Austin, TX considers plan to improve downtown with better parks, housing and transportation choices

Austin, Texas, has ambitious goals to make the city’s downtown more affordable to live in and a better place for businesses.

Planners in the city have spent the past four years compiling a master plan for development, to address existing challenges and to plan for growth over the next 25 years. The resulting Downtown Austin Plan, due to go before the city council this week, recommends a number of smart growth strategies for the city, including: improving downtown parks, adding lower-priced housing, preserving historic buildings, making zoning changes that would encourage a greater mix of uses and creating an economic development group to help guide growth in the city’s center.

Uncategorized

The Ford Foundation hosts Just City: a forum on metropolitan opportunity

Today in New York, The Ford Foundation is holding a 75th anniversary event to explore how fairness, opportunity and equity can serve as defining features in the development of megacities and metro regions this new era of urbanization. The event includes speakers working on all kinds of issues related to cities, including mayors, transportation experts, academics, artists, business leaders, journalists, governors and federal lawmakers.

Uncategorized