The Opportunity Zones program is a brand new federal program aimed at encouraging long-term, private capital investment in America’s low-income urban and rural communities with new tax incentives. Smart Growth America is working to ensure that it helps to restore and revitalize America’s lowest-income communities in a just and equitable way.
Smart Growth America is once again soliciting applications for a new round of free technical assistance for communities interested in using small-scale manufacturing as a strategy to create economic opportunity, boost the prospects of Main Street, and build great places.
Small-scale manufacturing can be a powerful tool to revitalize downtowns of all sizes. Starting next week, Smart Growth America will again be offering another round of free technical assistance for communities interested in using this strategy to create economic opportunity and build great places. Applications open on June 5.
Through our Safe Streets Academy, teams from Orlando, FL, Lexington, KY, and South Bend, IN launched demonstration projects to transform their streets into safer places for people walking, biking, and driving. How did they do it? On June 12, we’re releasing case studies that tell their stories — stories that can help others around the country learn how to create safer streets in their own communities. Join us for a webinar on June 12 from 2:30-3:30PM ET to celebrate these projects and learn more about the cities’ experiences!
The Form-Based Codes Institute (FBCI) at Smart Growth America is pleased to announce the winners of the tenth annual award for achievement in the writing and implementation of form-based zoning codes. This year’s winners come from South Carolina and Gabon, Africa.
This week, the House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies subcommittee released the text of its FY19 appropriations bill, which allocates funding for the U.S. Departments of Transportation (DOT), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and other related agencies through September 30th, 2019.
This month on Building Better Communities with Transit we’re joined by the Executive Director of the KC Streetcar Authority, Tom Gerend. In 2016, Kansas City, MO opened the first streetcar the city has seen in almost 60 years and transformed the city’s downtown. Former skeptics of the line are now some of the KC Streetcar’s biggest proponents as businesses have boomed and more people are moving to—and spending in—the center city. The 2.2 mile KC Streetcar, akin to a downtown circulator, is “a demonstration of the possible.”
Back in April, we took at trip to Silver Spring, MD to see how it’s transformed from a car-oriented suburb into a much more walkable, accessible town with an active downtown. In Silver Spring, we were met by some of the town’s leaders and transit experts to discuss the future Purple Line light rail.
Last December, we selected the cities of Aurora, Arvada, and Westminster, CO to participate in the second Complete Streets Consortium Series. Throughout the series, teams from these three Denver suburbs, along with staff members from regional agencies, will work together to develop actionable Complete Streets policies that help them achieve their goals, including building transportation networks to serve all people who use the streets and providing more and better first-mile/last-mile connections to transit. This April, we met in Westminster, CO for the first of three workshops in the series.
Following Intersections: Creating Culturally Complete Streets a few weeks ago, our two senior staffers behind the conference reflect on an incredible few days in Nashville where artists came together with transportation experts to talk about how we all can be part of building safer, Complete Streets.