Crossposted from our partner New Jersey Future.
The Smart Growth Awards celebration is considered one of New Jersey’s premier networking events, attracting more than 300 development industry professionals, as well as local, regional, and state leaders.
Questions: contact Marianne Jann at (609) 393-0008, ext. 101 Registration information: Admission is $150; Day of event $175. Download the invitation to send a check. For sponsorship information, contact Dan Fatton at (609) 393-0008, ext. 105. For a current list of sponsors,click here.
Right now, a small group of House and Senate leaders are negotiating their proposed transportation bills, and plan to bring a final bill before Congress in the coming weeks. Their decisions today have the potential to shape our communities for decades to come.
Can you take a moment to call your Senators and Representative? Let them know you want the conference committee to preserve the strong, bipartisan provisions contained in the Senate’s transportation bill MAP-21.
Senators Find Fellowship and Relief From Politics on the Bike Trail Roll Call – May 23, 2012
Beltway chatterers say Sen. Rob Portman is too boring to help presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney win the White House, but there’s one kind of trail on which the Ohio Republican defies conventional wisdom. “Well, he’s not boring on a bike,” quipped Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), one of the Senate’s most avid bicyclists.
Petoskey event’s speakers say placemaking can help communities thrive Petoskey News-Review (MI) – May 22, 2012
When it comes to economic development, speakers at a placemaking summit Monday in Petoskey noted that Northern Michigan communities can use a distinctive sense of place to their advantage.
Downtown L.A. Rises Up Wall Street Journal – May 22, 2012
Office investors are beginning to trickle back into downtown Los Angeles as a rising number of residents, restaurants and glitzy entertainment options bring new zest to the city’s once-overlooked core.
Better Block OKC a “coming out party” for Millennial Generation in Oklahoma City The Oklahoman (OK) – May 22, 2012
If one were to assign generations to the wave of changes hitting downtown Oklahoma City the past two decades, one might say that the original Metropolitan Area Projects plan was a last-ditch effort by younger Baby Boomers (1946 to 1964) to set things right after their older peers struggled with stagnation throughout the 1980s.
The Smoky Mountain News reported recently that 5 North Carolina counties are coming together with a project called GroWNC, which aims to get the entire Western NC region to think collectively about economic development strategies that include sustainability. GroWNC is currently holding meetings in all 5 counties- Haywood, Transylvania, Buncombe, Henderson and Madison- that will gain feedback on these economic development goals as well as information about residents and their concerns. Participants are being asked questions ranging from what they love most about Western North Carolina to individual demographics to their opinion on the project.
Since taking office in 2005 as the 50th Mayor of Missoula, Montana, John Engen has emphasized the importance of economic development, community building and affordable housing. His goal?
“When I’m done, I hope folks will say, ‘We worked to keep Missoula a place,’” Engen says.
For Missoula to achieve economic success and to remain a close-knit community in Montana’s picturesque mountains, Engen believes his administration should do everything it can to ensure the city is appealing to families and investors. That means having a thriving ‘Main Street’ downtown; amenities catering to young professionals and college students; access to transportation and housing options; and protection of natural land assets.
“We don’t have much going for us if we don’t have a decent place to live,” Engen says, noting that over the past several decades, Missoula has been forced to transition from a town with a resource-intensive economy (chiefly timber) to a services economy with ties to recent graduates and more experienced professionals who want to live in a small, rural town but still travel/telecommute to work in larger cities.
As mayor, Engen recognized early on that for this new type of economy to be successful, Missoula would have to seek community feedback about anticipated growth and plan for the future in a more coordinated way. He also understood that economic development is not separate from neighborhood development; investments in how a town looks and in how residents move around and interact with each other are intimately related to a town’s financial wellbeing.
When more people have quality jobs and access to affordable housing, fewer people have to make the kinds of difficult choices – such as a decision between food and shelter – that hold back community growth, Engen says. If the quality of life for most Missoulians increases as a result of efforts to reinvigorate downtown business corridors and to take advantage of the city’s unique assets, more Missoulians will be able to engage in community projects, schools, family programs, and local politics.
America’s Top 50 Bike-Friendly Cities Bicycling magazine – May 21, 2012
To determine our top 50 bike-friendly cities for 2012, we evaluated cities with populations of 95,000 or more, using data provided by the Alliance for Biking and Walking and the League of American Bicyclists, as well as input from local advocates and bike-ped coordinators. To make the list, a city must possess both a robust cycling infrastructure and a vibrant bike culture. Read on to find out how your city stacks up.
Public transportation is habit-forming — and that’s a problem! Washington Post’s Wonk blog – May 18, 2012
When gas prices rise, more people start taking the bus, train, or subway. Not everyone can do this — only about 54 percent of U.S. households have access to public transit, after all — but economists have found that the relationship is quite robust.
Has the passion gone out of America’s fabled love affair with the automobile? Washington Post – May 21, 2012
America’s fabled love affair with the car hasn’t ended, but like many a romance that gets off to a smoking-hot start, it has evolved over the years into more placid coexistence rooted more in need than pleasure.
Photo of Google’s Mountain View headquarters by Flick user hector garcia.
The following post is co-authored by our partner the Greenbelt Alliance.
Google digitally reaches millions of people around the world each day, but the company has a very physical home in Mountain View, Calif. – and Google’s leaders have a vision for what they’d like that home to look like in the future.
Last Wednesday, May 16, that vision came one step closer to reality when Google employees and local sustainability advocates turned out in droves to support local decision makers as they voted to allow housing to be built in the same neighborhoods as office parks.
When environmentalists and a major company are working toward the same goal and when elected officials in the heart of the Silicon Valley – the region that birthed the modern office park – decide to abandon office parks in favor of mixed use development, you can be sure that a seismic shift in the way people think about housing, jobs and the environment is taking place.
A vision for creating complete neighborhoods in downtown Mesa, AZ. Image from “Form-Based Code: Workshop Summary Presentation” via the City of Mesa.
Downtown Mesa, Arizona is already great a destination to go out to lunch or to shop. Now, the Mesa City Council is working to make downtown not just a destination but a neighborhood – and they’re using innovating zoning strategies to help make it happen.
“Walkable neighborhoods don’t just happen by chance,” said Mesa Councilmember Dave Richins. “You have to make your design standards a way that will enable people to build using smart growth principles.”
Missouri lawmakers pass bill supporting land banks Kansas City Business Journal (MO) – May 17, 2012
The Missouri General Assembly on Wednesday passed land bank legislation that would let Kansas City buy and sell swaths of abandoned land.
Firms shifting from suburbs to downtown Minneapolis Star-Tribune (MN) – May 19, 2012
The allure of the big city is pulling at businesses that previously called suburban office parks home.
City’s urban center has good bones, consultant says Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (WI) – May 19, 2012
[D]owntown Milwaukee “is exceptionally well-positioned” to tap into such long-term trends as baby boom empty nesters and young professionals wanting to live, work and play there, says Segal, a well-known consultant to downtown development groups.
Erie and Chautauqua counties to get state land bank Buffalo News (NY) – May 17, 2012
The Empire State Development Corp. on Thursday approved a joint application from Erie County and the cities of Buffalo, Lackawanna and Tonawanda, as well as one from Chautauqua County, giving the area the ability to start two of the state’s first land banks.
City hopes to become more sustainable, vibrant with bicycling Dayton Daily News (OH) – May 17, 2012
Dayton is planning on spending $12.1 million through 2018 — most from federal and state money — on street repair, and road reconstruction and repaving that includes adding bike lanes or making improvements to bike and pedestrian paths.
