Smart growth directs development towards existing communities already served by infrastructure, seeking to utilize the resources that existing neighborhoods offer, and conserve open space and irreplaceable natural resources on the urban fringe. Development in existing neighborhoods also represents an approach to growth that can be more cost-effective, and improves the quality of life for its residents. By encouraging development in existing communities, communities benefit from a stronger tax base, closer proximity of a range of jobs and services, increased efficiency of already developed land and infrastructure, reduced development pressure in edge areas thereby preserving more open space, and, in some cases, strengthening rural communities.

The ease of greenfield development remains an obstacle to encouraging more development in existing neighborhoods. Development on the fringe remains attractive to developers for its ease of access and construction, lower land costs, and potential for developers to assemble larger parcels. Typical zoning requirements in fringe areas are often easier to comply with, as there are often few existing building types that new construction must complement, and a relative absence of residents who may object to the inconvenience or disruption caused by new construction.

Nevertheless, developers and communities are recognizing the opportunities presented by infill development, as suggested not only by demographic shifts, but also in response to a growing awareness of the fiscal, environmental, and social costs of development focused disproportionately on the urban fringe. Journals that track real estate trends routinely cite the investment appeal of the “24-hour city” for empty nesters, young professionals, and others, and developers are beginning to respond. A 2001 report by Urban Land Institute on urban infill housing states that, in 1999, the increase in housing permit activity in cities relative to average annual figures from the preceding decade exceeded that of the suburbs, indicating that infill development is possible and profitable.

Resources

$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.

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.

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.

10 Steps to a Living Downtown

Washington DC: Brookings Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy: Washington DC, October 99. Many American cities are enjoying a downtown housing boom. While a strong economy and market demand are necessary for a residential downtown to thrive, city governments can facilitate, rather than impede, the working of these forces. Drawing on the example of the City of Denver, this paper describes ten steps that city officials and others interested in creating 24-hour downtowns can take, from defining downtown as a special, attractive neighborhood, to addressing zoning restrictions, to reconciling the many commercial, entertainment and residential uses of downtown, to grappling with parking.

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.

20 Actions Governors Can Take

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

2003 Advocates' Guide to Housing and Community Development Policy

The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) publishes the Advocate's Guide to Housing and Community Development Policy each year to help keep advocates current on a wide range of issues, programs and tools at play in the world of housing policy, and to serve as a primer for those new to the field.

2003 Metlife Awards Case Studies

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

2003 Phoenix Awards

The 2003 Phoenix Awards for Excellence in Brownfield Redevelopment will be one of the highlights of the National Brownfields Conference, Brownfields 2003, in Portland, Oregon on October 27-29, 2003.

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 Glynwood Harvest Awardees

Glynwood Center created the Harvest Awards program in 2003 to highlight work by individuals and organizations who are doing an exceptional job of supporting local and regional agriculture in order to inspire others to take action within their own communities. The Awards help to identify and disseminate “best practice” ideas which will inspire others to take action within their own communities and build urban/rural coalitions in support of responsible farmers.

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 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 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 Grant Recipients

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has prepared an online list of its 2006 Five-Star Grant Recipients. Twenty-four states are represented in this list of recipients in a program that provides environmental education and training through projects that restore wetlands and streams.

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 Maxwell Awards of Excellence

The Fannie Mae Foundation, in partnership with the National Vacant Properties Campaign, has announced the 2006 Maxwell Awards of Excellence. The 2006 awards honor exemplary projects that reclaimed vacant and abandoned sites in the production of affordable housing. Four organizations doing outstanding work turning vacant properties into parts of vibrant communities were selected for the Awards.

2006 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement

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

2006 Neighborhood of the Year Award

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

2006 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference -- Audio Recordings

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

2006 Outstanding Brownfields Team Award

The U.S. EPA announced that Spokane, Washington's Kendall Yards environmental project team has been selected to receive the national 2006 Outstanding Brownfields Team Award. These awards recognize excellence in regional waste management and emergency response programs.

2006 Vision Long Island Smart Growth Awardees

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

2006 Vision Long Island Smart Growth Awards Nominations

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

2007 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 AIA/HUD Secretary’s Awards

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

2007 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 Energy Star Awards Nominations

Each year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) honor organizations that have made outstanding contributions to protecting the environment through superior energy efficiency. Award winners will be recognized at the ENERGY STAR Awards Ceremony on March 21, 2007 in Washington, DC.

2007 Growth and Transportation Survey

Three-fourths of Americans believe that being smarter about development and improving public transportation are better long-term solutions for reducing traffic congestion than building new roads, according to the 2007 Growth and Transportation Survey sponsored by the National Association of Realtors® and Smart Growth America.

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 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 Annual Green Innovation Awards

The Virginia Sustainable Building Network (VSBN) announced the fourth annual Virginia Green Innovation Awards at its Annual Meeting on June 25, 2008. Each year, VSBN members are asked to nominate Green businesses, organizations, design firms, and community programs that represent ''the best Green projects or programs in Virginia.''

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 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 Planning Awards -- Call for Entries

Each year, the American Planning Association honors outstanding efforts in planning and planning leadership, including cutting-edge achievements and planning under difficult or adverse circumstances. The APA invites you to participate in the celebration of the best in plans and planning by nominating projects and people you think deserving of such recognition.

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 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 Better Community Awards Nominations -- Florida

1000 Friends of Florida hosts the Better Community Awards program to showcase Florida's leading citizens, public servants, programs and communities that are contributing to an enhanced quality of life in this state.

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 Design & Reuse Competition

The Valley Development Council, in collaboration with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, invites you to participate in the 2009 Smart Growth Design & Reuse Competition.

Architects, designers, landscape architects, planners and students are invited to prepare concept plans for the redevelopment of three strategic sites in the Pioneer Valley, a region of Western Massachusetts defined by the Connecticut River Valley. These sites are located in Southampton, Palmer and Hadley.

The goal for this international design competition is to create a local example of sustainable development and redevelopment, and to provide a model of how communities in the region can grow smarter. With the partnerships formed through this competition process, there will be significant momentum for turning the winning concept plan idea into reality.

Deadline for submissions is January 15, 2010.

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 MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Awards Program

MetLife Foundation and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) are partnering for the ninth year to recognize, sustain and share the work of innovative partnerships between community groups and police to promote neighborhood safety and revitalization.

Preliminary Application Deadline: February 26, 2010

Awardees will receive monetary grants ranging from $15,000 to $25,000.

Case studies about award-winning partnerships will be disseminated throughout the community development and law enforcement industries.

Cash grants will be awarded in the following two categories:

Neighborhood Revitalization Awards (Six at $15,000-25,000): These awards celebrate exemplary collaboration between community groups and police that yields crime reduction as well as economic development outcomes, such as real estate development, business attraction and job growth.

Special Strategy Awards (Five at $15,000): Community and police partners who have achieved significant accomplishments in one of the following areas will receive awards:

• Applied technology
• The Aesthetics and Greenspace Improvement
• Diversity Inclusion & Integration
• Drug Market Disruption
• Gang Prevention & Youth Safety
• Seniors & Safety

2010 Metropolis Next Generation Design Competition

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

Deadline: January 29, 2010.

2010 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement

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

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

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

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

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

February 4-6, 2010 – Seattle, WA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The full Notice is available at the link below.

2010 U.S. Forest Service National Urban and Community Forestry Challenge Cost-Share Grant

The U.S. Forest Service recently issued a Request for Proposals for the 2010 National Urban and Community Forestry Challenge Cost-Share Grant Program. There is approximately $900,000 available for projects within four issue areas:

• Energy conservation and urban forests
• Climate change and urban forests
• Public health and urban forests
• Green infrastructure assessments

A copy of the grant package is available on the Forest Service Urban and Community Forestry website at the link below.

Pre-Proposals must be posted to www.grants.gov or Courier hard copies received by 11:59 PM Eastern, December 15, 2009. Innovation proposals selected for full proposals will be (tentatively) due by 11:59 PM Eastern, March 17, 2010. The U.S. Forest Service will award the successful projects as Federal Financial Assistance grants no later than September 30, 2010.

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.

