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Information and Technical Assistance Providers

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Center for Livable Communities
Helps local governments and community leaders be proactive in their land use and transportation planning, and adopt programs and policies that lead to more livable and resource-efficient land use patterns.
www.lgc.org/center_livable/

Creating Quality Places: Successful Communities by Design
Outlines Smart Growth principles for homes and neighborhoods, commercial development, and transportation and open space systems.
www.qualityplaces.marc.org

Growing Smart
www.planning.org/plnginfo/GROWSMAR/gsindex.html

Joint Center for Sustainable Communities
Provides a forum for cities and counties to work together to develop long- term policies and programs that will lead to job growth, environmental stewardship and social well being -- the three pillars of sustainable communities.
www.naco.org/programs/comm_dev/center/index.cfm

LandWorks
A service for professionals working to conserve threatened agricultural lands.
www.farmland.org/landworks.html

National Association of Counties – Smart Growth Project
Provides information on the tools, techniques, and resources that local government and communities can use to manage growth.
www.naco.org/programs/environ/growth.cfm

Neighborhoods, Regions, & Smart Growth Project
Intended to help communities become better informed and educated about smart growth issues.
www.neighborhoodcoalition.org/smart%20growth.htm

Sierra Club Challenge to Sprawl Campaign
www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/

Smart Growth America
A nationwide coalition promoting a better way to grow; one that protects farmland and open space, revitalizes neighborhoods, keeps housing affordable, and makes communities more livable.
www.smartgrowthamerica.org/

Smart Growth Network
A growing coalition working to encourage more environmentally and fiscally responsible land use, growth, and development.
www.smartgrowth.org

Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse
A resource center that provides information, advice, and referrals on issues related to sprawl, smart growth, and livable communities.
www.sprawlwatch.org/



Publications

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Ahwahnee Principles for Smart Economic Development
Presents a comprehensive approach to economic development that embraces economic, social and environmental responsibility and recognizes the economic value of natural and human capital.
www.lgc.org/economic/index.html

Ahwahnee Principles for Smart Economic Development:
An Implementation Guidebook

Helps communities implement a comprehensive set of principles for building prosperous and livable places.
www.lgc.org/bookstore/land_use/publications/econprinciples.html

The Ahwahnee Principles: Toward More Livable Communities
A set of community and regional principles that promote more livable communities.
www.lgc.org/community_design/index.html

Best Development Practices: A Primer for Smart Growth
Focuses on development patterns and shows how changes in current development patterns can help stop sprawl.
http://bookstore.icma.org

Density by Design: New Directions in Residential Development
Discusses the latest trends in residential development and profiles innovative projects.
www.uli.org/Pub/Pages/d_search/books/N25.cfm

Ecologically Based Municipal Land Use Planning
Discusses ecological resources and provides practical solutions that municipal planners can implement immediately.
www.crcpress.com

The Economic Benefits of Parks and Open Space:
How Land Conservation Helps Communities Grow Smart and Protect the Bottom Line

An overview of research findings and examples of communities that are protecting landscapes that contribute to their quality of life and economic well-being.
www.tpl.org/

Grappling with Growth: What to Do When You Want a Strong Economy and a Great Place to Live
Discusses four Smart Growth strategies — designing expansion correctly, ensuring that expansion pays its way, restricting expansion, and building affordable housing — and suggests that these are incomplete unless linked to efforts to build the local economy through Natural Capitalism.
www.rmi.org/images/other/ER-GrapWithGrwth.pdf

Green Development: Integrating Ecology and Real Estate
Outlines proven procedures, potential pitfalls, and practical lessons for creating environmentally sound, community-supportive, and financially rewarding real-estate development.
www.rmi.org/store/p385pid958.asp

Green Development:
Literature Summary and Benefits Associated with Alternative Development Approaches

A compilation of examples, case studies, and issues related to implementing green development approaches in urban areas.
www.smartgrowth.org/bibliographies/greenlit_search/green_lit.html

Greenprints for Growth
Discusses the concept of a “greenprint” for growth that seeks to identify desirable lands for conservation, such as sites for parks and recreation, farms, wildlife habitat, watersheds and historic or scenic landscapes.
www.tpl.org/

