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KeepSpace Initiative helps Rhode Island make the most of state resources

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This post is part of an ongoing series about organizations that have received grants from the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. Did your organization receive one of these grants? Tell us about it!

At the October 18th, 2010 announcement of KeepSpace’s Smart Growth Implementation Assistance award. Photo by Jeffrey A. Morse Photography.

Rhode Island’s KeepSpace initiative, which aims to create prosperous and healthy communities throughout the state, was recently selected as one of seven communities to receive assistance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Smart Growth Implementation Assistance program.

Launched in 2007, KeepSpace is a partnership between public agencies and private organizations from across Rhode Island that work together to make sure the state’s programs and investments promote sustainable growth and empowered communities.

EPA’s Smart Growth Implementation Assistance grant will help the partners in KeepSpace develop and apply a set of metrics for use in funding decisions. The metrics will help ensure state dollars are being stretched further to develop more affordable transportation and housing options, a healthy environment, and a strong economy.

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New report: State transportation decisions could save money and reduce carbon emissions

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Download the ReportA new report released today by Smart Growth America and the Natural Resources Defense Council found that transportation policies in every state could save money and reduce carbon emissions by making smarter decisions with state funds.

In “Getting Back on Track: Climate Change and State Transportation Policy,” SGA and NRDC found that current transportation policies in almost all 50 states either fail to curb carbon emission rates or, in some cases, actually increase emissions. This contradiction between state policies and broader efforts to reduce carbon emissions means not only that many states are missing opportunities to protect clean air; it means they are missing economic opportunities as well.

In a press conference this morning, former Maryland Governor Parris Glendening remarked:

Transportation makes up an enormous proportion of our national economy and our environmental impact: it must be front and center as we think about how to get the most out of our public investments. The states that rose to the top in this report, California, Maryland and New Jersey, are there because they are meeting the challenge to innovate.

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Wasteful Development Subsidies Among Cuts Proposed by Debt Commission

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This post was originally published on the Huffington Post.

In its report yesterday, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform encouraged Congress to cut from the federal budget “wasteful spending, including subsidies that are poorly targeted or create perverse incentives…” People who care about making great neighborhoods, take notice. Unbeknownst to most, the federal government plays a massive role in the real estate market by subsidizing and enabling all kinds of development in our communities. With ballooning deficits, now seems like a good time to revisit these subsidies and make sure they are achieving a legitimate public purpose -and not, in the commission’s words, “creating perverse incentives.”

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