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2006 International Paper Conservation Awards
International Paper, in partnership with The Conservation Fund, recognizes the efforts of people across the country working to protect the future of America's outdoor heritage.
2007 Sustainability Award Winners -- Berkeley
The Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Sustainability (CACS) at the University of California-Berkeley presents the annual Sustainability Award to outstanding members of the Cal Community.
50 Greenest Cities in the United States
The March 2008 issue of Popular Science Magazine has ranked America's 50 Greenest Cities. Popular Science used raw data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Geographic Society's Green Guide, which collected survey data and government statistics for American cities over 100,000 people in more than 30 categories, including air quality, electricity use, and transportation habits.
A Global Urban Agenda: Highlights from the 2005 World Cities Forum
A Global Urban Agenda from the Urban Land Institute highlights issues discussed at ULI’s World Cities Forum in June 2005.
America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places 2005
America's heritage is at risk from coast to coast -- and beyond. The National Trust for Historic Preservation notes some of the most at-risk places in its annual list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.
AMPO -- 2004 Conference Presentations
Presentations from the 2004 Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations Conference are available online as PowerPoint files through the AMPO website.
Bye, Bye Suburban Dream.
Newsweek, May 15, 1995. Lead article introducing the new urbanist movement, principals, practitioners and vision. Also includes a set of 15 steps needed to fix the American suburb from the viewpoint of new urbanists
Can Urban Growth be Contained?
APA Online National Conference. San Diego, 1997. Tempe AZ: ASU College of Architecture and Environmental Design P, 1999 Challenging traditional urban theory, the authors warn that growth boundary strategies are based on outmoded notions of urbanization processes. This paper, using an analysis of the Twin Cities metropolitan region, presents an emerging theory of 'postmodern' urban development based on social restructuring and a physical decentralization to the suburbs. Their research has profound implications for growth management.
Community Action Grants
The Gannett Foundation supports local organizations in communities served by Gannett Co., Inc.
Community-Based Habitat Restoration
The Five-Star Restoration Program provides modest financial assistance on a competitive basis to support community-based wetland, riparian, and coastal habitat restoration projects that build diverse partnerships and foster local natural resource stewardship through education, outreach and training activities.
Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance Recognized Projects: April 2009
The Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance has added to its list of recognized smart growth projects: Kardon Ponds in Chester County, Pennsylvania; and Zurbrugg Mansion Redevelopment in Burlington County, New Jersey.
Delmarva Farmland Strategy Project
American Farmland Trust (AFT) initiated the Delmarva Farmland Strategy Project to bring new tools to communities that are struggling with how to accommodate change and growth while retaining a profitable agricultural sector.
Demonstrating the Economic Benefits of Integrated, Green Infrastructure
This paper will provide a compelling argument for municipalities to pursue means of developing integrated approaches in the development of services and infrastructure.
Downtown Planning for Smaller and Midsized Communities
''For so long we were floundering and taking ad hoc measures, but the minute I understood what a downtown plan really was I said 'We need one of those!' As it turned out, it was the most fantastic vehicle I've ever seen,'' said Susan Moffat-Thomas of New Bern, North Carolina. Her hometown got a much-needed shot in the arm from a good downtown plan. Does yours need a similar boost?
Philip L. Walker, an experienced downtown-planning consultant, offers practical tips for preserving a sense of place, improving fiscal efficiency, and enhancing quality of life in Downtown Planning for Smaller and Midsized Communities.
Planners and revitalization officials will learn how to address physical components of the downtown, as well as economic development. Walker, an experienced downtown-planning consultant, also explains how to develop an organization to implement a downtown plan; how federal, state, and local policies may influence the planning process; and how to fund a downtown revitalization effort.
EcoIndustrial Strategies
Eco-industrial Strategies explores the key issues involved in eco-industrial development and identifies the stakeholders and their roles in such projects.
Economics, Equity and the Environment
Economics, Equity, and the Environment, by Stephen M. Johnson, examines major economic incentive and market-based environmental protection programs that are being implemented by governments, including pollution taxes, pollutant trading programs, regulatory waiver programs, subsidies, grants, loans and favorable tax treatment, and deposit/refund systems.
Environmental Health Perspectives: Built Environment
Built Environment is a collection of articles from Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed open access journal dedicated to the effect of the environment on human health.
Facing Our Future
Western Resource Advocates, Trout Unlimited and the Colorado Environmental Coalition have released this report on how to satisfy demands for water along the Front Range for the next 25 years with less harm to the environment and less controversy than water projects have faced in the past.
