What's New

The Local Governments Commission is presenting the 10th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth conference February 3-5 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Smart growth encourages development that creates healthy, vibrant places that give people greater opportunity and choice. How can smart growth support equitable development, environmental justice and economic vitality and empower communities of color, tribes and disadvantaged groups to shape the neighborhoods, communities and regions in which they live? The 2011 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference includes several sessions and a pre-conference workshop that explore these critical issues and showcase strategies and opportunities for greater collaboration among the smart growth, equitable development and environmental justice communities.

Click here for more information about the equitable development sessions and scholarship opportunities...

by Shelley Poticha

I've been in the sustainability business for a long time.  So when U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan asked that I direct HUD's new Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, I was of two minds.  Thrilled, of course.  Who wouldn't want to take the sustainability movement and bring it to the biggest stage possible?  But part of me was a little afraid that old habits die hard and in the federal government, might never die.

For the federal government to join this national movement, there has to be a level of cooperation and cross pollination between agencies that frankly never happened before.  Could the Department of Energy really speak to the Department of Transportation?  Could the computer and grants management systems at HUD interface with other agencies?  Could I be of any help to turn this battleship around?

The answer, it turns out, is yes.  There is a universal commitment at the very highest levels of this Administration that the old ways of doing business weren't working.  Given the challenges facing the country, doing more to support the thousands of towns, cities, counties and states wanting to create a more sustainable future was seen as critical across agencies. When each federal agency 'did its own thing,' there was no real progress toward building sustainable and livable communities that balance their economic and natural assets so that the diverse needs of local residents could be met in the present and into the future.  It seemed that the "old guard" created a situation where the federal government lagged far behind States, regional areas, and cities that were moving full steam ahead in exciting new directions.  These local communities understood that old growth patterns were increasingly not supportable, forcing families to live further and further away from where they worked; a lifestyle with a cost far too high for households and local governments to sustain. These communities understand that transportation costs really are a housing expense too. Increasingly businesses and developers are looking to invest in communities that offer more choices and accommodate shifting household needs.

Fortunately, the old way of operating is a thing of the past. Today, I can attest that HUD, DOT, Energy, EPA and USDA are integrating in ways some never thought possible.  Just this year, HUD launched two new grant programs - awarding $98 million to support 45 communities to undertake integrated regional planning efforts in large metropolitan regions while also fostering the creation of sustainable and livable rural and tribal communities. For the first time ever, HUD and DOT combined grant funds to invest $58 million in 61 grants to support more holistic approaches to connecting affordable housing, job opportunities and transportation corridors.  Demand for these programs far outstripped what we were able to support and demonstrate the tremendous innovation and support for these types of strategies.

These are exciting times indeed - it's a time when sustainability and livability are becoming more than just buzz words and catch phrases and are actually taking on real meaning.  Sustainable communities provide economic momentum and help America compete more effectively for jobs. At the same time, they hold the promise for helping to address long-standing equity challenges, and green the planet. Yet, turning the battleship around will require not only commitment by at the federal level but active engagement by philanthropy, the advocacy and research communities, and private sector leaders.

 

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Shelley R. Poticha is Director for Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

by Phillip Henderson

From the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Fall 2010

The past two years have been a terrible economic time for the United States. Nearly every segment of the economy has shrunken, and the job statistics have been dismal month after month. While Americans of all walks of life have suffered,people of color, and African Americans in particular, have been beaten
up disproportionately by this economic downturn. For them, this Great Recession feels more like a Great Depression. The Surdna Foundation’s aim to foster the development of just and sustainable communities has never felt more timely or more right than at this moment.

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Commentary by Philip Henderson, President

Twice in the past month, I have had the pleasure of hearing Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder and CEO of PolicyLink, speak.  The first occasion was at Surdna's Strong Local Economies grantee convening at the end of October in Baltimore, and the second was just last week at the annual Board Leadership Forum hosted by BoardSource in San Francisco.  Angela has been crisscrossing the continent over the past couple months promoting the new edition of her book, Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America's Future, co-authored by Manuel Pastor and Stewart Kwoh.  The audiences and context for the two speeches I witnessed were different, but Angela's finely tuned message was the same for both: we must lead with equity.  We, as nonprofits and foundations, cannot do our work in economic development, in health care, in environmental preservation, in education successfully, without first considering the equity problem.  Angela's message is crystal clear and compelling.  In order to solve the social problems we care about, we must put equity first and face it head on.  Only by solving the equity challenge are we going to make deep and sustainable change in the areas we care about.