Growing Greener: Putting Conservation into Local Plans and Ordinances
An illustrated workbook that presents a new look at designing subdivisions while preserving green space and creating open space networks.
www.islandpress.org/

Growing Together: City/County Smart Growth Profiles
Features six profiles of counties and cities that are taking significant steps to partner with their neighboring jurisdiction to resolve mutual land-use problems.
www.naco.org/programs/comm_dev/center/resource/successes.pdf Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader

Hot Topics: Managing Growth
Discusses the costs and impacts of sprawl and profiles model county growth management programs.
www.naco.org/pubs/cnews/99-2-1/hot_topics2.pdf Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader

Low-Impact Development Design Strategies:
An Integrated Design Approach

Describes a radically different approach to conventional stormwater management that combines a hydrologically functional site design with pollution prevention measures to compensate for land development impacts on hydrology and water quality.
www.epa.gov/owow/nps/lidnatl.pdf Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader

Low-Impact Development Fact Sheet
Briefly summarizes environmental impacts of urban development and the components of low impact development.
www.dakotaswcd.org/lid_fs.htm

National Sprawl News Network
A monthly directory of articles about suburban sprawl, downtown, and city abandonment.
www.interaxs.net/pub/mikemonett/natl.htm

Open Space Planning Packet
What exactly is open space? And, how do you identify it, characterize it, prioritize it, acquire it, and fund it? This packet of materials answers these questions, and more.
www.canr.uconn.edu/ces/nemo/npubsform.html

Paving Paradise: Sprawl and the Environment
Discusses how urban sprawl affects many aspects of American life and presents the case for smarter growth.
www.nrdc.org/cities/smartgrowth/rpave.asp

Paying for Growth, Prospering from Development
Addresses the difference between growth and development, the reasons communities seek growth, the ways in which local governments unwittingly worsen growth problems in their attempts to solve them, and how communities can develop viable local economies without growth.
www.rmi.org/images/other/ER-Paying4Growth.pdf

Profiles of Business Leadership on Smart Growth:
New Partnerships Demonstrate the Economic Benefits of Reducing Sprawl

Presents the perspectives of business leaders engaged in combating sprawl and promoting smart growth.
www.nalgep.org/smartgrowth.htm

Pedestrian- and Transit-Friendly Design: A Primer for Smart Growth
Illustrates features both essential and desirable to encourage pedestrian- and transit-friendly design.
http://bookstore.icma.org

Principles of Smart Development
Discusses principles of smart development, documents obstacles to their implementation, and outlines strategies that may help overcome those obstacles.
www.planning.org/pas/pas479.htm

Smart Growth for Local Governments
A report that contrasts the causes and results of sprawl with the characteristics of smart growth development that serves the economy, the environment, and the community.
http://bookstore.icma.org

Smart Growth: Myth and Fact
Investigates eight common myths about Smart Growth and counters them with data and examples of development and public policies that work.
www.uli.org/Pub/Media/A_issues/A_SmL4_Myth.pdf Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader

Smart Growth Tool Kit
Provides step-by-step instructions to help communities get started and explains the strategies that have worked in other cities. Case studies help you make the case for smart growth by providing concrete examples of successful projects. Also includes a resource guide, program agendas, and a smart growth presentation.
www.uli.org

Smart Investments for City & County Managers:
Energy, Environment, & Community Development

A guide on smart growth containing resources and ideas useful to local government officials.
www.smartgrowth.org/library/smartinvest.html

Smart Talk for Growing Communities:
Meeting the Challenges of Growth & Development

A guide for public dialogue and problem-solving that helps communities address the effects of growth.
www.studycircles.org/pdf/growth.pdf Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader

Street Design Guidelines for Healthy Neighborhoods
Identifies better ways to design new neighborhoods or retrofit existing ones to be more healthy, interactive, walkable, enjoyable and livable.
www.lgc.org/publications/center/clcpubs.html

Streets and Sidewalks, People and Cars:
The Citizens' Guide to Traffic Calming

Provides a method to evaluate and improve the safety of neighborhood residential and commercial streets.
www.lgc.org/publications/center/clcpubs.html

Street Reclaiming: Creating Livable Streets
and Vibrant Communities

Provides a step-by-step process to psychologically and physically reclaim streets.
www.newsociety.com/new.html

