Blog

Blue Springs, MO hosts workshop on sustainable land use code audit

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Blue Springs MO

Blue Springs officials and local residents met with representatives from Smart Growth America on September 19 and 20, 2013 as part of a free, grant-funded technical assistance program. The workshop aimed to provide a “code audit”—a review of development regulations—that will help Blue Springs leaders understand the various smart growth development options available to them, specifically with regard to the Unified Development Code. The City is in the process of updating both the Unified Development Code and Comprehensive Plan.

“The City of Blue Springs is a very fortunate recipient of a Smart Growth America technical assistance grant,” said Blue Springs Director of Community Development Scott Allen. “This code audit will focus on community health, alternative energy codes, and sustainable stormwater infrastructure, and will help Blue Springs move forward with sustainable development alternatives. This technical assistance from Smart Growth America and Cision Associates has come at a most opportune moment for Blue Springs. We are currently updating both the Comprehensive Plan and Unified Development Code, and the knowledge gained from this assistance can be incorporated into both the Plan and Code to move Blue Springs towards a more sustainable development type.”

Technical assistance

Dauphin County, PA hosts workshop on smart growth implementation

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Hummelstown PA

Dauphin County officials and local residents met with representatives from Smart Growth America on September 18 and 19, 2013 as part of a free, grant-funded technical assistance program. The workshop helped the community envision smart growth strategies in the context of Dauphin County, an area with varying levels of development density. It also helped to inform the county’s comprehensive planning process.

“We are excited about the opportunity to host this free, grant-funded technical assistance program in Dauphin County,” said Dauphin County Board of Commissioners’ Chairman Jeff Haste. “The goal is to develop local solutions to help our community grow in ways that will provide benefits now and for generations to come.”

Technical assistance

City Councilmember Kristin Palmer on smart growth and resilience in New Orleans, LA

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Kristin Palmer had long been interested in smart growth strategies, but smart growth really became a focal point of her first term on City Council in 2010, as New Orleans still struggled to rebuild five years after Hurricane Katrina.

“When you’re trying to rebuild from nothing, from ground zero, what are the things that make sense when you come back and rebuild? Access to public transportation and economic corridors was really part of that success,” says Palmer. “If you had access to grocery stores and you had a walkable community, and you could get to the resources you needed, those are the communities that rebuilt faster and better.”

Local Leaders Council

Building region-wide support for new development along Arizona's Valley Metro light rail line

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tempe-az
New development along the Valley Metro light rail line in Tempe, AZ. Photo of the Hub on Campus building via Facebook.

The City of Phoenix, AZ, is working to encourage development along the Valley Metro light rail line, and it’s getting some help from a region-wide effort that’s working to link Phoenix’s investments to others throughout the region.

The Sustainable Communities Collaborative (SCC) is a unique non-profit partnership working to catalyze development along the Valley Metro light rail in Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa. Started in 2011 with a $20 million private investment from Local Initiatives Support Corporation and Raza Development Fund, SCC aims to create “vibrant urban environments and transit-oriented communities that have it all”: a mix of housing starts, new community health care centers, entrepreneurial start-ups, pedestrian and bicycle friendly neighborhoods, eclectic retail and restaurants, and artistic centered community development connected to the 20-mile light rail line.

Local Leaders Council

View our 500 Complete Streets Policies Celebration in full

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On August 14, 2013, Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition hosted a 500 Complete Streets Policy Celebration in which complete streets leaders the 500 communities across the United States that have made their streets safer and more accessible for everyone who uses them with Complete Streets policies, and looked ahead to the … Continued

Complete Streets

A clarion call goes unheeded

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“All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our Nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we … Continued

Uncategorized

Energy, smart growth, climate change and the 2008 candidates (Part 1)

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After watching some of the debates over the last few weeks, and partially inspired by a similar post from Rob Goodspeed on the Planetizen Interchange, I pieced together this very abridged summary of where some of the current candidates stand on some of the environmental, transportation, energy and urban issues that our coalition cares about. … Continued

Uncategorized
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