Category: Video

Last week Smart Growth America Vice President of Policy Development and Implementation traveled to Nashville to unveil new research about development trends there.

As the only organization working directly on behalf of developers and investors of walkable urban, transit-oriented and smart growth development, LOCUS is constantly striving to build its advocacy capacity on the national and state level to protect and voice their …

Acres of preserved farmland and prairie are making Carlisle, IA a beautiful place to live, and that’s a key economic development strategy for Carlisle Mayor Ruth Randleman.

Carlisle is located just outside Des Moines, and like many suburbs across the country Carlisle is working to set itself apart as a great place to live, work and raise a family.

“We like to think that as we enhance our community, businesses will find it an attractive place to come,” explains Randleman, who is an Advisory Board Member of Smart Growth America’s Local Leaders Council. “Plus it will draw people for the workforce. If you watch growing, thriving communities, there’s always that vibrancy and quality of life that foster the businesses and then the businesses then foster that back for the citizens.”

Earlier this week, Smart Growth America’s Vice President of Policy Development and Implementation Bill Fulton spoke in Nashville, TN as part of the NashvilleNext speakers series. Watch the full video of his presentation above.

During the talk Fulton detailed Smart Growth America’s analysis of three development scenarios in Nashville-Davidson County. See our earlier posts with the research’s full findings and our Storify recap of the event.

Thank you to everyone who joined LOCUS: Responsible Real Estate Developers and Investors yesterday for an online presentation about using the recently modified federal loan program, Transportation Innovative Financing Infrastructure Act (TIFIA) to finance TOD projects. Presenters: Duane Callender, Director …

Main Street in downtown Franklin, TN. Photo via Flickr.

Franklin, TN’s historic Main Street is more than a pretty place. It exemplifies Franklin’s historic heritage and has become the heart of the city’s new economy.

“We like to say we’re a community that balances preservation with growth,” says Franklin Mayor Ken Moore. Moore is on the Advisory Board of Smart Growth America’s Local Leaders Council, a nonpartisan group of municipal officials who share a passion for building great towns, cities, and communities. As a member of the Local Leaders Council, Moore is one of many elected leaders across the country using smart growth strategies to help their hometowns generate better return on taxpayer investment and compete in today’s economy.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Teton County, ID was exploding. Its population growth was the 12th fastest in the entire country, and new home growth was the 6th fastest.

“We saw a palatable change in 10 years,” said Teton County Commissioner Kathy Rinaldi, a member of Smart Growth America’s Local Leaders Council. “At one point we had 89 subdivisions in the approval process. It was complete insanity. And it was very quick, it was very slipshod. [Only] half the subdivisions were built out, some were never even started.”

Then, in the late 2000s, the national real estate bust brought development in Teton County to a grinding halt. Almost 7,000 subdivision lots were left vacant, and the construction industry – once the leading job sector in the county – was crippled. Runaway real estate speculation and a lack of development strategy both contributed to the bust.

Since the early 1990′s, the city of Greer, SC has tripled in population and quadrupled in size. Mayor Rick Danner has been there for much of this change.

“We were growing at such a rapid rate that we were losing our sense of community, that small town feel,” Danner says in an interview with Smart Growth America. “And there was an overwhelming desire to be able to retain this sense of uniqueness that comes with the feel of a small town regardless of what size it is or population that it is. And we knew that the heart of that was going to be the downtown area.”