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 Creative Combination: Merging Alternative Wastewater Treatment with Smart Growth

A Creative Combination: Merging Alternative Wastewater Treatment with Smart Growth is part three of a series about onsite wastewater treatment alternatives from the University of Rhode Island's Cooperative Extension, Natural Resources Science Department. The manual describes how onsite wastewater treatment systems can be used to direct growth, as it examines alternative development options for five different sites, representing a wide range of landscapes and planning situations.

A Global Urban Agenda: Highlights from the 2005 World Cities Forum

A Global Urban Agenda from the Urban Land Institute highlights issues discussed at ULI’s World Cities Forum in June 2005.

A Guide for Collaborative Action

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

A Guide for Property Owners Returning to New Orleans

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

A Guide to New Jersey Grants and Loans that Support Sustainability Initiatives

A variety of financial incentives in the form or grants and loans are available to New Jersey communities interested in re-creating their municipality into an environmentally sustainable community. A Guide to State Grants and Loans that Support Sustainability Initiatives organizes these incentives by general program area within the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and by other state agencies.

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 Guide to Transportation Opportunities in Your Community

From the Margins to the Mainstream: A Guide to Transportation Opportunities in Your Community from Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) reviews how federal surface transportation law can be used to support local and statewide efforts to build more livable communities and expand travel options. It is designed to demystify some of the complexities of the transportation laws, programs, and processes.

A Heavy Load: The Combined Housing and Transportation Burdens of Working Families

Low- to moderate-income working families are finding that as they move further from work to afford housing they end up spending as much, or more, on transportation costs than they are saving on housing, according to a new study of 28 major Metropolitan areas nationwide entitled A Heavy Load: The Combined Housing and Transportation Burdens of Working Families.

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 Long Way Home: The State of Housing Recovery in Louisiana 2008

Three years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita battered the homes of hundreds thousands of Louisianans, too many residents are still unable to afford to rebuild their homes or find an affordable place to rent, according to a new housing report by the national research and advocacy group PolicyLink. The new report, A Long Way Home: The State of Housing Recovery in Louisiana 2008, shows that while some progress has been made during the past year, thousands of residents who want to return home are facing a critical rental housing shortage, inadequate rebuilding grants and a recovery plagued by red tape and ever-changing rules.

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 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 Primer for Petroleum Brownfields

A Primer for Petroleum Brownfields is designed to help existing underground storage tank field pilot communities (USTfields), and others exploring reuse of petroleum brownfield sites, to better understand the opportunities that these sites bring.

A Report on the Future of Land Conservation in America

2007 marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Land Trust Alliance and Exchange, the National Journal of Land Conservation, marks this anniversary by examining the biggest challenges facing land conservation.

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 Rise in Downtown Living.

Washington DC: Brookings Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, 1999. A new survey conducted for the Rouse Forum shows that America's downtowns are experiencing an unexpected kind of resurgence: There is a population boom happening in many downtowns across the country.

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 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.

Accessory Apartments: An Affordable Housing Strategy

GrowSmart Maine offers this two-page fact sheet on Accessory Apartments (also called ''granny flats,'' ''accessory dwelling units'' (ADUs), ''secondary units,'' or ''single-family conversions'') that serves as both an introduction to the idea of spreading affordable housing units throughout a community while providing an improved quality of life for elderly citizens who choose to continue to live in their homes, or for families who wish to have elderly relatives live at home with them.

Accessory Dwelling Units: A Guide for Homeowners

Vermont’s law on equal treatment of housing and town bylaws changed in 2005, creating a new opportunity for homeowners to add an apartment to their house.

Achieving Equity and Inclusion in America

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

Achieving Smart Growth in New Hampshire

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

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 Approaches by Local Government

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

Active Living 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 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.

Adaptive Reuse

Adaptive Reuse is part of the Urban Land Institute's (ULI's) InfoPackets series. InfoPackets are packages of photocopied materials on specific real estate and urban development topics.

Adequate Public Facilities Ordinances in Maryland

Adequate Public Facilities Ordinances in Maryland are being applied in ways that often deflect development away from the very areas designated for growth, contrary to both the state’s Smart Growth land use policy and the underlying intent of the ordinances, according to a new report by the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education.

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.

Affordable Housing and Community Development

Washington Mutual teams up with nonprofit organizations by investing in their efforts to build stronger communities. One program offers grants on affordable housing and community development.

Affordable Housing and Smart Growth: Making the Connection

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

Affordable Housing Design Advisor

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

Affordable Housing Grantmaking

The MacArthur Foundation announced plans to provide $35 million in new funding for innovative public sector initiatives to preserve and improve the existing stock of privately owned affordable rental homes.

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.

Affordable Housing Solutions

The Affordable Housing Solutions resource includes several affordable housing programs from Fannie Mae that qualify buyers for higher mortgages if they choose energy efficient features in their home, or if their home is located near public transportation.

Affordable Housing: Designing an American Asset

Affordable Housing: Designing an American Asset is a new book from The Urban Land Institute and National Building Museum that will help you make the case for affordable housing and demonstrate that low-cost housing need not be of low quality.

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 and Smart Growth: Building Aging-Sensitive Communities

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

Aging in Place

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

Aging in Place Initiative

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

Ahwahnee Principles for Climate Change

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

Ahwahnee Water Principles for Resource Efficient Land Use

The Local Government Commission has published online the Ahwahnee Water Principles for Resource Efficient Land Use. These principles complement the Ahwahnee Principles for Resource-Efficient Communities that were developed in 1991. Many cities and counties are already using them to improve the vitality and prosperity of their communities.

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 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 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 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/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 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.

Air Quality and Smart Growth: Planning for Cleaner Air

Air Quality and Smart Growth: Planning for Cleaner Air, Translation Paper #16 from the Funders Network, explores the connection between land development patterns, transportation patterns, and air pollution and how growing smarter can lead to better air quality.

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 2006 -- Awardees

Alcan and The Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) announced the 2006 shortlist of candidates for the US$1 million Alcan Prize for Sustainability. Ten organizations were selected from a field of almost 200 entries from 55 countries around the world, and now face a final consideration by an international Adjudication Panel of distinguished sustainability experts.

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.

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 2050 Prospectus

America 2050 is a national initiative to meet the infrastructure, economic development and environmental challenges of the nation as we prepare to add 120 million additional Americans by the year 2050. The America 2050 Prospectus outlines steps that must be taken to ensure the United States remains economically competitive in world markets while offering a sustainable, high-quality of life for its citizens.

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 Metropolis: Divided We Sprawl

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

American Planning Association

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

American Trails' National Trails Awards Program -- 2008

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

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.

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 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.

Anacostia River Urban Watershed Partnership RFP

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), is soliciting new assistance agreement proposals under the EPA's Targeted Watershed Grants Program designed to support the protection and restoration of urban water resources through a holistic watershed approach to water quality management.

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.

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 Daniel Burnham Award

The Ontario government has won the American Planning Association's (APA's) 2006 Daniel Burnham Award for its Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The award is given to the plan that best illustrates progress, community benefit and contribution to the advancement of the planning profession.

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.

Applications Sought for Brownfields Assessment Revolving Loan Fund and Cleanup Grants

The US Environmental Protection Agency is soliciting applications for its Brownfields Assessment Revolving Loan Fund and Cleanup Grants. Assessment grant funds of up to $200,000 (up to $350,000 with waiver) may be used to inventory, characterize, assess and conduct planning and community involvement efforts related to brownfields.

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.

ARC's Certified Green Communities

The Atlanta Regional Commission's (ARC's) Green Communities Program is a voluntary certification program for jurisdictions in the 10-county Atlanta, Georgia, region to encourage local governments to become more sustainable. ARC developed the program to assist local governments in reducing their overall environmental impact.

Arizona Brownfields: Community Development Opportunities

Arizona Brownfields: Community Development Opportunities is the focus of this workshop scheduled for March 29-30, 2007 in Flagstaff, Arizona.

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.

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 General Design of Excellence Award -- 2006

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) will present the 2006 General Design Award of Excellence to Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc., Landscape Architects, for their project ''From Brownfield to Greenfield: A New Working Landscape for Wellesley College Wrenched from its Toxic Past, Wellesley, Massachusetts.''

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 -- 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.''

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.

