers a Green Building Glossary of terms specific to environmentally sustainable buildings, construction, and development.

Green Building Initiative

The Kresge Foundation advances environmental conservation by awarding planning grants for sustainable design through its Green Building Initiative. The Foundation focuses its efforts on the renovation and historic preservation of existing structures, as well as new green construction.

Green Building Pages

Green Building Pages is a sustainable building materials web database for the environmentally and socially responsible designer, builder and client.

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 Building Research Funding

Green Building Research Funding: An Assessment of Current Activity in the United States is a report by the 2007 U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) Ginsberg Sustainability Fellow that tracks recent federal, state and trade association contributions to green building research funding.

Green Building Research Grants

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has announced recipients of its 2008 Green Building Research Fund grants. The Green Building Research Fund was created to spur research that will advance sustainable building practices and encourage market transformation.

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 Cities: Urban Growth and the Environment

What exactly is a green city? What does it mean to say that San Francisco is greener than Houston, or that Vancouver is a green city while Beijing is not? When does urban growth lower environmental quality, and when does it produce environmental gains? These are the questions that drive Green Cities, a smart and engaging book from Brookings Institution Press.

Green Communities 2008 Action Plan

The Iowa Department of Economic Development has published its Green Communities 2008 Action Plan, a set of services and initiatives that encourage community sustainability.

Green Communities Developer Incentives

Green Communities is designed to help developers, investors, and builders make the transition to a greener future for affordable housing. Led by Enterprise, The Enterprise Social Investment Corporation and the Natural Resources Defense Council, Green Communities provides a package of financial incentives and other resources to affordable housing developers across the country.

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 Communities Newsletter -- May 2008

Green Affordable Housing, the Green Communities Developers Summit, and information on Federal Grant Funds for Green Affordable Developments are all topics of discussion in the May 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 for All

Green For All is a national organization working to build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. In their online resource ''Green-Collar Jobs Overview,'' Green For All provides extensive descriptions of what green-collar jobs are: well-paid, career track jobs that contribute directly to preserving or enhancing environmental quality.

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 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 Case Studies

Green Infrastructure describes our nation's natural life support system -- an interconnected network of protected land and water that supports native species, maintains natural ecological processes, sustains air and water resources and contributes to the health and quality of life for America's communities and people.

Green Infrastructure Case Study Series

The Conservation Fund offers on its website the Green Infrastructure Case Study Series, a collection of reports from throughout the U.S. on efforts to promote smart land conservation that allow for both future growth and the protection of significant natural resources.

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 Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities

With illustrative and detailed examples, Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities, by Mark Benedict and Ed McMahon, advances smart conservation: large-scale thinking and integrated action to plan, protect and manage our natural and restored lands. Providing both the historical framework for the importance of greenways and green space networks, and practical advice on how to design and implement them, Benedict and McMahon’s book is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to understand innovative approaches to conservation-minded land use.

Green Living Toolkit

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) website offers a Green Living Toolkit, a listing of tips and tools to help to bring a little green into your life. These guides include information to help you save energy, protect your health, give green gifts, and more.

Green Maps

The Green Map® System promotes inclusive participation in sustainable community development worldwide, using mapmaking as our medium.

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 reModel Initiative

As part of the Earth Day Network's Green Schools Campaign, the GREEN reModel Initiative will carefully select five public low-income, urban schools and transform them into national models of high performing and sustainable schools over the next five years.

Green Roof Awards

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities established the Green Roof Awards of Excellence to recognize green roof projects which exhibit extraordinary leadership in integrated design and implementation. The awards also increase general awareness of green roof infrastructure and its associated public and private benefits, while recognizing the valuable contributions of green roof design professionals.

Green Roof Awards of Excellence -- 2006 Nominees

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities established the Green Roof Awards of Excellence in 2003 to recognize green roof projects which exhibit extraordinary leadership in integrated design and implementation.