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.
Free Legal Resources Available
The American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy and Resources has initiated a new pilot program that offers free legal assistance to support community-based environmental protection efforts.
Funders' Network: Looking Back
To acknowledge and celebrate its 10th Anniversary in 2009, the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities commissioned Looking Back: Influencing, Networking, Facilitating, a retrospective on the efforts undertaken by the Network and its members over the past ten years.
Funders' Network: Looking Forward
To acknowledge and celebrate its 10th Anniversary in 2009, the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities Looking Forward: Perspectives on Future Opportunities for Philanthropy, a compilation of essays from leading thinkers in the movement for smarter growth policies and practices that challenge philanthropy to think about its role over the next ten years.
Funding Brownfield Redevelopment
The Community/School Partnership for Brownfields Development offers an online guide to funding brownfields redevelopment. The guide is part of the school curriculum developed by the Purdue EPICS team for the ''Our Town Project'' (OTP).
Getting on Message: Making the Biodiversity-Sprawl Connection
This message kit is a resource for outreach by nonprofits on issues related to biodiversity and sprawl. We hope it serves as a springboard for new activity.
The site includes fact sheets, communication sheets, and other information.
Grants to Promote Farmers Markets
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced 20 grants totaling $900,000 to establish, expand or promote local farmers markets, roadside stands, and similar agricultural ventures under the new Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP).
Growth Management for Florida’s Future
Growth Management for Florida’s Future is a position paper from 1000 Friends of Florida that analyzes the growth management practices the state has used for the past two decades, and offers recommendations for how the state can be more instrumental in helping to build better communities.
Heritage Case Studies
Partners in Tourism, a national coalition that promotes culture and heritage tourism, offers detailed case studies on its website that describe efforts from across the U.S. to create tourist destinations based on local heritage and culture.
High Performance Schools School Planning Kit
The Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS, often pronounced ''chips'') aims to increase the energy efficiency of schools in California by marketing information, services, and incentive programs directly to school districts and designers. The Collaborative offers a School Planning Kit promoting the design of high performance schools: environments that are not only energy efficient, but also healthy, comfortable, well lit, and containing the amenities needed for a quality education.
Holding The Line: Urban Containment In The United States August 2002
Policies designed to deliberately control the spread of urban areas are
increasing in popularity throughout the United States. Several states,
and many local governments in the west, are adopting urban growth
boundaries and other containment measures in their land-use planning
laws and legislation. Whatever the primary purpose, it is clear that the
precise impacts of containment policies are not well understood. This
paper reviews the research on urban containment generally, and also
examines the experience of such policies in particular metropolitan
areas. It discusses some lessons learned and raises relevant research
questions for practitioners as well as policymakers at the state
and local level.
In Chicago, A Green Economy Rises
This essay by Keith Schneider of the Great Lakes Bulletin News Service reviews how the city of Chicago has successfully used a ''green'' smart growth strategy to blossom into one of America's finest cities.
Innovative Philanthropic Approaches to Housing Affordability and Smarter Growth
Innovative Philanthropic Approaches to Housing Affordability and Smarter Growth looks at some of the creative approaches used to address housing affordability in the context of the broader smart growth agenda.
Land Trust Standards and Practices
The newly revised Land Trust Standards and Practices reflect the lessons learned in conservation over the fifteen years since they were first created and recent changes in nonprofit law.
Make Your Community Walkable
AARP's discussion on how to make your community walkable is the topic of this January 2005 web resource.
Making Educated Decisions: A Landscape Preservation Bibliography
The second edition of this resource offers a comprehensive listing of publications for those involved with preservation planning and stewardship of significant landscapes.
Marketing Smart Growth
This series of articles from On Common Ground, The National Association of Realtors® Smart Growth Magazine, attempts to grasp this subject of supply and demand for Smart
Growth.
Massachusetts Sustainable Design Initiative
The Massachusetts Sustainability Program is working to educate all state agencies on the importance of taking environmentally sustainable measures into account when renovating or constructing buildings and facilities, and is working with the Division of Capital Asset Management (DCAM) to implement these design strategies in state construction projects. DCAM has been actively promoting sustainable design practices over the last few years through their Sustainable Design Program, which has developed ''Sustainable Design Guidelines'' for use on agency construction projects.
Mississippi Renewal Forum
Mississippi Renewal Forum -- Final Reports
Final team reports have been released from The Mississippi Renewal Forum, held October 11-17, 2005. The Renewal Forum was a gathering of design specialists from across the nation to help provide rebuilding visions for communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
Moving Communities Forward: AIA Study on the Design of Transportation
Moving Communities Forward, a project by the American Institute of Architects and the Center for Transportation Studies, measures the benefits that well-designed transportation projects bring to communities.
