With the creation of a new national academy for Opportunity Zones, Smart Growth America and our LOCUS coalition of responsible real estate investors continue to be on the forefront of helping communities use this tax incentive as a force for equitable growth that’s mutually beneficial for both investors and most importantly the people who live and do business in them.
The Rockefeller Foundation and Smart Growth America today announced the launch of the National Opportunity Zones Academy, which will help cities drive sustainable growth in Opportunity Zones by attracting socially responsible investment. Five cities so far have been selected to participate: Chicago, Greater Miami and the Beaches, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Norfolk, VA.
![Adam E. Moreira [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)]](https://smartgrowthamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/RedLineCharlesMGH-1024x768.jpg)
LOCUS Massachusetts supports Governor Charlie Baker’s continued leadership on the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI).
LOCUS and the City of Brockton, Massachusetts hosted a LinkUP event in June to bring together development professionals and learn more about key parcels in the city’s Opportunity Zones.
LOCUS: Responsible Real Estate Developers and Investors is pleased to announce the winners of this year’s LOCUS Leadership Awards for Project of the Year, Company of the Year, and the Richard Baron Affordable Housing Award. Winners were announced at the LOCUS President’s Reception and Awards Dinner during the 2019 LOCUS Leadership Summit: Opportunity Rising on Sunday, June 23, 2019 in Arlington, VA.
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.
The 2019 Massachusetts Opportunity Zone Academy kicked off last Sunday with four teams from Massachusetts convening in Washington, DC to learn and strategize about how to use the new federal Opportunity Zone tax incentive to spur private, triple-bottom-line development and investment in their communities.
Last week the LOCUS Leadership Summit: Opportunity Rising brought forward-thinking real estate developers and investors who are creating sustainable communities together with local elected officials and transportation and land-use planners. Here’s a short look back at what was caught live on Twitter at #LOCUSSummit2019.
Our new Foot Traffic Ahead report shows that walkable neighborhoods are in high demand in all of the country’s biggest metro areas but also massively undersupplied, leading to price premiums that make it a challenge for everyone to experience the benefits of living in them.
Walkable urban places (i.e. WalkUPs) occupy less than one percent of the total land mass in the 30 largest metro areas, but deliver outsized economic performance and there is great demand for more of such places. Meeting this pent-up demand for new WalkUPs would create a new economic foundation for the U.S. economy, one far more resilient than one predicated on suburban growth.
In Foot Traffic Ahead 2019, we rank the top 30 metros based on their WalkUPs.