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Smart growth is an approach to community design that connects housing, transportation, and land use to create healthy, prosperous, and resilient neighborhoods.

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Smart Growth America cultivates vibrant, sustainable communities with diverse living and transportation options, enhancing quality of life for all.

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Smart Growth America cultivates vibrant, sustainable communities with diverse living and transportation options, enhancing quality of life for all.

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Smart Growth America cultivates vibrant, sustainable communities with diverse living and transportation options, enhancing quality of life for all.

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Planning Complete Streets for the Aging of America

AARP’s Public Policy Institute says a wide survey of transportation planners and engineers found that a majority says they have not begun to prepare for the coming increase in Americans over 65 years old.

By Barbara McCann, May 16, 2009

Their extensive report, “Planning Complete Streets for the Aging of America,” is packed with new information and calls for adoption of Complete Streets policies to address the needs of the estimated 64 million Americans who will be over 65 in 2025. The report includes results from a national poll, which finds that 47 percent of older Americans say they cannot safely cross a main street near their home. An article in the AARP Bulletin speaks to the opportunities of complete streets in addressing the needs of older adults.

The report also includes new resources for Complete Streets implementation. It contains the first-ever inventory of Complete Streets policies, and assesses whether they address the needs of older Americans – only about one-third do. As part of the project, AARP assembled a team of transportation experts to re-assess some recommendations of the FHWA’s Older Driver Handbook, and in the report the group assert three principles for planning street projects with older drivers and pedestrians in mind. The Coalition staff and Coalition member the Institute of Transportation Engineers collaborated on the report. Read more about the report in AARP’s press release. Be sure to pick it up and give it a read!