Association of Bay Area Governments: Theory in Action - Smart Growth Case Studies in the San Francisco Bay Area and around the nation

This online document catalogs smart growth initiatives such as compact development, urban revitalization, affordable housing, and open space protection at the local, regional, and state level in the Bay Area, elsewhere in California, and in the rest of the country.

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

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

Atlanta's Fifty Forward Initiative

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

Audio from Three Winter 2008 Smart Growth Speaker Series Events

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

August 2007 Getting Smart! Newsletter

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

August 2008 Getting Smart! Newsletter

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

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 Excellence in Affordable Housing

In partnership with the MetLife Foundation, The Enterprise Foundation offers the MetLife Foundation Awards for Excellence in Affordable Housing. The awards program recognizes 501(c)(3) community-based or regional nonprofit organizations and Tribes or Tribally Designated Housing Entities that excel in property and asset management or provide housing to people with special needs.

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 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.

Balanced Growth Implementation Project -- Minnesota

1000 Friends of Minnesota is inviting communities to submit applications to their Balanced Growth Implementation Project. If your community has a vision for balanced growth but is stalled at taking the next steps -- or if an outdated ordinance system has saddled the community with restrictions that prevent balanced growth from occurring -- this project is for you.

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.

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.

Bargaining for Development

This unique, 312-page volume from the Environmental Law Institute features an extensive categorization of land development conditions by type of public facility and an extensive discussion of ways in which impact fees can be calculated.

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.

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

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

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

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

Bay Area 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.

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 2007

Since 1993, the BEST Awards have been presented annually to Portland, Oregon, 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 Context Sensitive Solutions -- 2006

Best Practices in Context Sensitive Solutions -- 2006 documents the AASHTO Center for Environmental Excellence's second national competition to recognize best practices in context sensitive solutions (CSS).

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 Urban Development Award 2008

A project funded by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) in Boston was named a finalist in the ''Best Affordable Housing Developments of 2007-08'' award given by Affordable Housing Finance.

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 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 Facilities Funding -- Wisconsin

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

Bicycle Friendly Communities Grants

Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI), a national retail cooperative providing quality outdoor gear and clothing, has announced a $100,000 grant to the Bikes Belong Foundation to support an innovative series of grant awards to help U.S. cities become more bicycle friendly. The Bikes Belong Foundation, in cooperation with the League of American Bicyclists, will direct the new effort.

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.

BikeSafe: Online Transportation Design Toolkit

BikeSafe is an online toolkit from the U.S. Department of Transportation that allows the user to select appropriate countermeasures or treatments to address specific problems faced by cyclists and planners who design bicycle-friendly transportation corridors. BikeSafe also includes a large number of case studies to illustrate treatments implemented in communities throughout the United States.

Biodiversity and Smart Growth

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

Blueprint Buffalo

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

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 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.

Breaking the Development Logjam

Breaking the Development Logjam from the Urban Land Institute explains in plain terms how developers and planners can involve the community in the development process using the latest community engagement tools.

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 Case Study Sites

As part of a research project at Carnegie Mellon University entitled: Brownfield Development: the Implications for Urban Infrastructure, several case studies are being conducted concerning specific brownfield sites. Information for each of the case study brownfield sites currently being investigated.

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 Grant Awards in Florida

The Florida Brownfields Association (FBA) provides a comprehensive list of brownfields grant awards in the state of Florida.

Brownfield Internet Toolkit

Portland, Oregon's Bureau of Environmental Services offers this website on brownfields information, including information on pollution prevention, community involvement and financial assistance.

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.

Brownfields 2008 Call for Ideas

The Brownfields 2008 Call for Ideas is open. Submit ideas for a complete session, a presentation, a poster, or a particular topic you would like to see covered. There are twelve educational tracks for Brownfields 2008, including The Greening of Redevelopment and Planning and Design Approaches, and two types of sessions, Marketplace Roundtable and Panel.

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 and Utility Sites: A Primer for Local Governments

ICMA has released a new report, Brownfields and Utility Sites: A Primer for Local Governments. This free report details some of the unique issues involved in redeveloping properties owned or formerly owned by oil, gas, and electric utility companies. Types of former utility sites include former manufactured gas plant sites (MGP), disposal stations, tank farms, substations, service facilities, rights-of-way parcels, and treatment plants.

Brownfields Assessment Grants -- Connecticut

The Connecticut Office of Brownfield Remediation and Development offers the CT EPA Assessment Program to fully qualify the environmental condition of a site so that remediation and redevelopment can occur.

Brownfields Assessment Grants -- EPA Region 8 (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah)

Region 8 of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers brownfield assessment grants that provide funding to inventory, characterize, assess, and conduct planning and community involvement related to Brownfield sites.

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 Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup Grants -- U.S. EPA, 2007

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 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 Grants -- EPA Region 8 (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah)

Region 8 of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers brownfield cleanup grants that provide funding to carry out cleanup activities at Brownfields sites.

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 Economic Development Initiative

The Brownfields Economic Development Initiative (BEDI) is one of the key competitive grant programs that HUD administers to stimulate and promote economic and community development activities under Section 108(q) of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, as amended. BEDI is designed to assist cities with the redevelopment of abandoned, idled and underused industrial and commercial facilities with expansion and redevelopment of real or perceived environmental contamination.

Brownfields Federal Programs Guide

There are nearly two dozen federal programs that can help communities in one way or another to assess, cleanup and reuse Brownfields. Brownfields Federal Programs Guide examines in alphabetical order the resources available in other departments and agencies which could be applied in Brownfields situations.

Brownfields Financing Basics

This presentation introduces newcomers to the brownfields financing issue -- local officials, developers, congressional staff, and others -- to basic terms, programs, and opportunities for public sector initiatives.

Brownfields Funding -- Indiana

This resource lists funding options for brownfield redevelopment within the state of Indiana.

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 -- SMARTe

Brownfields funding resources can be found on the Sustainable Management Approaches and Revitalization Tools (SMARTe) website, a free, web-based decision support system for developing and evaluating future reuse scenarios for potentially contaminated land.

Brownfields Funding -- Updates to U.S. EPA Grant Proposal Guidelines

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released EPA Brownfields Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund and Cleanup (ARC) Grant Proposal Guidelines: Key Modifications, a two-page document that outlines changes to the EPA's grant guidelines for the 2008-09 grant cycle.

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 Funding in Washington State

The Washington State Department of Ecology maintains a webpage on grants and financial assistance for cleanup of brownfields in the state.

Brownfields Funding Programs -- Connecticut

The Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) offers flexible tools to deal with all brownfield issues, including gap financing, seed capital programs, corporate tax credits and its own environmental liability insurance program.

Brownfields Grants -- Montana

Montana's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) offers a web site dedicated to brownfields grant information. The data is linked to the U.S. EPA's Brownfields grants 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 Insurance

BrownfieldsInsurance.org is a website developed with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assist those seeking information and assistance with insurance products that mitigate environmental liabilities associated with brownfield properties.

Brownfields Job Training Grants

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is soliciting applications from eligible entities and non-profit organizations to provide environmental job training projects that will facilitate the assessment, remediation, or preparation of brownfield sites.

Brownfields Job Training Grants

The U.S. EPA announces the availability of funds and solicits applications from eligible entities and non-profit organizations to provide environmental job training projects that will facilitate the assessment, remediation, or preparation of brownfield sites. Applicants must propose to serve a community that currently receives, or has received, financial assistance from EPA for brownfields assessment, revolving loan fund or cleanup competitive grants.

Brownfields Land Recycling Program

This City of Phoenix, Arizona, offers a Brownfields Land Recycling Program on its website. The Office of Environmental Programs manages the program, which provides municipal grant funds for infrastructure improvements and development fees on qualified brownfields projects.

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 Links

The U.S Conference of Mayors website offers a list of brownfields links on its website.

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 Policy Research Newsletter: July 2009

The July 2009 Brownfields Policy Research Newsletter from Northeast/Midwest Institute contains links to recent reports and white papers, with a section on Energy, Brownfields, and Sustainability.

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 -- Massachusetts

MassDevelopment works to strengthen communities, stimulate job creation and create housing starts through financial assistance in the forms of loans and bond financing programs.