Sustainable Development: Prosperity Without Growth
A discussion of the pitfalls of growth and the elements of the viable alternative, sustainable development.
www.rmi.org/images/other/ER-SusDevProWoGrth.pdf

Watershed Events: Smart Growth
The Fall 1999 issue of the Watershed Events newsletter that focuses on Smart Growth as an emerging concept to promote watershed protection.
www.epa.gov/owow/info/WaterEventsNews/fall99/eventf99.html

When City and Country Collide:
Managing Growth in the Metropolitan Fringe

Presents a workable approach to fostering more compact development and better, more sustainable communities in urban areas.
www.islandpress.org

Why Smart Growth: A Primer
This primer looks at why sprawl is no longer a viable development option and illustrates the outcomes of growth.
http://bookstore.icma.org



Model Ordinances

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From Policy to Reality: Model Ordinances
for Sustainable Development

A package of model ordinances developed by Minnesota Planning to help make the best choices today for the health of the community tomorrow.
www.mnplan.state.mn.us/SDI/ordinances.html

Growing Greener Ordinance Language:
Visually Enhanced Zoning and Subdivision Models

An interactive CD-ROM that provides an enhanced, visually interactive version of the model zoning and subdivision ordinances that appear in an appendix to the book "Growing Greener: Putting Conservation into Local Plans and Ordinances" by Randall Arendt (see Publications section for more information). Included are more than 50 commentary images and short video clips that illustrate the model ordinances and help explain and clarify the available options. Also included are text files that users can copy and, working with local land-use attorneys, adapt to fit local conditions in their communities.
www.islandpress.org

Local Ordinances: A User's Guide
Preparing local ordinances and regulating new development comprise the theme of this comprehensive guide for local planners.
www.terrene.org

Maryland Smart Growth Codes & Ordinances
www.mdp.state.md.us/smartgrowth/smartcode/smartcode00.htm

Model Ordinances to Protect Local Resources
Includes model ordinances to serve as a template for those charged with making decisions concerning growth and environmental protection.
www.epa.gov/owow/nps/ordinance/



Misc. Tools and Resources

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Alternative Factor Summaries
Summaries and worksheets that focus on the economy, the community, and the environment.
www.rmi.org/images/other/ER-AltFactorSumm.pdf

Critical Thinking for Sustainable Community Decision-Making:
A Community Leadership Tool

A simple scoring system for use in facilitated group decision-making.
www.rmi.org/images/other/ER-CriticalThink.pdf

Project Assessment Worksheet:
A Community Decision Making Tool

A worksheet designed to encourage better-informed decisions and better project design.
www.rmi.org/images/other/ER-ProjAsstWksht.pdf

Smart Growth
A video featuring urban planners, designers, developers, and city officials that offer their comments and analysis of seven communities across the U.S. that have realized the value of Smart Growth.
www.videoproject.org/smartgrowth.html

Smart Growth INDEX
A GIS sketch model for simulating alternative land-use and transportation scenarios, and evaluating their outcomes using indicators of environmental performance.
www.crit.com/indx_overview_frameset.htm

Smartgrowth.net
A website for journalists that includes fact sheets, interview sources, press releases, and links to position papers, research studies, and testimony.
www.uli.org

Smart Growth News
A weekly e-mail newsletter featuring abstracts of articles culled from more than 1,400 information sources.
www.uli.org

Smart Growth Project Reference Files
Features snapshots of developments that exhibit features of smart growth.
www.uli.org

Smart Growth Tool Kit
Explains Smart Growth strategies that have worked in other cities.
www.uli.org

Smart Growth Video
This 15-minute video on smart growth is a great way to educate citizens and public officials about smart growth. The video highlights smart growth principles as applied in different kinds of developments around the country. It also offers solutions to common growth and development problems.
http://bookstore.icma.org

Subdivide and Conquer: A Modern Western
This film explores the consequences of sprawl, the history of this automobile-centered pattern of development, and profiles places where sound public policy and good land use planning have stemmed the tide of sprawl.
www.subdividefilm.com

Tools for Watershed Protection in Developing Areas
Part of EPA’s Watershed Academy 2000, this module outlines a watershed protection approach that applies eight tools to protect or restore aquatic resources in an urbanized or developing watershed.
www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/wacademy/acad2000/protection/





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