National Park(ing) Day Stories
National Park(ing) Day is an opportunity to celebrate parks in cities and promote the need for more parks by creating temporary public parks in public parking spaces. In 2008, National Park(ing) Day was held Friday, September 19, 2008.
Nature-Friendly Land Use Practices at Multiple Scales
Nature-Friendly Land Use Practices at Multiple Scales is a unique book organized around eight detailed case studies of private land developers, local governments, and public agencies that have worked across jurisdictional and ecological boundaries to effectively address habitat conservation.
Neighborhood-Scale Planning Tools to Create Active, Living Communities
Neighborhood-Scale Planning Tools to Create Active, Living Communities from the Local Government Commission offers tips, tools, and case studies to help communities align planning with the implementation of walkable community design.
New for Members -- Getting Smart, the Newsletter for Smart Growth
The February 2003 issue of ''Getting Smart'' is available in the Members Section. Features in this issue include Managing Urban Transportation Systems: The Need for a New Operating Paradigm; Transportation Reform and Social Equity: An Agenda for Smart Growth; and a feature on Enhancing America’s Communities.
Not Yet a Member? Click Here for a list of benefits.
New for Members -- Getting Smart, the Newsletter for Smart Growth
The June 2003 issue of ''Getting Smart'' is available in the Members Section. Features in this issue include
Land Use and Substance Abuse in Northern New Mexico; Letter from the Editor;
Living in Paradise?; Toolbox: Resources for Smart Growth;
Considering Residents’ Needs in
Planning for Higher Density Housing; Spotlight On: National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration; Partner Updates.
New Partners for Smart Growth: Jan. 27, 2005
The 4th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth: Building Safe, Healthy and Livable Communities conference was held January 27-29, 2005 in Miami Beach, Florida. View the entire program and PowerPoint presentations from select events, or order audio files.
New Partners for Smart Growth: Jan. 28, 2005
The 4th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth: Building Safe, Healthy and Livable Communities conference was held January 27-29, 2005 in Miami Beach, Florida. View the entire program and PowerPoint presentations from select events, or order audio files.
New Partners for Smart Growth: Jan. 29, 2005
The 4th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth: Building Safe, Healthy and Livable Communities conference was held January 27-29, 2005 in Miami Beach, Florida. View the entire program and PowerPoint presentations from select events, or order audio files.
New Urbanism Articles
Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) has prepared a 13-page bibliography listing of academic articles about new urbanism.
New Urbanist K-12 Teaching Resources
The Congress for New Urbanism's (CNU) K-12 Initiative has produced a bibliography of resources for primary and secondary teachers to introduce students to the concepts of New Urbanism, Smart Growth, and traditional town planning. This provides teachers with curriculum suggestions, teaching modules, videotapes, books, and games that are grade and age appropriate.
North American Cities and Smart Growth
A special issue of Local Environment, an international refereed journal, is now available online. Articles include ''Smart Growth in a Small Urban Setting the challenges
of building an acceptable solution,'' by Henry J. Mayer, Christine M. Danis,
and Michael R. Greenberg; ''Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously a
comparative analysis of twenty-four US cities,'' by Kent E. Portney; and ''Local
Government and the WSSD,'' by Mike Ashley.
Open Space Investments Pay Big Returns
Land & People, Spring, 1999. Trust for Public Land. This article discusses the benefits to communities, beyond saving land, when they invest in green spaces
Open Space Zoning: What It Is & Why It Works.
Planning Commissioners Journal. July/August 1992. One of the nation's leading advocates of ''open space'' zoning describes its advantages over conventional zoning regulation in preserving open space, natural areas, and farmland.
Overcoming Impediments to Smart Growth
Overcoming Impediments to Smart Growth: Finding Ways for Land Development Professionals to Help Achieve Sustainability examines why, despite knowledge of problems associated with sprawling patterns of land use, successful development projects using principles of smart growth are not more commonplace.
Pathways to Healthy Living
Pathways to Healthy Living is a two-page brochure produced by the National Park Service to promote its nationwide initiative to encourage healthful outdoor physical activity in National Parks and local communities.
Peril, Promise, and a Watery Future For the World’s Coastal Cities
NEW ORLEANS – Even with aggressive action on climate change, scientists agree that a global temperature rise of some kind is inevitable, triggering sea level rise, more intense storms, and an array of other chain-reaction disruptions to life as we know it. And in the typically sinister way that the climate cataclysm plays out, these impacts will hit hardest in the places most people live.