Brownfields Redevelopment Fund -- Oregon

The Brownfields Redevelopment Fund is a direct loan and grant program to conduct environmental actions on brownfields. Created by the Oregon Legislative Assembly in 1997, the program's primary purpose is to assist private persons and local governments to evaluate, cleanup, and therefore redevelop brownfields.

Brownfields Redevelopment Tax Credits -- Maryland

Maryland properties with environmental concerns are now eligible for tax credits after environmental clean up. Polluted sites often lay dormant, unattractive to development due to clean-up and liability concerns. Federal and state laws have now clarified the legal responsibilities for environmental clean-up, paving the way for opportunities to redevelopment land in prime commercial locations.

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 Research Consortium

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Milwaukee Brownfields Research Consortium is a new partnership among UWM faculty, government agencies, businesses, and nonprofit organizations involved in the cleanup and redevelopment of brownfield properties.

Brownfields Resource Guide -- Washington State

Brownfields cleanup and reuse are priorities for the State of Washington and USEPA. This resource guide will point you in the right direction to get answers to your questions and help with brownfield projects.

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 Road Map

The U.S. EPA's Road Map to Understanding Innovative Technology Options for Brownfields Investigation and Cleanup, Fourth Edition, includes new and updated resources to assist in identification and selection of innovative site characterization and cleanup technologies for brownfields redevelopment.

Brownfields Site Mart -- New Jersey

The Brownfields Site Mart, a web site produced by the State of New Jersey, is designed to make it easier for developers to locate and build on land in cities and towns, while preserving the state's dwindling inventory of open space.

Brownfields Tax Incentive

Originally signed into law in August 1997, the Taxpayer Relief Act (Public Law 105-34) included a tax incentive to spur the cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields in distressed urban and rural areas.

Brownfields Tax Incentive

Originally signed into law in 1997, the Brownfields Tax Incentive encourages the cleanup and reuse of brownfields. This program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been extended through December 31, 2009.

Brownfields Tax Incentive -- FAQ (2007)

Originally signed into law in 1997 and extended through December 31, 2007, the Brownfields Tax Incentive encourages the cleanup and reuse of brownfields. This document from the U.S. EPA provides answers to some of the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) about this federal tax incentive.

Brownfields Tax Incentive Guidelines -- 2007 Edition

Originally signed into law in 1997 and extended through December 31, 2007, the Brownfields Tax Incentive encourages the cleanup and reuse of brownfields. Under the Brownfields Tax Incentive, environmental cleanup costs are fully deductible in the year incurred, rather than capitalized and spread over time. Improvements in 2006 expanded the tax incentive to include petroleum cleanup.

Brownfields Tax Incentive State Contacts

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers a state-by-state listing of Brownfields Tax Incentives on the Brownfields section of its website. Contact information for all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, are included in this resource.

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 Workshop Presentations

The Canadian Brownfields Network (CBN) is offering workshop presentations on its website. Presentations from events dating back to 2004 are available in Adobe Acrobat format.

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.

Brunswick, Georgia, Brownfields Mobile Workshop

This document details the Brownfields Mobile Workshop, held May 21, 2007, in Brunswick, Georgia. The workshop was part of the 20th Annual Southeast Regional Directors Institute (SERDI) Conference.

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 a Sustainable Business: Developing a Business Plan for Farms and Rural Businesses

Conceived in 1996 by a planning team for the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (MISA) to address the evolving business planning needs of beginning and experienced rural entrepreneurs, Building a Sustainable Business: A Guide to Developing a Business Plan for Farms and Rural Businesses incorporates recommendations on content, language and organization from the review process as well as examples from five of the review team’s business plans.

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 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 for the Future

Building for the Future demonstrates the critical need for more affordable housing in San Francisco, summarizes recent affordable housing production, and underscores the benefits of new city funding to help create much-needed housing for our lowest income residents.

Building for Tomorrow: Innovative Infrastructure Solutions

Building for Tomorrow: Innovative Infrastructure Solutions from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) presents a compendium of innovative alternatives to infrastruction maintenance and improvements for public and private entities.

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 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 -- 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 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 Livable Communities: a Policymaker's Guide to Infill Development

Local Government Commission/The Center for Livable Communities. 1995; updated 2001. This guide suggests a number of ways to create infill development in your community and helps to answer two of a policymaker's most frequently asked questions: ''Why build in town?'' and ''What can local government do to encourage infill development?''

Building Successful Communities in the Sierra Nevada

Planning for Prosperity: Building Successful Communities in the Sierra Nevada is designed to help decision-makers in the Sierra Nevada plan wisely and effectively for their communities' futures.

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.

''Built to Last'' Film

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

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 Brownfields Funding

California's Proposition 1C, approved by voters in 2006, authorized the sale of bonds to fund existing affordable and support housing programs. In addition, Proposition 1C establishes funds totaling $1.15 billion to promote three types of housing projects that have never before received public support in such a targeted way: 1) infill development 2) transit-oriented development (TOD), and 3) brownfield development.

California Brownfields Reuse Success Stories

The State of California's Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) contains a variety of brownfield-related resources on its website, including a section on successful reuse of certain brownfields within the state.

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 Green Campuses Earn Best Practices Award

Two Green Campus universities -- Humboldt State University and University of California, Berkeley -- received last year’s Higher Education Energy Efficiency Best Practices Awards in the category of Student Energy Conservation in the CSU and UC grouping respectively.

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 Smart Growth Initiative

The California Smart Growth Initiative, initiated in September 2000 by the Urban Land Institute, is designed to examine growth and development trends in California, determine the barriers to smart growth, and identify specific local, regional, and state solutions that advance a collaborative smart growth agenda.

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 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.

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.

CDC Livability Listserv

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

CDC Offers Slideshows on Kidswalk to School Website

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

Center for Infrastructure Equity

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

Center for Neighborhood Technology

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

Center for Sustainable Communities

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

Center for Transit-Oriented Development: Five Years of Progress

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

Center for Urban and Rural Affairs Funding

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

Central Florida 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.

Central Florida Regional Indicators Report 2005

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

Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida

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

CEOS for Cities

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

Champions for Sustainable Communities -- Call for Partners

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

Champions of Sustainability in Communities Awards 2009

A growing number of colleges and universities are reaching beyond their campus boundaries to partner with their local communities in advancing collective sustainability goals. For the College Sustainability Report Card 2009, the Sustainable Endowments Institute solicited nominations to recognize exceptional collaborations, celebrate their successes, and inspire new project ideas.

Changemakers Innovation Award

Changemakers Innovation Award Competitions offers the ''How to Build a More Ethical Society'' Competition -- $5,000 in cash prizes are awarded to the top three winners in each competition.

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.

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.

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 Climate Action Report

Chicago's Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Center for Neighborhood Technology a reports on the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the Chicago metro region for the years 2000 and 2005, assesses the impacts of the 8.4 million people who live in the region and the commerce conducted there, and provides four key findings of the research.

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.

Chicago's Green Dividend

Chicago's Green Dividend is a fact sheet that illustrates how a difference of 2 miles in commuting distance can result in billions saved in transportation costs. Chicago residents, who travel on average 2 miles less in their daily commute than residents of other major U.S. cities, enjoy this “green dividend.”

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

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

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.

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 Go Green

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

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

Michigan State University Extension offers a classroom-based Citizen Planner Program to address the basic, ongoing education needs of citizens appointed to serve on local land-use planning bodies. As you know, community-based, land-use issues continue to develop and change due to court decisions and new legislation.

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.

City Lights Beckon to Business.

American Demographics, October 1997. Central cities are often dismissed by retailers, developers, and marketers as being too costly, too crime-ridden, and too poor for business. Though these challenges are real, businesses can find success in central cities by catering to the needs of a diverse and often underserved population.

City News

CityNews is an interactive website serving the greater Chicago area that allows users to obtain data about properties in their community and indicators about their community. In addition to the specific housing data, overall statistics from Chicago neighborhoods are available.

City of Portland's Green Investment Fund -- Portland, Oregon

The Green Investment Fund (GIF) is a competitive grant program that supports innovative green building projects in Portland.

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: 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.

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 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.

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 Neutral Campus Report

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

Climate Smart Communities

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

Climate, Energy and Transport

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

Climate@CNU

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

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 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.

