Suburban business parks are dead, and six other things we learned at the LOCUS Leadership Summit

Opportunity Rising, last week’s LOCUS National Leadership Summit in Arlington, VA, was a vital gathering, uniting responsible real estate developers and investors with local elected officials and transportation and land-use planners. During the wide range of workshops, panels and sessions, Smart Growth America staff absorbed a few important themes and ideas. Here are seven.

Economic development LOCUS

Announcing our inaugural Arts, Culture and Transportation Fellows


Transportation for America, a program of Smart Growth America, announces its inaugural class of fellows for the new Arts, Culture and Transportation Fellowship to help 11 individuals in four cities take their work at the intersection of arts and transportation to the next level.

Creative Placemaking Transportation

The time tested value of walkability


Smart Growth America/LOCUS today released Foot Traffic Ahead 2019, a report which ranks the 30 largest metros in the United States based on the percentage of office, retail and rental multi-family space each has in their walkable urban places. The report powerfully illustrates the price premiums investors and buyers are willing to pay to live or work in walkable, transit-connected neighborhoods—and why we urgently need to build more of them.

Uncategorized

Announcing winners of 2019 Driehaus Form-Based Codes Award


Today, the Form-Based Codes Institute at Smart Growth America honors three communities for stepping up to placemaking with the adoption of some of the most exemplary form-based codes in the country. The Driehaus Form-Based Codes Award is awarded by FBCI with the generous support of the Richard H. Driehaus Charitable Lead Trust.

Form-Based Codes

Form-based codes: A means to equity in a compassionate city


A century of traditional land-use practices has ingrained inequities deep into communities across America. We’ve produced sprawling, auto-oriented development that has also separated people based on wealth, ethnicity, and race. Form-based zoning is well-positioned to compliment equity-driven public policies, while also enabling walkable, human-scaled development that residents and businesses love.

Form-Based Codes

A decade of lessons on good zoning


Looking back at 100-plus submissions for the Driehaus Form-Based Codes Award over the years reveals how the practice of form-based coding has matured and evolved. The quality of submissions has improved since the early years and municipal planning staff are increasingly engaged in drafting codes for their communities. It’s clear that form-based codes are growing in popularity and in many contexts they are being paired with policies to achieve more equitable development.

Form-Based Codes

How one city is priming itself for Opportunity Zone investment


How does a city make sure it’s ready for investment? A question weighing on many municipal minds is how to organize planning, economic development strategies, and zoning regulations to make it clear to residents, developers, and investors that this is the right place to be. Further, how does a community encourage investment without sacrificing the characteristics that make it an attractive community to its residents?

LOCUS

Repair Priorities 2019: more money won’t fix our infrastructure problems


It’s Infrastructure Week again and politicians are back at it, bemoaning our “crumbling roads and bridges” and insisting we must spend more to fix the problem. But we’ve got some cold water to throw on this pity party: Despite more transportation spending over the last decade, the percentage of the roads nationwide in “poor condition” increased from 14 to 20 percent.

Advocacy Transportation

Small-scale manufacturing hits its stride in Knoxville and Youngstown


This year’s small-scale manufacturing technical assistance funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) is well underway with a pair of successful visits completed. We recently caught up with two communities we helped in 2016—Knoxville, TN and Youngstown, OH—to learn about their achievements with local makers. Their progress illustrates the potential for high-quality jobs and placemaking opportunities tied to this emerging sector.

Economic development