More than half of the U.S. population lives in 673 coastal counties. In China, the world's most populous nation, 60 percent of the country's 1.2 billion people live in coastal provinces. Worldwide, rapid urbanization in coastal and delta mega-cities includes widespread informal settlement, a recipe for disaster for the most vulnerable populations.
The good news is that planners are paying attention. Cities, as places of density and transit, can make great strides in mitigation, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. But coastal cities must engage in adaptation on a parallel, and in many ways integrated, track. There is no more urgent role for planners in the years ahead than to plan and help implement adaptation to climate change, says Edward Blakely, the former recovery director for New Orleans.
Coastal cities are already well aware – some painfully aware – of the breadth of the problem. Jakarta is confronting annual flooding that strains a colonial-era layout, and Dhaka in Bangladesh has struggled with stronger typhoons. At the Yantgze and Pearl river deltas in the Shanghai and Hong Kong regions, chronic flooding, coastline erosion and wetlands deterioration, storm surges, and punishing storms are wreaking havoc on areas that have been attracting the most intense in-migration and urbanization. Sewer overflow and saltwater intrusion, with impacts on drinking water, public health, and agriculture, are key areas of concern, as well as the vulnerable infrastructure, such as power plants, port and refining facilities, that will be flooded and potentially permanently underwater in the decades ahead.
The city ravaged by Hurricane Katrina five years ago, of course, has had the most vivid glimpse of the future. New Orleans' path forward ranges from evacuation planning and relocation, ''hard'' solutions such as seawalls, weirs, tidal barrages, levees, and the redirection of waterways, to the restoration of natural systems to manage flooding. ''The world is watching not only the city, but the planning field as well,'' said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who grew up in New Orleans, speaking at the American Planning Association's National Conference in April.
The adaptation strategies detailed in the Delta Symposium symposium at the conference reflected a comprehensive approach informed by the people who know water better than anyone – the Dutch. The most promising innovations coming out of the Dutch Dialogues, with support from Waggonner & Ball Architects, the APA, TU Delft, and the Netherlands Water Partnership, are based on the concept of giving water more space – ''room for the river'' – in terms of spatial planning.
The approach involves lowering dikes in targeted areas to better enable flood protection in other areas with high populations or valuable infrastructure, says Tulane University's Douglas Meffert. While this practice sounds counterintuitive, allowing certain natural habitat or in some cases, farmland areas to flood during high river stages reduces the vulnerability of nearby urban centers, he says. A critical component is the role that nature is allowed to play. The restoration of wetlands and natural systems in coastal and delta cities has moved to the forefront. A promising model is found in the Yangtze River estuary's wetlands and mudflats, which continue to grow due to the dynamics of riverways, tides, and sediment.
When Shanghai's Pudong wetland was drained and developed in the 1990s to construct the Pudong International Airport, the Jiuduansha Shoals in the Yangtze Estuary were ecologically engineered to mitigate for this wetland loss and create a new habitat for the migratory shorebirds and waterfowl. The attraction of the new vegetated habitat had the added advantage of reducing bird strikes in jet engines, but the big benefit is typhoon hazard reduction for nearby
developments and infrastructure.
Other efforts in China were detailed by Lingqian Hu, senior regional planner at Southern California Association of Governments, who presented a Tsinghua University paper, ''Climate Change and Urbanization in the Yangtze River Delta''; and He Canfei, professor at Peking University and associate director of the Lincoln Institute-Peking University Center for Urban Development and Land Policy in Beijing.
Future projects could not only use natural systems as flood control solutions but better use diversions for wetland restoration and creation projects, as well as improved water storage practices in population centers, such as catch basins, green roofs, gardens, recreation parks, waters squares and pervious surfaces.
''We’re capable of doing these things,'' said Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, who was part of a team of researchers being led by Blakely, comparing adaptation scenarios in the U.S. and Australia – which share some similar characteristics. A century ago, Charles Eliot used a combination of hard infrastructure and natural systems to manage the Charles River in Boston, which was followed by the Charles River Dam project to further guide storm surges and flooding.
In the long haul, Yaro said, coastal cities will see dramatic changes – huge tidal barriers at the Golden Gate and ringing New York City, with the San Francisco Bay and Long Island Sound potentially turned into freshwater lakes. Large areas will be uninhabitable and water supplies will be a particular problem he said. “We basically can buy ourselves 300 years,” Yaro said. ''We're at the place where Amsterdam was in 1890.''