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 Brownfields Resources

The Colorado Brownfields Foundation offers an online library of publications and links from both state and national sources, including case stides from around Colorado that highlight economic, fiscal, environmental, and community impacts of brownfields redevelopment or potential brownfields development projects.

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.

Coming Clean for Economic Development: A Resource Book on Environmental Cleanup and Economic Development Opportunities

Washington DC: Northeast-Midwest Institute, 1996 The interplay between the economic and environmental arenas is dominating community development strategies in more and more jurisdictions across the country. Acquiring, cleaning, and redeveloping older, and often abandoned, industrial sites can be very expensive and time consuming. In many situations, private developers and financiers are not able, or willing, to act on their own to ensure that the full economic potential of site reuse will be achieved. Coming Clean for Economic Development shows that vigilant attention to development priorities can help reverse these patterns and invite growth and investment back into existing 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.

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 and the Built Environment

Through the Collaborative Science and Technology Network for Sustainability (CNS), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) is seeking applications proposing innovative regional projects that apply science to decision-making to address a stated problem or opportunity relating to sustainability.

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 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 Assessment Tools

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

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 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 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, 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 Action Grants -- Massachusetts

The Community Development Action Grant Program (CDAG) provides support for publicly owned or managed projects in areas where private investment will not otherwise occur without the CDAG grant. The goal is to stimulate economic development activities that will attract and leverage private investment, create or retain long-term employment and revitalize distressed areas.

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 Financing through Deutsche Bank

Through its role as a financial services provider, Deutsche Bank seeks to create economic opportunities in distressed communities. Although Deutsche Bank has no retail branches within the Americas, the Bank's Community Development Group has developed many innovative and effective strategies for bringing capital to communities in need.

Community Development Resources

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

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

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

Community Development: Reuse of Urban Industrial Sites.

GAO/RCED-95-172, June 1995 This report responds to a congressional request for information about brownfields and federal initiatives to facilitate their reuse. Specifically, this report informs about the extent and nature of abandoned industrial sites in distressed urban communities and the barriers brownfields present to redevelopment efforts and provide information on federal initiatives aimed at helping communities overcome obstacles to reusing brownfield sites.

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 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 Growth Institute -- Rural Land Use

The Community Growth Institute (CGI) is a rural land use think tank that focuses on rural communities. In addition to research and training on rural land use issues, CGI offers rural communities a variety of services and resources, from preparing comprehensive plans and writing ordinances to performing daily planning and zoning administration duties.

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 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 Trust Award

The Champlain Housing Trust (CHT) received top honors in the World Habitat Awards 2007/08 for ''Community Land Trust Innovation.'' Established in 1985 by the Building and Social Housing Foundation as part of its contribution to the United Nations International Year of Shelter for the Homeless, two World Habitat Awards are presented each year to projects from the global North as well as the South that provide practical and innovative solutions to current housing needs and problems.

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

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-Based Systems Change

What is systems change? How do you change systems? Who should be involved? Community-Based Systems Change: Getting Started, from the Center for Civic Partnerships, provides answers to these questions. It also includes several examples of systems change involving local government, community-based organizations, residents, local businesses and others.

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 Brownfields Funding

The State of Connecticut Office of Brownfields Remediation (OBRD) website provides a list of financial assistance sources for brownfield redevelopment projects, including sources from the U.S. EPA, the State of Connecticut and other programs that serve specific towns and regions of the state. The OBRD partners with all of them.

Connecticut Brownfields Redevelopment Authority Grants

The Connecticut Brownfields Redevelopment Authority provides assistance for remediation and redevelopment of brownfields anywhere in Connecticut that will generate future incremental municipal property tax revenues.

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.

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 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 Innovation Grants

The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is offering Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) to stimulate the development and adoption of innovative conservation approaches and technologies while leveraging the Federal investment in environmental enhancement and protection, in conjunction with agricultural production.

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 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.

Construction Waste Management Database

The Construction Waste Management Database contains information on companies that haul, collect and process recyclable debris from construction projects.

Contemporary Debates in Urban Planning

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

Counties and Local Food Systems

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

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

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

Creating 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 Inclusive Communities in Florida

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

Creating Livable Places

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

Creating Successful Communities: A New Housing Paradigm

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

Creating Value: Smart Development and Green Design

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

Creating Walkable Places

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

Crossroads Hamlet Village Town

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

Crossroads Resource Center: Tools for Community Self-Determination

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

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

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

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 Brownie Awards 2006

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 Brownie Awards 2006

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 the fall of each year.

CUI Brownie Awards 2007

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.

D.C. Main Streets Program

The DC Main Streets program was created in 2002 to support the establishment and implementation of lasting, comprehensive revitalization initiatives in Washington, D.C.'s traditional neighborhood business districts. DC Main Streets' goal is to support retail investment in the District through the retention and expansion of existing businesses and the recruitment of new businesses.

Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy (DSIRE)

The Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy (DSIRE) is a comprehensive source of information on state, local, utility, and selected federal incentives that promote renewable energy.

DataPlace™ -- Maps, Charts and Statistics for U.S. Communities

DataPlace™ aims to be a one-stop source for housing and demographic data about your community, your region, and the nation. Build maps, create charts, or compare data on any U.S. location.

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 DOT's Guidebook on Corridor Capacity Preservation Program Available Online

Instituted as a pilot program in 1992, the CCPP was designed to minimize or eliminate the need to add new lanes to a highway corridor by carefully planning the land uses within the corridor and their interface with the state highway system.

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: 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 -- 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 by Sustainable Edge, Inc., prepared for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, will provide a compelling argument for municipalities to pursue means of developing integrated approaches in the development of services and infrastructure.

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 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 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.

Designing Activity into Our Lives

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

Designing and Building Healthy Places

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

Designing for Active Recreation

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

Designing 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 Successful Infill Housing

Urban Land Institute. 2002. This book explains how to develop profitable, market-rate infill housing in urban and inner-ring suburban areas. Twelve case studies describe the development of flourishing multifamily, mixed-use, townhouse, adaptive use, and manufactured home projects throughout the nation.

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.

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.

Down By The Station: Exploring the Benefits of Rail Transit in the 21st Century

In this keynote presentation at the Lehigh Valley Transportation Forum on January 16, 2007, Robert Puentes, Fellow at The Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, discusses the potential benefits that accrue to communities that pursue effective and efficient rail transportation.

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.

Downtown Revitalization in Urban Neighborhoods and Small Cities

November 2001. This report describes the approaches of urban neighborhoods and small towns meeting the twin challenges of deteriorating town centers and sprawling development through downtown revitalization.

Downtowns and Town Centers

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

Draft Report on the Environment

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

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.

Economics, Equity and the Environment

Economics, Equity, and the Environment, by Stephen M. Johnson, examines major economic incentive and market-based environmental protection programs that are being implemented by governments, including pollution taxes, pollutant trading programs, regulatory waiver programs, subsidies, grants, loans and favorable tax treatment, and deposit/refund systems.

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.

edie's Awards Entry Forms -- 2009

The call for entries for the 2009 Awards for Environmental Excellence began in earnest on January 1, 2009. Now in their third year at the London Natural History Museum, the awards are fast building a reputation for being an enviable environmental accolade and are judged by some the UK's top environmentalists.

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.

Education Campaign on Policy Barriers to Redevelopment of Vacant Properties (RFP)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking proposals to educate critical state decision- and policy-makers on policy and practical barriers to the redevelopment of abandoned and other vacant properties. Proposals are due August 27, 2007.

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.

Electronic Green Government Network

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

Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development

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

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

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

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

Energy and Smart Growth (Translation Paper #15)

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

Energy Benefits of Urban Infill Developments, Brownfields and Sustainable Urban Development

In Energy Benefits of Urban Infill Developments, a report from the Northeast-Midwest Institute, sustainable urban redevelopment is shown to be a potential major source of greenhouse gas reduction.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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 Community Loan Fund

A variety of short-term loan products are available through the Enterprise Community Loan Fund -- a certified Community Development Financial Institution -- for predevelopment, acquisition, working capital and other financing needs.

