The National Complete Streets Coalition is proud to partner with Transportation for America’s Arts & Culture team for our second national Complete Streets conference. Save the date and take part in the movement on April 3-4, 2018 at the Nashville Music City Center.
How to Build a Greener City
Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2011
It wasn’t long ago that the idea of using “green” and “city” in the same sentence seemed absurd. Cities were considered a blight on the environment: energy-hogging, pollution-spewing, garbage-producing environmental hellholes. But in recent years, they’ve begun to be seen as models of green virtue. City dwellers tend to walk more and drive less than their suburban counterparts, and dense urban development encourages transit use. Apartment living generally means lower per-household energy use. Building on these strengths, planners and developers are devising innovative solutions to meet urbanites’ energy, water, transportation and sanitation needs well into the future.
Re-Imagining NYC at the Urban Design Week Festival
WNYC, September 12, 2011
Picture a city road that recycles rain water or a pedestrian haven below Canal Street. These are some of the concepts that are on the table for the first-ever Urban Design Week Festival, which starts on Monday. With talks, panel discussions and brainstorming sessions, the festival’s organizers hope to join the ideas of New Yorkers with the vision and planning of urban designers and architects.
Don’t Subsidize Big Boxes at Local Shops’ Expense
Business Week, September 9, 2011
When governments use public money to woo national chains, economic growth and job creation are negligible. Independent retailers also suffer.
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Cities and towns across the country face a number of complex problems associated with vacant and abandoned properties, including public health concerns, environmental hazards and reduced property values. Solving these problems is a formidable challenge for any city, but solutions too often lack the long-term vision and planning necessary to rejuvenate a disintegrated community.
In Philadelphia, a city with more than 40,000 vacant properties, one nonprofit organization took an innovative approach to addressing the problem. Philadelphia’s City Parks Association (CPA), a non-profit land use organization, has played a catalytic role in establishing and maintaining public parks and open space in urban areas of Philadelphia. With a mission “to stimulate visionary thinking about natural resources and open space in the urban community” and experience in city planning, CPA recognizes that Philadelphia’s ecology and community engagement are essential parts for finding solutions to the city’s vacant property issues.
From Barbara Campagna at the National Trust for Historic Preservation:
Finally – the National Trust’s Best Practices Manual, complete with over 50 pages on Sustainable Practices at existing and historic buildings – is online and downloadable!
From Enterprise Community Partners:
Green Asset Management Toolkit (PDF)
A powerful tool for improving the performance of existing buildings, the toolkit helps reduce operating costs and environmental hazards, improve utility savings and draw prospective residents to an attractive, healthy living environment.
From EPA:
Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Technical Assistance Program for state and local officials, this webinar shares strategies to put existing public buildings on the path to becoming high-performance buildings. The webinar will give an overview of a new guide being developed by Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP) and regional stakeholders filled with low- to no-cost strategies to reduce energy and water consumption, maintain renewable energy systems, commission your existing buildings, select environmentally friendly materials, and more.
Enterprise Community Partners is hosting a webinar addressing “How States Use Qualified Allocation Plans as Incentive for Preservation, Transit Oriented Development and Green Design & Building Practices” on Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 2:00pm ET. Description With the low income housing tax credit market (LIHTC) coming back to life, how states prioritize this valuable resource … Continued
From CNU: CNU is seeking submissions for the 2011 Charter Awards, its premier annual juried awards program. The awards recognize outstanding design, development and policy achievements from around the world that embody the principles of the Charter of the New Urbanism and expand our understanding of their role in transforming communities for the better. The … Continued
EPA has announced the five recipients of technical assistance through the Greening America’s Capitals program, a new, collaborative initiative from the HUD-EPA-DOT Partnership for Sustainable Communities. Boston, MA; Jefferson City, MO; Hartford, CT; Little Rock, AR; and Charleston, WV will receive direct, tailored sustainable design assistance from teams of urban planners and landscape architects. From … Continued
ICMA has released a comprehensive 229-page planning and design guide, Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context-Sensitive Approach. The report was recently approved as a recommended practice of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). [T]his report focuses on applying the concepts and principles in the planning and design of urban thoroughfares—facilities commonly designated by the conventional … Continued