Now hiring: Local Leaders Council Intern
Smart Growth America is seeking a Paid Intern to support the Local Leaders Council (LLC), a national network of elected and appointed leaders in cities across the nation.
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Maryland leaders talk innovative transit solutions
Members of the Maryland Chapter of the Local Leaders Council gather in Baltimore to discuss local transit solutions.
Transit service makes walkable urban places work better for all users, but finding affordable, flexible, scalable transit is a major hurdle for communities pursuing smart growth. The Maryland Chapter of the Local Leaders Council convened a workshop in Baltimore on November 12 to dig in to what works, considering very different solutions from three very different places.
Ten elected leaders and staff brought varying concerns to the table. Mayor Gee Williams of Berlin, MD, population 4,562, is focused on accommodating visitors. “During the last ten years we’ve become a destination community – this is now our chief economic driver. The vision we are in the early stages of discussing is how we can accommodate up to 3,000 guests in a small downtown area. We also have a challenge for our residents to access downtown services every day.”
Now hiring: Research & Policy Intern
Interested in transportation policy, transit-oriented development, and performance measurement? Join Smart Growth America’s team as our Research & Policy Intern to support policy workshops for governors, multi-state summits for state and local officials, and technical assistance visits. The position requires strong organizational skills, writing, research, and coordination across several projects. Responsibilities will be approximately 50% … Continued
New research looks at how much New Jersey could save through smarter road investments
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Earlier this year, Smart Growth America released a new model for analyzing the fiscal implications of development patterns. Since then we’ve analyzed development in Madison, WI, West Des Moines, IA, and Macon, GA.
For the latest installment, Smart Growth America teamed up with New Jersey Future to find out how much state, county and municipal governments in New Jersey could save on road maintenance bills by building in more compact ways.
The Fiscal Implications of Development Patterns: Roads in New Jersey analyzes population and employment density to understand just how much money could be saved if the distribution of New Jersey’s population and jobs could be made even incrementally more dense and compact.
Researchers at Smart Growth America and New Jersey Future took two distinct but related approaches to these questions. Smart Growth America partitioned the whole state into grid cells of equal size and then compiled data for each cell. Using U.S. Census data regarding population and employment, and the New Jersey Department of Transportation’s database of road segments, Smart Growth America’s researchers calculated the relationship between density and the road area per capita.
Since the workshop: Complete Streets improvements kick off Kaua’i County, HI’s downtown renaissance
New sidewalks near the intersection of Rice Street and Hardy Street, and at the entrance to Wilcox Elementary School. Photo via the County of Kaua’i.
County leaders in Kaua’i, HI are working to revitalize the Līhu’e Town Core as a vibrant, walkable heart of the island, with Rice Street as its main street. In 2008, the county crafted its Holo Holo 2020 plan to guide that work, and in 2014 they asked Smart Growth America to inform that work with a parking audit workshop. What has Kaua’i been up to in the time since?
Over the last year, Kaua’i has gotten started on its revitalization work with Complete Streets improvements to Hardy Street. New sidewalks, turn lanes, bike lanes, on-street parking, and street plantings will eventually run the entire length of Hardy Street, which is parallel to Rice and curves around to intersect with it in the heart of Līhuʻe’s town core.
Complete Streets Technical assistance Uncategorized Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities GrantBuilding Blocks: Parking AuditCommunityComplete Streets Case StudiesComplete Streets Case Study ResourcescoordinationEPA TAEPA's Foundations for Smart Growth technical assistanceHawaiiKauaiKauai CountylocalParking AuditSGA technical assistancestatesWorkshops
Recorded webinar: Building Resilient States: A Framework for Agencies
How could better land use and transportation strategies help your state recover and remain resilient in the face of disaster?
On October 22, Smart Growth America released Building Resilient States: A Framework for Agencies, a resource designed to help state agency staff integrate land use and transportation issues into their conversations about resilience. Disaster preparedness professionals can also use it to make strategic decisions and build communities that are more resilient from the ground up.
As part of the kickoff, we hosted an online conversation about resilience efforts at the state level. We talked all about the new resource—as well as national best practices, and how the states of Colorado, New York, and Vermont are using these strategies.
Introducing "Building Resilient States"
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Storms, floods, droughts, landslides, and wildfires have affected thousands of individuals, families, businesses, and communities across the United States in recent years.
In the immediate aftermath of disasters like these, state agencies play a crucial role in emergency response and recovery. However, states can also plan for long-term resilience and help communities build in more resilient ways.
Building Resilient States: A Framework for Agencies lays out seven key steps state administrations can take to become more resilient. Disaster preparedness professionals can use it to understand how decisions about land use and transportation can support their efforts to protect people, property, and infrastructure across their state.
We’ll be talking all about this new resource—as well as national best practices and how the states of Colorado, New York, and Vermont are using these strategies—during a kickoff panel discussion today at 1:00pm EDT. Register to join us for this free event.
During that event we’ll discuss this emerging field of practice and how some of the nation’s leading disaster preparedness agencies are using land use and transportation strategies to make their states more resilient.
Is your state built to bounce back from disaster?
It’s hurricane season here on the East Coast. Just this past weekend we braced for the worst with Hurricane Joaquin.
If you were like me, you might have stocked up on bottled water, flashlights, and batteries. Maybe you also thought that there must be more we can do to protect our communities from disaster — and to help them bounce back afterwards.
Better decisions at the state level can help communities withstand disasters and bounce back more quickly afterwards. Later this month, Smart Growth America will release a new resource designed to help states figure out how to do just that.
Building Resilient States: A Framework for Agencies will help state leaders integrate land use and transportation issues into their conversations about resilience. Disaster preparedness professionals can use it to understand how more strategic decisions can build communities that are more resilient from the ground up.
Now hiring: LOCUS Communications Intern
Smart Growth America seeks a Communications Fellow to support LOCUS, a national network of smart growth real estate developers and investors. The Fellow will be a core member of the LOCUS team and provide direct support to the LOCUS network of real estate developers and investors advocating for smart growth policies at the federal and regional levels.
Newark, NJ; Hamilton, OH; Jackson, TN win 2015 National Awards for Smart Growth Achievement from U.S. EPA
The City of Newark, NJ remediated the site of a former smelting plant to build a new—and now award-winning—park along the Passaic River. Photo via Archpaper.
Three cities have transformed the site of a former smelting plant, a neighborhood destroyed by tornado, and a near-empty historic downtown into vibrant, walkable places. Now, these projects have been recognized with the 2015 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Riverfront Park is the culmination of decades-long work to transform five miles of formerly industrial Passaic riverfront in Newark, NJ. The park’s land was once home to a smelting plant, and sat abandoned and unusable for years. Environmental remediation and an intensive public engagement process have created what will ultimately be 19 acres of parkland and Newark’s first—and so far only—public access to the Passaic River. In this community of color and predominantly low-income area, with few green spaces and a history of industrial pollution, the new park is game-changing. “When I was growing up, we had very few places to play, very few parks,” said Ana Baptista, a Newark resident, in EPA’s video about the project. “My daughters are going to grow up having a relationship to the water and the river that I didn’t have.”