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 Rose Fellows Announced for 2007

Enterprise, a leading nonprofit provider of affordable housing nationwide, has announced recipients of the Frederick P. Rose Architectural Fellowship. This award offers promising young architects a unique opportunity to use their design skills in real-life situations by creating sustainable, affordable housing in underserved communities. The 2007 fellows will be based in the Bronx in New York City; Woodburn, Oregon; and New Orleans, Louisiana.

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 Performance Measurement Project

The Environmental Performance Measurement Project aims to shift environmental decision-making to firmer analytic foundations using environmental indicators and statistics.

Environment Program -- Kresge Foundation

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

Environmental Characteristics of Smart Growth Neighborhoods

This 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 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 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 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 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 and Climate Change Initiative

The Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative (EJCC) is a diverse coalition of U.S. environmental justice, religious, climate justice, policy and advocacy networks working for climate justice. This consensus-based coalition develops projects, programs and papers to educate policymakers and connect with thousands of people in communities across the country about the effects of climate change and environmental injustice.

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 -- Spring 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 Law Institute's Annual Award

The Environmental Law Institute® will pay tribute to its former president, J. William ''Bill'' Futrell, with the 2008 ELI Award for Achievement in Environmental Law, Policy, and Management. The award honors Futrell's career-long dedication to conservation and recognizes his 23 years of achievement as ELI President concluding in 2003.

Environmental Law Institute's ''Sustainability and Resource Protection''

Environmental Law Institute uses sustainability as an organizing principle to develop new strategies for the protection of land, water, and biological resources. ELI’s Sustainability and Resource Protection Programs improve our nation’s laws, policies, and institutions. Integrating environmental laws, tax laws, development laws, and other tools. ELI works with state, local, and federal agencies, citizen groups, non-profit organizations, and corporate partners to develop effective solutions to problems of land and resource use.

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.

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 Announces Funding for Baltimore Brownfields Assessments

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded the Baltimore Development Corp. $400,000 in EPA brownfields funding to help assess abandoned industrial properties in Baltimore.

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 Awards $71 Million to Help Brownfields Bloom into Productivity

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced that nearly $71 million will be awarded to communities in 38 states to help revitalize former industrial and commercial sites, turning them from problem properties to productive community use. Two territories and five tribal nations also will share the $70.7 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

EPA Brownfields Cleanup Grants

The U.S. EPA offers brownfields cleanup grant opportunities that provide funding for a grant recipient to carry out cleanup activities at brownfield sites.

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 Brownfields Funding Information

This website from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency contains information on Brownfields funding for loans, job training, technical assistance, and other items related to brownfield remediation and management.

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 Region 3 Brownfields Grants -- EPA Region 3 (Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, District of Columbia)

The U.S. EPA’s Brownfields Program provides direct funding for brownfields assessment, cleanup, revolving loans, and environmental job training. To facilitate the leveraging of public resources, EPA’s Brownfields Program collaborates with other EPA programs, other federal partners, and state agencies to identify and make available resources that can be used for brownfields activities. In addition to direct brownfields funding, EPA also provides technical information on brownfields financing matters.

EPA Region 6 Brownfields Job Training Grants -- EPA Region 6 (New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana)

This resource lists EPA Region 6 Brownfields Job Training Grants recipients from 1998 through 2007. Region 6 serves Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas and 65 Tribes. For Fiscal Year 2007, the U.S. EPA has selected the City of Camden, Arkansas, for a job training grant. Camden plans to train 30 participants and place at least 24 in environmental jobs. Students will be tracked using a specialized career planning system that will track graduates and provide them with support throughout their lifetime.

EPA Region 6 Brownfields Program -- EPA Region 6 (New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana)

As part of the U.S. EPA's initiative to reuse and revitalize contaminated property, the Brownfields Program provides funds and technical assistance to states, communities and other stakeholders in economic redevelopment to work together to prevent, assess, safely cleanup, and sustainably reuse brownfields. This resource provides information on the U.S. EPA's Brownfields Program, including the Brownfields Revitalization Act, grants, technical tools and resources, as well as information on Brownfields projects across the country.

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 Brownfields Job Training Grants

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers job training grants to teach environmental-cleanup job skills to individuals living in low income areas near Brownfields sites. Grants go to non-profit organizations, educational institutions, community colleges, tribes, and state and local governments.

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.

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.

Europe 2005: The Ecological Footprint

This report to the European Parliament was produced with the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) to document Europe's demand on the world's ecosystems.

European Urban Knowledge Network

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

Evaluation of Smart Growth on the Ground

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

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 Affordable Housing -- 2007 Nominations

In partnership with the MetLife Foundation, Enterprise offers the MetLife Foundation Awards for Excellence in Affordable Housing. The awards program recognizes 501(c)(3) community-based or regional nonprofit organizations and Tribes or Tribally Designated Housing Entities that excel in property and asset management or provide housing to people with special needs.

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 Urban Journalism Award

Presented in partnership with The Freedom Forum, the Annual Excellence in Urban Journalism Award encourages and recognizes quality reporting on major issues facing the nation's urban populations.

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.

Expanding Housing Opportunity in Washington, DC

Expanding Housing Opportunity in Washington, DC: The Case for Inclusionary Zoning uses data compiled from hundred of localities where inclusionary zoning has made a critical difference in providing affordable housing to low- and moderate-income families.

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.

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.

Fannie Mae’s Annual Housing Survey

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

Farm to Cafeteria Connections

This handbook is designed to be a resource for farmers, food service professionals and community members in developing Farm-to-Cafeteria programs in Washington state. It provides locally relevant information and an overall look at Farm-to-Cafeteria programs from all across the country.

''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 Protection Program Funding Availabe

On April 3, 2003, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for grants through the Farmland Protection Program (FPP). The RFP provides up to $100 million in funds in Fiscal Year 2003, using funds that were approved by Congress in the 2002 Farm Bill. Grant applications for specific farmland protection projects are due to state NRCS offices by May 19, 2003.

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.

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.

Financing Brownfield Cleanup and Redevelopment.

Washington DC: Northeast-Midwest Institute. What does it take to redevelop brownfields? Money, says the author as he explores the financial side of redeveloping brownfield properties. He also offers up some valuable resources for minimizing financial gaps and securing funding so that you cam maximize the economic value of your brownfield property.

Financing Brownfield Development in Small Towns and Rural Areas

The Northeast-Midwest Institute examines ways that how rural communities successfully finance the redevelopment and reuse of brownfield sites in their report Financing Brownfield Development in Small Towns and Rural Areas.

Financing Brownfields Redevelopment Projects: A Guide for Developers.

Washington DC: U.S. EPA, 1999 This guide provides information on brownfields financing issues and informs developers and property owners on the most crucial aspects of financing brownfields redevelopment: identifying potential financing sources, preparing project plans, approaching private lenders, minimizing the financial risks associated with liability, and understanding the site assessment and cleanup process

Financing Small-Scale Urban Redevelopment Projects: A Sourcebook for Borrowers Reusing Environmentally Suspect Sites.

Louisville, KY: E. P. Systems Group, July 1997 This volume is intended to provide information to those seeking financing in order to redevelop small residential, commercial, or industrial projects on previously used properties. We have in mind the company wanting to invest perhaps fifty thousand to two or three million dollars in order to expand into neighboring properties, reclaim properties for clients needing central city locations, or regenerate a site "on spec" for an unknown future buyer or lessee. In particular, we are concerned with the issue of dealing with actual or suspected contamination when doing urban "infill" or development of underutilized or vacant properties within central cities.

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.

Flexible Design of New Jersey's Main Streets

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

Florida 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

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) maintains a website on the state's brownfield program, including information on state and federal initiatives, locations of active projects and designated brownfield areas, and more.

Florida Brownfields Funding

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection offers this list of state Brownfields Funding projects supported by state and federal EPA Pilots and Programs.

Florida Brownfields Grants

The Florida Brownfields Association (FBA) has announced that five Florida communities have received new U.S. EPA Brownfields Grants: Treasure Coast RPC, City of Clearwater, City of Homestead, City of Miami, and City of Tampa.

