It’s been more than 10 years since former Maryland Governor Parris Glendening — president of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute here at Smart Growth America — enacted his historic smart growth initiatives and threw Maryland into the national spotlight. After a recent Washington Post article assessing the impact of the smart growth laws (with a … Continued
This week’s news include a new policy in Rockville, MD, some complete streets inspired musings in Indiana, data supporting the safety in numbers theory, and more.
The town of Edmonston in Prince George’s County, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C., is a small hamlet of under 2000 residents, most of them blue-collar workers. Like many other cities in America, times are tough in Edmonston, which has high rates of unemployment and foreclosure. What makes life particularly hard for Edmonston is that it is bisected by the Anacostia River. Due to poor environmental practices, the Anacostia periodically floods the town, wreaking devastation on a place already struggling to get by.
With the Urban Land Institute, we released Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change, which shows how meeting the demand for conveniently located housing with transportation choices will be key to addressing climate change.
The National Vacant Properties Campaign held its first national conference: Reclaiming Vacant Properties was an overwhelming success. Nearly 700 people rallied together in Pittsburgh to share wisdom and learn how to help their own communities hit hard by vacancy and abandonment.
Along with the Brookings Institution and other partners, we launched the Restoring Prosperity Initiative to bring hope and investment to our older industrial and weak market cities.