Author: Smart Growth America

Three Colorado cities win our second Complete Streets Consortium award

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Westminster engages the community in a mobile needs assessment at a park-n-ride bus station. Photo via Westminster’s Mobility Action Plan.

Through our first Complete Streets Consortium Series, the National Complete Streets Coalition has been working with three Tennessee regions to foster state-wide collaboration and overcome barriers to safer, more equitable streets.

Now, we are excited to announce that a trio of Colorado cities has won our second-ever Complete Streets Consortium technical assistance. The Cities of Arvada, Aurora, and Westminster applied for and won the award collaboratively, and will together receive a set of three free technical assistance workshops. Each of the winning cities will host one of the workshops, which will be tailored to the region’s specific opportunities and challenges including creating first/last mile connections to new transit stations.

Complete Streets Technical assistance

LOCUS urges Congress’s tax reform Conferees to protect community development and affordable housing tax incentives

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As Congress moves to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, LOCUS’ top priority is to protect community development and affordable housing tax incentives. Join us as we reach out to the conference committee’s House and Senate Conferees and ask them to maintain these programs and incentives in the final version of the legislation.

LOCUS

Amazing Place cities explore Greenville, SC, the South’s best-kept secret

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On November 13-16, 2017, leadership teams from Macon, GA; Columbia, SC; Akron, OH; Charlotte, NC; and Wichita, KS came to Greenville, SC to learn about the placemaking strategies the city took to successfully create a vibrant, walkable downtown. The convening was the final half of the Amazing Place Ideas Forum, an experiential gathering of city leaders to learn how investing in a unique sense of place and vibrant, walkable neighborhoods is at the heart of a new economic development strategy.

Economic development

Support small-scale manufacturers on #SmallBizSaturday

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In 2017, SGA staff was on the ground in scores of communities like these, helping local elected and civic leaders understand how to support and expand this growing sector of their economy to build strong, vibrant, and walkable neighborhoods.

On this Small Business Saturday, you can help us do even more. Make a donation today so we can reach even more communities in 2018 >>

Advocacy Economic development

Arts, Culture and Transportation: A Creative Placemaking Field Scan

Arts, Culture and Transportation: A Creative Placemaking Field Scan is a rigorous national examination of creative placemaking in the transportation planning process. Released by Transportation for America in partnership with ArtPlace America, this resource identifies ways that transportation professionals can integrate artists to deliver transportation projects more smoothly, improve safety, and build community support.

Creative Placemaking

House vote caps off eventful week for LOCUS’ tax reform efforts

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Today, House Republicans successfully passed H.R.1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, in a 227-205 vote. Thirteen House Republicans joined all Democrats in opposing the once-in-a-generation tax reform legislation. The bill includes major cuts to community development and affordable housing programs.

LOCUS

Amazing Place Ideas Forum: Gearing up for Greenville, SC

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With part one of the forum in Denver, CO now in the rearview, Smart Growth America is getting ready for the second round of the Amazing Place Ideas Forum, happening November 14-16 with generous support from the Knight Foundation. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the sites and attractions we’ll tour in our host city, Greenville, SC. Read about the city’s 40-year effort to create one of America’s most beautiful main streets through historic preservation, brownfield redevelopment, and riverfront investment. The participating Amazing Place cities also weighed in with what they most look forward to learning about in the southern city, and the lessons they hope to bring back to their hometowns. 

Economic development

Watch the recorded webinar on financing for development projects that don’t pencil out

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Thank you to everyone who joined LOCUS for a live discussion of Financing for Projects that Don’t Pencil Out on Tuesday, November 7, 2017. Bob Stevens, principal for M&S Development, presented several creative financing techniques available to communities and economies hoping to fill project funding gaps.

LOCUS
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