Florida Brownfields Redevelopment

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection maintains a website for the Florida Brownfields Redevelopment Program. Covered topics include Targeted Brownfield Assessment, Petroleum Storage Systems, Solid and Hazardous Waste, Waste Cleanup, and Publications and Reports.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

From Brownfields to Housing

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

From Rags to Riches: Innovations in Petroleum Brownfields

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

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

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

Funders 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 Publishes Health and Smart Growth Translation Paper

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

Funders' Network: Looking Back

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

Funders' Network: Looking Forward

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

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 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.

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

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

Getting Density Right

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

Getting 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 on Message: Making the Biodiversity-Sprawl Connection

This message kit is a resource for outreach by nonprofits on issues related to biodiversity and sprawl.

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 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 Transportation Right for Metropolitan America

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

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 Age-Friendly Cities

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

Global Planners Network

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

Global Sustainability Centers: The 20 Cities of 2020

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

Going 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 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.

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 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

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 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 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 Affordable Housing

Center for American Progress has released the proposal ''Green Affordable Housing: Within Our Reach,'' which provides suggestions for policy changes to help reduce energy consumption, curb greenhouse gas emissions, and create a viable green jobs sector through the greening of existing affordable housing.

Green and Growing Tool Box

The State of Connecticut offers the Green and Growing Tool Box, a website containing a comprehensive inventory of policies, plans, or programs administered by State Agencies represented on the Inter-Agency Responsible Growth Steering Council.

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 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 Grants -- Illinois

The Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation invests in clean energy development and land preservation efforts, working with communities and citizens to improve environmental quality in Illinois.

Green Building Incentives -- California

California's Sustainable Schools website, produced by the Division of the State Architect (DSA), offers a diverse collection of sustainable building resources. The site is geared toward those interested and involved in designing, developing, and constructing high performance schools, such as school administrators and board officials, developers, architects, planners, researchers, teachers, parents, and others.

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 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 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 Buildings on Brownfields Initiative: Pilot Projects Fact Sheet

EPA has selected eight communities for Green Buildings on Brownfields pilot projects. Through the Green Buildings on Brownfields Initiative, EPA works with communities, on a pilot basis, to incorporate environmental considerations into the planning, design and implementation of their brownfields redevelopment projects.

Green Cities Report

Green Cities, a report from Living Cities, is one of the first assessments of exactly how 40 of the country's largest cities are trying to limit their carbon footprints and take the steps needed to raise these efforts to the next level.

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 Grants

Green Communities is a five-year, $555 million initiative to build more than 8,500 environmentally healthy homes for low-income families.

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 Loans

As part of The Green Communities Initiative, the Enterprise Community Loan Fund offers several lending products to support the development of affordable rental and homeownership housing that adheres to Green Communities Criteria.

Green Communities News

The February 2008 Green Communities News reports on ''Landmark Green Affordable Policy Advances in Congress,'' ''Denver Adopts Green Communities for Affordable Housing,'' and ''Enterprise Launches Fund for Green Affordable Development in Atlanta.''

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 Connection Loan Fund

The Bay Area Local Initiative Support Corporation's (LISC's) Green Connection Loan Fund is designed to assist nonprofit housing organizations with financing affordable developments that integrate green building and energy efficiency into their projects.

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 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 Guide for Health Care™

The Green Guide for Health Care™ is the health care sector’s first quantifiable sustainable design toolkit integrating enhanced environmental and health principles and practices into the planning, design, construction, operations and maintenance of their facilities.

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 Funding -- Canada

More than $42 million in funding for green infrastructure projects has been designated for unincorporated areas of Canada's New Brunswick Province. The funds will be used for water, wastewater and other infrastructure improvements.

Green Infrastructure Maps

Natural Connections has produced a website offering a database of Green Infrastructure Maps that covers 14 counties extending out from the greater Chicago region, including the counties bordering the Wisconsin-Illinois and Illinois-Indiana state lines.

Green Infrastructure: A Framework for Smart Growth

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

Green Metropolis

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

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

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

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

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

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

Green Playbook

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

GREEN 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 Retrofit Funding for Multifamily Housing

$250 million in loans and grants for energy and green retrofits in the multifamily assisted housing stock are the basis of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD's) Office of Affordable Housing Preservation (OAHP) Green Retrofit Funding for Multifamily Housing program.

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 Schools Grants -- Massachusetts

The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative and the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) manage the Green Schools Initiative, a funding program that helps communities conserve energy and use clean energy technologies to power school projects approved for construction by the MSBA.

Green Trails Guidebook

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

Green Urbanism Down Under

In Green Urbanism Down Under, a 2008 book from Island Press, author Timothy Beatley reports on the current state of ''sustainability practice'' in Australia and the many lessons that U.S. residents can learn from the best Australian programs and initiatives.

Greenbelt Alliance Wins Award for Smart Growth Scorecard

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

Greenbuild 2005 Proceedings

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

Greener by Design

The Natural Resources Defense Council offers an interactive web resource on how to incorporate green design in buildings -- specifically, the work completed on its new office in Santa Monica, California.

Greener Policies, Smarter Plans

Greener Policies, Smarter Plans from Enterprise Community Partners is an analysis of state policies that encourage environmentally sustainable housing through Low-Income Housing Tax Credit programs. The 2007 report shows a promising trend: a growing commitment to greener affordable homes.

Greener, Greater Buildings Plan: PlaNYC

PlaNYC sets a goal of achieving a 30 percent reduction in New York City’s annual greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2030. Acknowledging that nearly 80 percent of our citywide emissions result from the energy that we use in buildings, PlaNYC has set out to improve the energy efficiency of New York City’s buildings.

Greening America's Capitals

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greening the World's Capital Cities

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

Greenprint Denver Received U.S. Chamber of Commerce Award

The City and County of Denver has received a national award for sustainable-development initiatives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Business Civic Leadership Center for the city's ''Greenprint Denver'' program.

Greentips Podcasts from Earth Day 2008

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

Greyfields into Goldfields: From Failing Shopping Centers to Great Neighborhoods

This report reveals how abandoned or obsolete shopping centers are ideal sites for transit-oriented, mixed-use development.

Groundswell: Stories of Saving Places, Finding Community

Published by the Trust for Public Land, Groundswell: Stories of Saving Places, Finding Community celebrates the role of land conservation in preserving community character and connecting people to the land and to each other.

Growing by Choice or Chance

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

Growing Cooler -- Urban Development and Climate Change

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

Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change

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

Growing Safer: Improving Roadways for Everyone

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

Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook

Chicago: American Planning Association, 1998. This volume contains examples of model planning statutes intended to assist persons and organizations considering or advocating for statutory change with ideas, principles, methods, procedures, phraseology, and alternative legislative approaches for tackling today's complex growth management problems

Growing Smart State Summaries

Chicago: American Planning Association, 1999 Collection of short (5-15 page) summaries of planning statues for all 50 states. Intended to assist states, regional planning agencies, local governments, private groups, and other persons interested in reform of state planning statutes and to provide citizens with information on the planning laws of their respective states.

Growing Smarter at the Edge

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

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

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

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

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

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

Growing with Less Greenhouse Gases

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

Growing, Going, Gone

Growing, Going, Gone? is a report from the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy (ESLC) that examines growth on Maryland's Eastern Shore and how to meet its challenges through Eastern Shore 2010, an inter-county agreement that set high expectations for growth management. Tailored for the specific regional needs of the Shore, this agreement is made up of four land use goals which were all proposed to and adopted by the six Upper Shore governments of Cecil, Kent, Queen Anne’s, Caroline, Talbot and Dorchester counties.

Growth Management for Florida’s Future

Growth Management for Florida’s Future is a position paper from 1000 Friends of Florida that analyzes the growth management practices the state has used for the past two decades, and offers recommendations for how the state can be more instrumental in helping to build better communities.

Growth Management, Smart Growth, and Affordable Housing

This discussion examines why an emphasis on affordable housing is critical to the success of growth management and smart growth.

Growth, Sprawl and the Bay: Simple Facts About Growth and Land Use

Annapolis MD: Chesapeake Bay Foundation. A fact sheet detailing the forces behind sprawl development in the Chesapeake Bay, and the impacts of this land use patterns.

Growth, Sprawl and the Bay: Ten Misconceptions about Growth and Land Use.

