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"Your order is out of stock"

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We sent the following email to our subscribers earlier today, and we’re sorry for any confusion it caused! It was meant to be a parody: we do not sell Christmas Village sets, and no order of any kind was processed. If you have any concerns, please feel free to contact us. — Alex Dodds, Communications Director

out-of-stock

Thank you so much for your recent order of a “Subdivision Christmas Village.” Unfortunately, this item is no longer in stock.

We simply were not getting enough orders of this model to continue producing them. Most of our customers seem to prefer the “Walkable Downtown Christmas Village” collection.

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Your questions answered from "(Re)Building Downtown"

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Thanks to everyone who joined us on Monday for the kickoff panel discussion of (Re)Building Downtown: A Guidebook for Revitalization. We had a fantastic conversation with our five panelists, and got to answer several questions from listeners during the Q+A session. We had so many questions remaining at the end that we decided to follow up on them in a blog post. Chris Zimmerman, Smart Growth America’s Vice President for Economic Development, gave some more insight into the questions listeners had. Here are the answers.

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Recorded webinar: Learn more about the new Ladders of Opportunity technical assistance workshops

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Transportation plays a critical role in connecting Americans and communities to economic opportunity. The National Public Transportation/Transit-Oriented Development Technical Assistance Ladders of Opportunity Initiative, a project of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) in partnership with Smart Growth America, will provide state and local leaders with new ideas, resources, and capacity for building transit-oriented development.

Requests for technical assistance workshops are now open and on December 10, FTA and Smart Growth America hosted an informational webinar to discuss in detail the technical assistance workshops and the application process. A recording of the webinar is now available.

Watch the archived webinar

Click here to view the archived webinar
Click here to download the presentation (PDF)

Speaking on the webinar were Kimberly Gayle, Director of the Office of Policy Review and Development at the Federal Transit Administration; Chris Zimmerman, Vice President of Economic Development at Smart Growth America; and Beth Osborne, Senior Policy Advisor at Smart Growth America.

Community leaders who have received FTA-funded transit projects grants and are considering TOD, or need ideas and assistance with TOD, are invited to request assistance. Requests are due by 5:00 p.m. EST Tuesday, January 19, 2016. Visit TODresources.org to learn more and apply.

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Maryland leaders talk innovative transit solutions

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MD workshopMembers of the Maryland Chapter of the Local Leaders Council gather in Baltimore to discuss local transit solutions.

Transit service makes walkable urban places work better for all users, but finding affordable, flexible, scalable transit is a major hurdle for communities pursuing smart growth. The Maryland Chapter of the Local Leaders Council convened a workshop in Baltimore on November 12 to dig in to what works, considering very different solutions from three very different places.

Ten elected leaders and staff brought varying concerns to the table. Mayor Gee Williams of Berlin, MD, population 4,562, is focused on accommodating visitors. “During the last ten years we’ve become a destination community – this is now our chief economic driver. The vision we are in the early stages of discussing is how we can accommodate up to 3,000 guests in a small downtown area. We also have a challenge for our residents to access downtown services every day.”

Local Leaders Council Uncategorized

Now hiring: Research & Policy Intern

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Interested in transportation policy, transit-oriented development, and performance measurement? Join Smart Growth America’s team as our Research & Policy Intern to support policy workshops for governors, multi-state summits for state and local officials, and technical assistance visits. The position requires strong organizational skills, writing, research, and coordination across several projects. Responsibilities will be approximately 50% … Continued

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New research looks at how much New Jersey could save through smarter road investments

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Earlier this year, Smart Growth America released a new model for analyzing the fiscal implications of development patterns. Since then we’ve analyzed development in Madison, WI, West Des Moines, IA, and Macon, GA.

For the latest installment, Smart Growth America teamed up with New Jersey Future to find out how much state, county and municipal governments in New Jersey could save on road maintenance bills by building in more compact ways.

The Fiscal Implications of Development Patterns: Roads in New Jersey analyzes population and employment density to understand just how much money could be saved if the distribution of New Jersey’s population and jobs could be made even incrementally more dense and compact.

Researchers at Smart Growth America and New Jersey Future took two distinct but related approaches to these questions. Smart Growth America partitioned the whole state into grid cells of equal size and then compiled data for each cell. Using U.S. Census data regarding population and employment, and the New Jersey Department of Transportation’s database of road segments, Smart Growth America’s researchers calculated the relationship between density and the road area per capita.

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Since the workshop: Complete Streets improvements kick off Kaua’i County, HI’s downtown renaissance

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hardy-street3New sidewalks near the intersection of Rice Street and Hardy Street, and at the entrance to Wilcox Elementary School. Photo via the County of Kaua’i.

County leaders in Kaua’i, HI are working to revitalize the Līhu’e Town Core as a vibrant, walkable heart of the island, with Rice Street as its main street. In 2008, the county crafted its Holo Holo 2020 plan to guide that work, and in 2014 they asked Smart Growth America to inform that work with a parking audit workshop. What has Kaua’i been up to in the time since?

Over the last year, Kaua’i has gotten started on its revitalization work with Complete Streets improvements to Hardy Street. New sidewalks, turn lanes, bike lanes, on-street parking, and street plantings will eventually run the entire length of Hardy Street, which is parallel to Rice and curves around to intersect with it in the heart of Līhuʻe’s town core.

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Recorded webinar: Building Resilient States: A Framework for Agencies

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building-resilient-states-webinar-coverHow could better land use and transportation strategies help your state recover and remain resilient in the face of disaster?

On October 22, Smart Growth America released Building Resilient States: A Framework for Agencies, a resource designed to help state agency staff integrate land use and transportation issues into their conversations about resilience. Disaster preparedness professionals can also use it to make strategic decisions and build communities that are more resilient from the ground up.

As part of the kickoff, we hosted an online conversation about resilience efforts at the state level. We talked all about the new resource—as well as national best practices, and how the states of Colorado, New York, and Vermont are using these strategies.

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