Photo of the mills of Manchester, taken from the 12th floor of the Radisson Hotel by Flickr user Brian Herzog.
Join Smart Growth America’s Vice President of Policy & Programs William Fulton in Manchester, NH next week at Intown Manchester‘s annual luncheon.
The most valuable real estate today is in walkable urban locations – and that’s a stark change from only a decade ago.
That is one of the principal findings of a new report from the Brookings Institution. Walk this Way:The Economic Promise of Walkable Places in Metropolitan Washington, D.C. is an economic analysis of the neighborhoods in and surrounding our nation’s capital.
“Emerging evidence points to a preference for mixed-use, compact, amenity-rich, transit-accessible neighborhoods or walkable places,” the report explains, noting that consumer preferences have shifted and that demand for walkable housing is outpacing supply, thus contributing to higher property values.
An architect’s rendering of proposed changes to Byram, NJ’s main boulevard. Photo via New Jersey Highlands Council.
Byram is a bucolic township of 9,000 people located amidst the lakes and hills of northern New Jersey 50 miles from New York City and 25 miles from the Pennsylvania border. Having embraced the land preservation goals of New Jersey Highlands Regional Master Plan, Byram has now set its sites on creating its first-ever Village Center on a 60-acre property – and some adjacent parcels – along New Jersey Highway 206, the town’s “Main Street.”
Byram’s vision for a Village Center has won wide acclaim, including a smart growth award from New Jersey Future, the state’s leading smart growth group and a coalition partner of Smart Growth America. But how to transform a vision into a reality – especially in a down economy and a slow real estate market?
Last week, Smart Growth America led a two-day workshop to help civic and community leaders in Byram grapple with this question. Participants included Mayor James Oscovitch, Town Manager Joseph Sabatini, other members of the Town Council and the Town Planning Board, business owners, property owners, and many interested Byram residents.
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.
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.
In an effort to ensure the continued growth and widespread support for Complete Streets policies, we are pleased to announce that the National Complete Streets Coalition’s steering committee recently approved a proposal to incorporate the coalition as an official program of Smart Growth America. The change will take effect July 1.
“The Coalition has had spectacular success as an ad-hoc group for seven years,” said Barbara McCann, who founded the Coalition. “Now it needs a more formal and sustainable structure to better serve the growth of Complete Streets.”
“Complete Streets are a vital component of strong, vibrant neighborhoods,” said Geoff Anderson, President and CEO of Smart Growth America. “Adding the Coalition as a new program aligns with our goal of making communities work for everyone. This is something that goes beyond safety and access and speaks to the need to develop towns and cities in ways that improve quality of life, enhance economic futures and create great places to live and work.”
Washington, DC’s neighborhoods have seen a huge resurgence in recent years, and nowhere in the city is this more visible than DC’s Ward 6.
Stretching from just north of Union Station south across Capitol Hill and down to the Anacostia River, Ward 6 has seen incredible neighborhood growth over the past decade. Neighborhoods like H Street Northeast – with indie music venues, hipster bars and avant garde restaurants – on the north side of Capitol Hill, and Barracks Row – with art galleries and fine dining – on the south side have been steadily gathering new residents and new businesses. Both are in Ward 6.
DC City Councilmember Tommy Wells represents Ward 6, and he has made neighborhoods the focus of his work.
“Great neighborhoods are not necessarily what we thought they were,” Wells says. “We used to think we divided ourselves in sections…you put schools over here, housing over here, stores over here. And what we found was that in order to get anywhere and to do anything, you had to get in your car…And the more that we lived in our cars and in this sort of a sectional, stove-piped community, the more we didn’t see each other.”
Where does change come from? Who comes up with the ideas and proposals needed to reinvigorate neighborhoods?
Ask New York City Councilmember Brad Lander and he’ll tell you.
“The community.”
To Lander, who has represented the 39th district of Brooklyn on the New York City Council since 2009, community involvement and outreach aren’t just buzzwords. They’re a source of the best inspiration and help shed light on the real reasons to move forward with any project; those that live in a community tend to know what’s best for that community.
In the 39th district – which encompasses the neighborhoods of Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Columbia Waterfront, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Borough Park and Kensington – Lander hears the concerns of a racially and economically diverse constituency. From young urban-dwellers with higher education degrees to working-class immigrants, Brooklyn – like the rest of New York – has it all. For Lander to do his job successfully he must find ways to integrate planned improvements and Council agenda items with the personal goals of the people who elected him.
A decade ago, many Americans knew Oklahoma City only as the site of one of the worst domestic tragedies in the country’s history. Today, thanks to the policies and initiatives of Mayor Mick Cornett and his administration, Oklahoma City is experiencing unprecedented economic growth – and several smart growth strategies have helped make it happen.
Oklahoma City’s gains in recent years are due in large part to the Cornett administration’s concerted – and politically risky, at times – effort to enhance, understand and plan for growth. To add value to Oklahoma City’s downtown, Cornett and his team are pursuing capital improvement programs, supporting development throughout the region, and leveraging projects to attract new businesses and raise the quality of life for residents. Bucking the trend of do-nothing politics, Cornett is a man of progress, getting things done with support from voters and relying on common sense policy objectives.
Last November, when Congress passed the appropriations bill to fund the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for FY 2012 it did not include funding for another round of the vital Regional Planning and Community Challenge grants run by HUD’s Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities. This cut hurts communities across the country as they work to address their housing, transportation, and economic needs.
President Obama’s FY 2013 budget proposal would restore $100 million in funding to for these local grants, and we need your help to see that funding through.
Ask your Senators TODAY to support the President’s Budget request for the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities: click here to send a letter to your Senators.