Taking adaptation seriously is a first step; paying for it will be the next. Blakely suggests that in the U.S. cities might pay into a national adaptation fund, on an insurance model. Those metropolitan regions that take the best protective measures get a break on their premiums.
Building on these innovations will require smart people who not only understand policy, urban planning and earth science, but the dynamics of deltas, sediment, and discharge. The challenge is so daunting that it's hard to maintain hope, or to believe in much beyond the bright prospects of the seawall-building business. But adapting to climate change in coastal cities is shaping up to be the central project of planning for his century.
Reprinted from Citiwire.net
Planning for the Unexpected
Planning for the Unexpected, published by the American Planning Association's Planning Advisory Service, describes the tools planners have to identify and manage risks related to land use.
Planning Magazine, March 2010
The March 2010 issue of Planning finds a ray of hope in the national economy. Read about economic diversity in Michigan, the supermarket as a neighborhood building block, and an excerpt from a new Planners Press book about the essential elements of sustainable design. Members may read the entire issue online. Everyone is invited to read this month's featured article on Maryland's second generation of smart growth.
Planting a Greener Future -- Indiana
An Alcoa Foundation grant is helping communities across Indiana have a greener future. The $100,000 grant, awarded to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources' Community & Urban Forestry (CUF) program, will be matched by local funds and will pay for the planting of 4,000 trees in 13 communities. The CUF program offers technical and financial assistance to cities and towns that want to restore their urban forest.
Political Will and Love of Place: The West’s Climate Change Secret?
''Drought, extreme weather events, catastrophic wildfires, disruption of natural systems'' – combined with ''longer periods when streams are dry, with serious consequences for wildlife, natural habitats, and water supplies.'' That's the scenario for my region of America in a provocative recent Lincoln Institute of Land Policy report, Planning for Climate Change in the West.
And political will to address these challenges? The report notes that the Mountain West ''has lagged behind other regions in pursuing aggressive planning strategies to reduce [greenhouse gases],'' largely because of a conservative political culture and insufficient political will.
It is true that the region has tended to be politically conservative, and there may well be an above-average level of climate change denial among westerners. But there are also significant historical vectors at work here that could supply the political will this historic challenge demands.
It's true that with climate change, western landscapes, historically hard to inhabit, will now become even more of a challenge. But let's not miss the hopeful side. This hard country has always attracted and retained a hardy, resourceful set of people. From native tribes through homesteaders to western city-builders, a capacity to adapt to challenging conditions has been a baseline requirement for survival in these majestic but forbidding landscapes.
That adaptive capacity has been strengthened recently by a rise of cross-ideological, collaborative problem solving, especially around natural resource issues. No region of the country has produced more examples of loggers and environmentalists, farmers and fishermen sitting down together and hammering out mutually beneficial plans for managing particular watersheds or ecosystems. As climate change creates new challenges, that collaborative experience, now shared by thousands of westerners, will be a major political resource.
Another hopeful trend is the political realignment that has swept across the region over the past decade. The Lincoln report notes, ''With views on the need for national climate action basically split along party lines, garnering political support for local efforts can be difficult in the largely conservative and traditionally Republican states.''
It's true that by 2000 the interior West had become the nation’s most Republican region, with no Democratic governors, only three Democratic U.S. Senators, and only New Mexico voting for Al Gore in that election. By 2008, however, five of the region’s eight governors were Democrats, as were seven of 16 U.S. Senators. And Obama carried three mountain states.
This realignment has reflected a growing restlessness with an ideological brand of politics that bore little relevance to the region’s real challenges. Centrist Democrats like Colorado’s Salazar brothers, Wyoming's Dave Freudenthal, and Montana's Brian Schweitzer have been winning by offering a non-ideological, thoroughly pragmatic approach to the region's challenges.
Many of those challenges arise from the fact that the Mountain West has been the nation's fastest growing region since the late '80’s, its economic center of gravity shifting from resource extraction to the increasingly attractive livability of western communities. Now, this center-staging of livability is contributing to the West's capacity to address the challenges of climate change.
It's still true–climate change is not yet something that keeps a majority of westerners up at night. The economic viability of their communities is another matter, though. Significantly expanding ranks of westerners, including business leaders, now understand that prosperity and livability are intimately linked. As the Lincoln Institute report notes: ''An array of familiar smart growth strategies for creating healthier communities now double as climate solutions.''