Annapolis MD: Chesapeake Bay Foundation. This fact sheet separates myth from fact about development in the Chesapeake Bay.

GSA Regional Studies Grants: Envisioning the Future of the Federal Workplace

In order to promote a guiding vision for the future of federal work in the Washington region, the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Public Building Service will award competitive grants in the range of $50,000 to $500,000 for coordination, planning, and research efforts that explore fundamental questions related to the form, location, and design of federal offices over the next 10 to 50 years in the National Capital Region. The maximum aggregate value of the grants is $500,000.

GSA's Construction Waste Management Database

Construction Waste Management is a program that promotes the responsible disposal of waste related to construction and demolition. Such waste can include concrete, asphalt, masonry, and wood.

Guide to Federal Brownfield Programs

Washington DC: Northeast-Midwest Institute, 1999. The federal government has created an array of programs and resources to help clean up and reuse brownfield sites. This guide profiles the federal brownfield programs, explains available resources, and offers contact names. It first reviews the extensive initiatives at the Environmental Protection Agency and then examines other departments and agencies in alphabetical order

Guide to Neighborhood Placemaking in Chicago

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

Guide to Transit-Oriented Development

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

Guides and Manuals of “Better Practice” -- UK

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

Guiding Growth and Development in Georgia Handbook

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

Gulf Coast Ecological and Community Health Fund

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have exposed the human and ecological costs of racial discrimination and unsustainable development. The rebuilding of New Orleans and Gulf Coast communities that have been damaged by these hurricanes is an historic opportunity for philanthropic organizations to participate in the Gulf Coast Ecological Health & Community Renewal Fund (the ''Fund'').

Hard Lessons: Michigan’s School Construction Boom

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

Harvard Green Campus Initiative: Vision 2020 Event Resources

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

Healthy Communities and Environmental Justice

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

Healthy Communities Initiative

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

Healthy Community Design

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

Healthy Community Design Video

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

Healthy Growth Calculator

The Sierra Club's Healthy Growth Calculator is an online resource tool that provides a big picture perspective to decisions regarding growth.

Healthy Kids Healthy Communities

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

Healthy Living Resource Guide

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

Healthy Rural Communities: A Resource and Action Guide for North Carolina

Healthy Rural Communities: A Resource and Action Guide for North Carolina describes growth and development issues in rural North Carolina, and provides insight based on the North Carolina Smart Growth Alliance's (NCSGA) Principles of Smart Growth.

Healthy School Environments

The U.S. EPA's Healthy School Environment Resources website offers information and links to school environmental health issues.

Healthy Urban Design -- UMD Presentation

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

Heart and Soul Community Planning -- 2008 Request for Proposals

The Orton Family Foundation has issued a call for proposals for the 2008 Heart and Soul Community Planning award, open to communities in select New England and Rocky Mountain states. This is a partnership opportunity for four communities to receive funding and technical assistance on major community visioning and planning projects.

Heritage Dividend

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

Heritage Preservation Fund Grants

The National Park Service offers grants through their Historic Preservation Fund (HPF). Since 1968, over $1 billion in grant funds has been awarded to 59 States, territories, Indian Tribes, local governments, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

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

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

High Performance Building Grant -- Virginia

The James River Green Building Council (JRGBC), a Chapter of the US Green Building Council, will be awarding a $10,000 grant to promote the inclusion of green features to schools and affordable housing projects in Central Virginia.

High Performance School Award

For their integration of energy efficiency with outstanding architectural design, three nonresidential projects have received Awards of Honor as the culmination of the 2004 Savings By Design Energy Efficiency Integration Awards Competition. The jurors cited the projects’ masterful use of design to overcome constrained sites and orientation and seamlessly integrate energy efficiency into elegant building design.

High Performance School Buildings Resource and Strategy Guide

The second edition of this nationally vetted and easy-to-read guidebook describes the characteristics and benefits of high-performance school buildings and details the process to help school planners ask the right questions of their design professionals to ensure the best school design possible.

High Performance Schools School Planning Kit

The Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS, often pronounced ''chips'') aims to increase the energy efficiency of schools in California by marketing information, services, and incentive programs directly to school districts and designers. The Collaborative offers a School Planning Kit promoting the design of high performance schools: environments that are not only energy efficient, but also healthy, comfortable, well lit, and containing the amenities needed for a quality education.

Higher Density Development: Myth or Fact

Higher Density Development: Myth or Fact is the sixth in a series of publications from the Urban Land Institute designed to dispel myths and offer good examples on issues related to growth and land use. It addresses common myths surrounding density.

Higher-Density Development -- Myth and Fact

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

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

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

Historic Neighborhood Schools Success Stories

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

Historic Preservation -- Disaster Response

Disasters, natural and otherwise, can be devastating to historic properties. The American Council on Historic Preservation website includes a list of federal disaster relief programs that focus on providing financial assistance for structural rehabilitation after a disaster, or proactive efforts to reduce or prevent future potential damage.

Historic Preservation and Sustainability

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has created a webpage that focuses on how historic preservation can help the environment, and is part of the organization's Sustainability Initiative that will demonstrate how older buildings can ''go green.''

Historic Preservation Funding

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a partner in the Smart Growth Network, maintains a page on its website focusing on Nonprofit Organization and Public Agency Funding for nonprofit organizations and federal, state, or local government agencies.

Historic Preservation Funding Grants -- Missouri

The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 authorizes a program of federal matching grants, known as the Historic Preservation Fund, to assist the various states in carrying out historic preservation activities. The program is sponsored by the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, and in Missouri is administered through the State Historic Preservation Office of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

Historic Preservation Revolving Funds

A preservation revolving fund is a pool of capital created and reserved for historic preservation, with the condition that the money will be returned to the fund to be reused for similar activities. It can be an effective tool to address blighted neighborhoods or run-down properties in your community, revitalize a historic district or commercial area, or demonstrate the economic and social benefits of historic preservation

Historic Preservation Tax Credits -- North Carolina

This resource outlines Preservation Tax Credits offered by North Carolina for historic properties located in the state.

Historic Schools Day

Historic Schools Day is April 24, 2004. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, with Geraldine Hastings, the 2003-2004 National Secondary Social Studies Teacher of the Year, has prepared a Teacher's Resource Guide to help use your school building as a starting point for a lesson plan in history and social studies.

Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction

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

Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction -- 2006 Honorees

$1 million in prize money was awarded to the best sustainable construction projects entered in the first global Holcim Awards competition. Presented in April 2006, the joint winners of the Holcim Awards Gold were an urban integration project in Caracas, Venezuela, and the design for a new main railway station in Stuttgart, Germany.

Holding The Line: Urban Containment In The United States August 2002

Policies designed to deliberately control the spread of urban areas are increasing in popularity throughout the United States. Several states, and many local governments in the west, are adopting urban growth boundaries and other containment measures in their land-use planning laws and legislation. Whatever the primary purpose, it is clear that the precise impacts of containment policies are not well understood. This paper reviews the research on urban containment generally, and also examines the experience of such policies in particular metropolitan areas. It discusses some lessons learned and raises relevant research questions for practitioners as well as policymakers at the state and local level.

Home Depot Building Healthy Communities Grant Program

The Home Depot is accepting proposals from registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations, public schools or tax-exempt public service agencies in the U.S. who are using the power of volunteers to improve the physical health of their community. This program supports community improvement projects that include, but are not limited to: improving energy efficiency and sustainability; landscaping and planting native trees; community facility improvements; and the development and/or improvement of green spaces.

Grants are made in the form of The Home Depot gift cards for the purchase or tools or materials.

Only grants submitted through the online application process will be considered for funding. All unsolicited donation requests received via mail, phone or e-mail will be referred to this online grant program. Responses are due December 15, 2009.

Homes for a Changing Region -- Phase 2

Homes for a Changing Region -- Phase 2: Implementing Balanced Housing Plans at the Local Level is the latest in a series of reports from Chicago Metropolis 2020 and the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus examining housing supply and demand in the six-county Chicago metropolitan region through the year 2030 and identifing imbalances that would likely impact the regional housing market.

Hope VI Main Street Grants

Main Street area revitalization efforts seek to rejuvenate older, downtown business districts while retaining the area's traditional and Historic character. The purpose of the HOPE