land use

SGA partners with Lincoln Institute on climate-informed zoning project

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In partnership with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy,  Smart Growth America (SGA) is eager to begin a new research project that will analyze the fiscal impacts of climate-informed zoning policy in Norfolk, Virginia, a community already experiencing the damaging impacts of climate change, including flooding.  Alongside a comprehensive scan of peer cities’ climate-informed  zoning approaches, SGA will consider how those approaches and land use policy can affect housing affordability, fiscal budgets, and equitable development objectives as well as highlight best practices to help coastal communities better prepare for future flooding and other climate change hazards.

Climate Change

Transition Recommendations for the Biden Administration

The spread of COVID-19 has sent the United States plummeting into an unprecedented national crisis, but it has also illuminated the path forward. Smart Growth America, along with some of our programs, identified immediate executive actions and long-term policy changes that the incoming Biden administration can implement to eliminate structural inequities and address catastrophic global … Continued

Advocacy Climate Change Resilience Transportation

We’ll never address climate change without making it possible for people to drive less

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With transportation accounting for the largest share of carbon emissions in the U.S., we’ll never achieve ambitious climate targets or create more livable and equitable communities if we don’t find ways to allow people to get around outside of a car—or provide more housing in places where that’s already an option. Our new report shows how we can reach those targets while building a more just and equitable society.

Advocacy Climate Change Complete Streets Transportation

House’s massive infrastructure bill brings housing, land use and transportation together

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This week the House will consider the Moving Forward Act, a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill that reflects many of Smart Growth America’s core priorities, including a new kind of transportation bill, billions to invest in new or rehabilitated affordable housing, and support for more inclusive and equitable development around transit to help give more Americans access to opportunity. 

Advocacy Complete Streets Economic development LOCUS Resilience Transportation

How bad land use and transportation decisions go hand-in-hand with “The Congestion Con”

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In an expensive, decades-long effort to curb congestion in urban regions, our transportation agencies and elected leaders have overwhelmingly prioritized spending hundreds of billions of dollars to widen and build new highways. Yet this strategy has utterly failed to “solve” the problem at hand, and in many cases, has actually made it worse. The Congestion Con, a new report from our Transportation for America program, examines how and why, and in this post we look at how land use is right in the middle of it all.

Complete Streets DOT Innovation Economic development Transportation

How can the change coming to suburbs be harnessed for good?

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The notion of the suburbs is nestled deeply in the collective imagination in America, but as we wrote recently, “the suburbs of today aren’t necessarily the suburbs of yesteryear.” In a future that is increasingly urban, where suburbs are rapidly changing, what changes should they consider to stay prosperous and resilient? 

Complete Streets Economic development Form-Based Codes LOCUS Transportation Uncategorized