A prime example–Utah, where the citizen- and business-supported Envision Utah process of recent years helped to set new, land- and community-conserving priorities. So it was no surprise when Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becket said in his 2010 State of the City address: ''If I were to sum up … our goals for 2010 in one word, it would be 'livability.'''
True, the words ''climate change'' don’t appear in Becker’s speech. But I found a long list of accomplishments and aspirations, all aimed at making Salt Lake City more livable. They range from bike lanes, street cars and expanded light rail to downtown revitalization and programs to promote eating locally. All these initiatives contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. But that's not why most Salt Lake City residents welcome and support them. They support them, and provide the political will to make them happen, because they love living in the hard, beautiful, mountain-and-desert landscape they call home, and they are willing to do what it takes to live well there. Most westerners join them in a rugged, pragmatic love of this place we call home. In that rootedness lies the West's best hope to meet the challenges of climate change.
February 20, 2010
Reprinted from Citiwire.net
PPS' Greatest Hits of 2008
The Project for Public Spaces (PPS) offers the PPS Greatest Hits of 2008: 10 Trends Shaping the Future of Our Communities. This collection of ten significant trends is redefining the world as we know it, even in a down economy.
Promoting Public Health through Smart Growth
Promoting Public Health through Smart Growth, a report from Smart Growth BC, explains how our built environment shapes our transportation choices, and in turn, human health. It reviews the existing research for a range of transportation-related health impacts on seven public health outcomes: Physical Activity and Obesity, Air Quality, Traffic Safety, Noise, Water Quality, Mental Health, and Social Capital.
Rail~Volution 2008 Presentations Online
Rail~Volution 2008, held in San Francisco, California, October 27-30, offered more than 60 on-site and mobile workshops, two plenary sessions, and networking events addressing nearly every aspect of building livable communities with transit. These activities featured many thoughtful policy overviews of livability issues, as well as hands-on, specific strategies that can be used and applied in conference attendees' own communities.
Regional Prosperity Initiative Grants
To strengthen the voice of regions in Michigan, People and Land (PAL) has launched its Regional Prosperity Initiative. The goal of the initiative is to foster multi-sector and multi-jurisdictional collaboration at the regional level as a means for advancing economic, social, and environmental progress in Michigan.
Report on Public Health and Urban Sprawl in Ontario
This report from the Ontario College of Family Physicians summarizes pertinent information on the relationship between urban sprawl and health. It serves to identify the key issues that are relevant to the growing number of sprawl-related health problems in Ontario, which is comparable to U.S. situations and is far worse compared to Europe.
Resourceful Communities Program
Established in 1991, The Conservation Fund's Resourceful Communities Program blends innovative techniques to help North Carolina's underserved communities create new economies that protect and restore, rather than extract, natural resources.
Smart Growth for Better Schools
The Winter 2005 edition of On Common Ground features a series of articles on how smart growth principles can help create better schools.
Smart Growth on the Edge
The Winter 2006 edition of On Common Ground focuses on the far suburbs, the exurban areas beyond the edge of major metropolitan areas, and the smaller non-metropolitan cities.
''Smarty'' Awards -- 2008 Smart Growth BC Awards
Smart Growth BC presented the third annual Smarty Awards at its annual conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, on April 18, 2008.
Sprawl: The New Manifest Destiny
From the August 2004 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives journal, Sprawl: The New Manifest Destiny discusses the current state of sprawl on both national and international levels. This article includes listings of the Top Ten Sprawling U.S. and World Metro Regions, details the effects of sprawl, and discusses how sprawl continues, despite a growing knowledge of its effects.
Sustainable Cities Initiative
United Technologies Corp. has unveiled a Sustainable Cities initiative supporting the development and use of green building practices in urban centers, creating new programs to educate the public about the need for healthier environments, and protecting natural resources nationwide.
Symposium 2005: Twenty Lessons from Maryland’s Smart Growth Initiative
John Frece, former spokesman for Maryland’s Smart Growth Initiative and currently with the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland, reviews the events that led to Maryland's Smart Growth Initative and the evolution of that landmark policy in the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law (VJEL).
The Farm Around the Corner
In “The Farm Around the Corner,” Detroit Free Press writer Heather Newman reports on the surging popularity of locally produced food -- organic and otherwise.
The Nature of Open Space Programs
The Nature of Open Space Programs is a report from The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) that examines 28 major state open space protection programs to determine whether or not they have the legal authority to acquire lands in a biologically meaningful manner, and proposes strategies to improve the effectiveness of these programs to support biodiversity conservation.
