Mayor Pro Tem Miguel Canales has big ideas to support small town life in Artesia, CA

Artesia, CA residents at the 2013 Diwali Street Festival. Photo by The City of Artesia, CA via Facebook.

Mayor Pro Tem Miguel Canales, a member of Smart Growth America’s Local Leaders Council, hopes employing smart growth strategies now will help protect and shape Artesia, CA for the next generation. For Canales, serving on the city council is a natural extension of a career spent educating students about the political process in his job teaching high school social science, economics and government courses.

Local Leaders Council

Early bird rates for the 2014 Leadership Summit end next week!

2014 LOCUS Leadership Summit
Are you thinking about registering for the 2014 LOCUS Leadership Summit? Register today to take advantage of our lowest rates!

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Summit registration includes two full days of programming, including “R.E.A.L. Talks: Reimaging Communities and Community Revitalization”; “Off-the-Record” sessions that will address controversial smart growth development issues; federal, state and regional policy briefings; policy roundtables about turning local practice into federal policy; and much more. Learn more about the 2014 Summit program >>

The LOCUS Leadership Summit is a chance for real estate developers, investors, members of Congress and Washington’s thought leaders to come together to discuss cutting edge design, planning, finance and management ideas you won’t find anywhere else. Registration rates go up on April 1 so register today for our all-time lowest rates.

LOCUS

West Baltimore, MD hosts workshop on preparing for the Red Line and future transit-oriented development

harlem-parkWest Baltimore could see a lot of changes with the proposed Red Line stations. Harlem Park station model via baltimoreredline.com

A new transit line is slated to be built in West Baltimore, MD, and on March 15, 2014 Smart Growth America met with West Baltimore leaders to discuss how the community can make the most of this new neighborhood asset.

The March 15 workshop was designed to help West Baltimore plan for better development around several proposed Red Line stations. At the meeting public officials presented on programs targeted to address the existing challenges residents see in the neighborhood. Much of the discussion centered on how to attract development to the corridor in conjunction with the planned Red Line stations, as well as how to ensure that development is equitable, and serves the neighborhood’s current residents as well as the community’s broader needs.

Technical assistance

How a single parking space represents change in Ithaca, NY

Smart growth strategies are helping improve economic mobility in Ithaca, NY.Smart growth strategies at work in downtown in Ithaca, NY.

If you walk by the mayor’s office building in Ithaca, NY, you might notice a curious sight. Outside in the parking lot, in what once was a parking space reserved for the mayor, now lies what appears to be a small park—complete with benches, plantings and nearby bicycle parking. It may seem odd that a standing mayor would forgo his or her own reserved parking space to make way for a park, but that’s exactly what Mayor Svante Myrick did. The unconventional move is just one indication of Myrick’s commitment to smart growth strategies and how they can benefit all residents of the city.

Myrick is the mayor of Ithaca and a member of Smart Growth America’s Local Leaders Council. First elected to Ithaca’s city council at the age of 20 and then to the mayor’s office in 2011 at the age of 24, Myrick saw the parking space outside his office as an opportunity to show residents it’s possible to think differently about their community—especially the role of public space, mobility and active streets.

Local Leaders Council

Attend the 2014 Local Leaders Policy Forum

policy-forum

Elected and high-level appointed leaders in local government are invited to attend Smart Growth America’s Local Leaders Policy Forum on June 15-16, 2014, in Washington, DC.

The Policy Forum will provide a unique opportunity to meet fellow leaders from around the country who are using smart growth strategies to help their communities compete and grow in today’s economy, to provide housing and transportation choices for residents and to create great places to live, work and play.

Local Leaders Council

USDOT’s proposed safety rule gives agencies a pass on progress

Get out your commenting pens, folks, because the U.S. Department of Transportation’s proposed rule for measuring progress on safety needs a lot of work.

In the 2012 transportation law, MAP-21, Congress directed the DOT to set measures of progress in a number of areas that could be used to hold transportation agencies accountable. The first one out of this gate last week was safety. [See the full rule as published in the Federal Register here.]

It should have been a triumph for people concerned about the lives and well-being of all users of the road network. For the first time, Congress emphasized that state DOTs would need to significantly reduce the number and rate of deaths and injuries on our roadways. And the DOT’s rhetoric in the new rule suggests that as their intention.

Complete Streets

Complete Streets News – March 2014

Policy Adoption The Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization adopted a Complete Streets policy in early March. The policy is a key part of the region’s 2035 Long Range Transportation Plan, which emphasizes the expansion of the transit, pedestrian and bicycle networks. The policy requires that projects adhere to Complete Streets principles to be funded under the … Continued

Complete Streets

Brownfields financing legislation introduced in the House

Earlier this month, Congresswoman Janice Hahn (D-CA) and Congressman Chris Gibson (R-NY) introduced the Brownfield Redevelopment and Economic Development Innovative Financing Act of 2014, or H.R. 4173. The legislation would re-establish a guaranteed financing program for brownfields at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and allow localities to utilize innovative financing mechanisms to begin the redevelopment process.

Uncategorized

A new measure of sprawl in America

Measuring Sprawl

In 2001, Smart Growth America released the landmark study Measuring Sprawl and its Impact. On Wednesday, April 2, we’ll release the next edition of this flagship report with new information about the state of development in the United States.

Measuring Sprawl 2014 will look at development patterns in 221 metropolitan areas across the country and evaluate which communities are the least and most sprawling in the country. The report will score and rank every metropolitan area in the country based on its development, using a four-factor system developed by researchers at the University of Utah’s Metropolitan Research Center.

Join us for the launch of Measuring Sprawl 2014. Smart Growth America and the Metropolitan Research Center will hold an online event to detail the findings of the new report and to discuss growth strategies with communities highlighted in the new analysis. Join us for this free event on Wednesday, April 2, 2014 at 11:00 AM EDT.

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Hear the recap: Repair Priorities 2014 online discussion

Yesterday we unveiled Repair Priorities 2014: Transportation spending strategies to save taxpayer dollars and improve roads. The release featured an online discussion with leaders from Smart Growth America and Taxpayers for Common Sense, as well as state transportation department representatives from Vermont, Michigan and Tennessee. Panelists shared insights and strategies for how states are managing their road repair needs in a time of constrained budgets by using tools like asset management practices; focusing repair investments on the most heavily used roads; setting aggressive targets for pavement conditions; and using cost-benefit analysis to prioritize road investments.

If you were not able to join us for yesterday’s event, an archived recording is now available.

Watch the archived webinar
Download the presentation (PDF)

Joining yesterday’s event were Roger Millar, Vice President, Smart Growth America; Steve Ellis, Vice President, Taxpayers for Common Sense; Rich Tetreault, Director of Program Development, Vermont Agency on Transportation, Polly Kent, Administer, Intermodal Policy Division, Michigan Department of Transportation; and Steve Allen, Strategic Transportation Investments Director, Tennessee Department of Transportation.

Thank you to everyone who participated. The event provided valuable insights for how states can improve road conditions for drivers and the financial outlook of America’s DOTs at the same time.

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