The New Urbanism: An Alternative to Modern, Automobile- oriented Planning and Development.
New Urban News, May 21, 1999. This article is a good introduction to New Urbanism and includes a list of principles and prototypes
The Powerful Link between Conserving Land and Preserving Health
This article from the Land Trust Alliance's Special Anniversary Report, 2007, emphasizes the health benefits of parks and green spaces for people of all ages. Authors Howard Frumkin and Richard Louv describe the growing body of evidence supporting the belief that people benefit so much from contact with nature that land conservation can now be viewed as a public health strategy.
The Shape We’re In - Planning for a ‘Smart’ Future
For decades, environmentalists, walking and biking advocates and neighborhood activists have been trying with small success to stop urban sprawl and encourage planners to think ''fewer cars, more walking.'' But now physicians and scientists also are turning their attention toward developing communities to advance the cause of ''active living'' -- daily physical movement, the easier and more natural, the better.
The Source Protection Handbook
Based in part on the scientific, economic, and public health justifications for land conservation as a critical strategy for protecting America's drinking water sources and recharge lands, this new book from the Trust for Public Land (TPL) also relies heavily on best practices and case studies from organizations such as TPL and communities across America.
The State of Smart Growth
The State of Smart Growth is the theme for the Summer 2004 issue of On Common Ground, a twice-yearly publication from the Government Affairs office of the National Association of Realtors®.
The Sustainable Future
The Summer 2008 issue of On Common Ground presents the many approaches that Realtors®, home builders, school officials, environmentalists, public officials, and concerned citizens are using to shape communities into sustainable human environments -- communities that make better use of our resources and reduce the damage we leave behind.
The Sustainable Sites Initiative: Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009
The Sustainable Sites Initiative: Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009 is the product of more than four years of work by a diverse group of experts in soils, hydrology, vegetation, materials and human health and well-being. It is expanded and updated from the Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks–Draft 2008, which was released in November 2008. The Initiative developed criteria for sustainable land practices that will enable built landscapes to support natural ecological functions by protecting existing ecosystems and regenerating ecological capacity where it has been lost. This report focuses on measuring and rewarding a project that protects, restores and regenerates ecosystem services – benefits provided by natural ecosystems such as cleaning air and water, climate regulation and human health benefits.
The Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009 includes a rating system for the credits which the pilot process will test for refinement before a formal release to the market place. The Rating System contains 15 prerequisites and 51 credits that cover all stages of the site development process from site selection to landscape maintenance. If you are interested in becoming a pilot project to test this Rating System, please apply here. Feedback from the pilot projects will be used to create a reference guide which will provide suggestions on how projects achieved the sustainability goals of specific credits.
The companion document titled The Case for Sustainable Landscapes provides a set of arguments—economic, environmental, and social—for the adoption of sustainable land practices, additional background on the science behind the performance criteria in the guidelines and performance benchmarks, the purpose and principles of the Sustainable Sites Initiative, and a sampling of some of the case studies the Initiative has followed.
Tools for Smart Growth in Montana
New from the Montana Smart Growth Coalition is Tools for Smart Growth in Montana, an online collection of success stories on how communities and counties in Montana and the intermountain West are making smart growth goals a reality.
Toward an Architecture of Place
Appearing in Urban Land magazine, this article puts forth a program for how architecture can be more effectively used to create great cities with effective public spaces for people to use and enjoy.
Towards Sustainability
The Minneapolis Environmental Report: Towards Sustainability provides a link to the City’s overall Environmental goal: “Preserve and enhance our natural and historic environment and promote a clean, sustainable Minneapolis.”
Urban Forest Success Stories
American Forests' Urban Forest Success Stories webpage examines how to better integrate green infrastructure policy and practice into urban areas.
Urban Ills: No American Monopoly
ATHENS — Each city is a unique blend of history, culture and architecture. But put three dozen urban planners and scholars from around the globe into one room and you discover that their concerns sound astoundingly similar.
In June I spent three days in Athens with a group of former International Urban Fellows from Johns Hopkins University, holding their annual conference this year in the Greek capital city of almost 4 million. I asked those in attendance — most from Britain and Europe, but others from Mexico, India and Turkey — to pinpoint the biggest problem their city faces.
Despite major differences in history, urban form, customs and governance between their cities and U.S. metros, their answers might easily have come from planners in Atlanta, Cleveland, Charlotte or Chicago.
In the U.S., with our primitive rapid transit, our expensive — and expansive — large-lot suburban neighborhoods and our rapacious appetite for oil-based energy, we're apt to imagine that other countries' cities have found more effective solutions to problems that bedevil our urban areas. Europe is like a gigantic, well-planned Portland (though with better French fries), we think, while the U.S. is more like sprawling Phoenix.
But if we assume all that, listening to conference attendees from places such as Rome, Edinburgh, Paris and Bern, Switzerland, is a bit like getting ice water splashed in your face.
Some of the problems they listed and talked about:
- Under-developed or unused infrastructure
- Mobility and car-focused development
- Accommodating immigrants and/or different ethnic groups
- Corruption or maladministration
- The difficulty of infill development, compared with growth on the urban edge
- Gentrification and other housing problems
- Economic troubles and unemployment
- Sprawl
- Lack of regional cooperation or regional governance
Not everyone listed all those problems, except, sadly, an architect from Calcutta and one from Mexico City who said, in effect, ''all of the above.''
Mexico City, an urbanized area of 20 million (or maybe 24 million — apparently even population measures there are contested) suffers from ''overpopulation, pollution, sprawl, corruption, etc.'' architect Alvaro Arellano Farias responded to my informal survey.
And while cities around the globe are worrying about climate-change-induced sea rise, Mexico City can go them one better. Built upon ancient lakebed drained by the Spanish conquistadors, it is sinking at the rate of an inch a year.
As Arellano described the region’s complicated governance, with four boroughs inside Mexico City, 16 boroughs and a mayor in the Federal District, 41 more municipalities in greater Mexico City, 18 more in the larger urban valley — which is, itself, divided among a federal district and two states — I was attempting to make sure I understood this complexity. ''Is there any one …?''
'' … In charge?'' He laughed ruefully. ''No.''
They all compete for economic development. The industrial areas in the state of Hidalgo send their air pollution into Mexico City. But with its sewage disposal going to Hidalgo, the city gets its pollutant revenge.
Unlike Mexico City, France is a place many American planners eye with envy for its compact centers, efficient public transit and strict urban growth boundaries. Yet two Frenchmen, one a planner from the northern region and the other an Athenian architect now living in Paris, complained about greenfield development, the lack of cohesive regional governance ''and the usual NIMBY attitudes,'' as architect Panos Mantziaras put it.
Although French planning is much stricter and more nationalized than in the U.S., nevertheless, the Paris metro region has 500-some governments. France has 36,000 mayors, more than any other European country. But starting with the next election, a new national law has created a direct elected body for the urbanized area of French cities, said Lille-based planner Jean-Marie Ernecq.
Naturally, for such a regional body to be created, it had to be imposed from above.
Calcutta's problems probably dwarf those of most other urban areas. ''Calcutta is a large exploding metropolos tending to megalopolis,'' noted Biplab Sengupta, a professor of planning and architecture in Kharagpur, India. He listed slums, traffic congestion and inadequate physical and social infrastructure.
Yet plenty of other cities grapple with those same problems — so many that a planner can get discouraged. As Mantziaras put it, ''You create all kinds of tools to foretell the future — and you never can.''
Georges Prevelakis, a Greek urban planner and professor of geopolitics at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris, described the idealistic goals of the Modernist movement, launched in the 1933 Charter of Athens. It was, he said, an idealism married to a lot of arrogance: ''It has been an enormous disappointment. We failed. … Who speaks of trying to contain the growth in cities in Africa?''
Athens' version of explosive population growth in the mid-20th century created many industrial areas, including land along the ancient Sacred Way, which ran between the city of Eleusis, now a suburban city called Elefsina, to the Acropolis in central Athens. Hellenic Open University Professor Lila Leontidou noted one result — that as runners traced the storied route from Marathon to the Acropolis during the 2004 Olympic Marathon, television viewers around the world saw mile upon mile of undistinguished suburban sprawl until the runners entered the center city.
Like Mexico City and Calcutta, or even Los Angeles or Philadelphia, Athens has urban issues that range far beyond its official municipal boundaries.
Mantziaras spoke with visible affection about growing up in Athens, about yearly birthday parties atop Filopappos hill. ''I can close my eyes, and in my mind describe the skyline of the mountains,'' he said.
But Athens is in crisis. And in today’s world, to regenerate an urban area one must deal with a city at the supra-urban scale, he said, remembering always that the future of the sprawling industrial and suburban areas is inextricably linked to the historic, tourist-filled center city.
What cities need, said Ernecq, is restored political debate. ''We need to have a vision and real political leadership and civic participation.''
That, I'd add, is an important recipe, no matter where in the world you are.
Reprinted from Citiwire.net
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