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Applications for the 2011 Surdna Arts Teachers Fellowships are due no later than 4pm on Friday, November 12th.  For details about the program and how to apply:

Click here...

On October 20th, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in conjunction with the Department of Transportation (DOT), awarded nearly $68 million to 62 local and regional partnerships across the country. This unprecedented collaboration will help stimulate a new generation of sustainable and livable communities that connect affordable housing and job opportunities to transportation and infrastructure improvements.

HUD is awarding $40M in Sustainable Community Challenge (SCC) Grants. These grants will support local communities looking to support affordable and sustainable development by integrating transportation and housing needs. Completing housing development projects in conjunction with transportation projects can greatly increase efficiency of and access to local transportation while encouraging mixed-use or transit-oriented development.

The SCC grants accompany the $100M Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grants announced by HUD last week, which will support regional planning efforts to integrate housing, transportation, and environmental strategies in order to encourage local economic development, provide greater housing and transportation choices, and develop long-range visions for community growth.  The SCC grants will leverage investments Surdna has made in Denver, New Orleans, St. Paul, and New York City.

The SCC grants will complement DOT’s Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) II Planning Grants. The grants, totaling $28M, will help communities develop highway, bridge, railway, and other transit projects that connect transportation to housing and community economic development. Two projects in which Surdna has been a longtime investor—the Sheridan Expressway in the Bronx and the Denver TOD program—received $1.5M and $1.15M of TIGER II planning grant funds respectively, while an initiative by the Oregon Department of Transportation to reduce greenhouse gas received $2M of TIGER II funds.

The HUD-DOT collaboration comes shortly after the creation of the Sustainable Communities Partnership, a multi-agency initiative between HUD, DOT, and the EPA launched by President Obama in June 2009. The partnership draws on each agency’s transportation, land use, and housing and community development expertise to support the development of sustainable communities across the country, guided by six Livability Principles. This innovative collaboration will foster connections between local organizations and federal agencies, ensuring that groups have access to the resources necessary to create communities which are equitable, sustainable, and economically vibrant.

First lady Michelle Obama presented Surdna grantee Global Action Project with the 2010 National Arts & Humanities Youth Program Award in an October 20 ceremony at the White House.  Chosen from a pool of more than 400 nominations and 50 finalists, G.A.P. was one of 15 programs to receive the 2010 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program, the highest honor such programs can receive in the United States.

Global Action Project's mission is to work with young people most affected by injustice to build the knowledge, tools, and relationships needed to create media for community power, cultural expression, and political change.

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On October 14th, 2010, US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan announced the selection of 45 regions that will be part of the Department’s Sustainable Communities Regional Planning initiative.  For the first time ever, HUD will award nearly $100M in new grants to support communities, state, local, and tribal governments, as well as metropolitan planning organizations and non-profit organizations to work together to develop and execute comprehensive regional plans that foster economic competitiveness by connecting housing with good jobs, quality schools and transportation.  Many of the grant recipients will leverage existing infrastructure and collaborative networks to make livable communities a reality across the country.  This holistic planning approach will benefit both urban and rural communities across the U.S., with $25.6M going to regions with populations less than 500,000 and rural places (fewer than 200,000 people). HUD is reserving $2M to help all of these areas build the needed capacity to execute their plans.

About a year ago, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) joined the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Environmental Protection (EPA) to establish the new interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities.  These agencies have developed a set of livability principles that guide their programs and policies, and align their funding to better support holistic regional planning and development efforts.

Last July, Surdna Foundation approved a grant to Living Cities, enabling them to develop and implement the Boot Camp on Sustainable Communities. The Boot Camp, an intensive learning exchange, was designed to help a cohort of the HUD Regional Planning Grants recipient teams receive technical assistance to ensure successful implementation of their regional project; use federal funds to work more collaboratively and leverage existing and new investment; and to employ performance measures and project outcomes that drive long-term strategy and management of planning efforts.

Equally exciting for Surdna is that several of the regions receiving the awards and recognition are places where we have invested for many years. For example, the Twin Cities’ Metropolitan Council, working in partnership with our grantees along the Central Corridor, is one of the regions receiving the largest award, at $5M. The New York-Connecticut area and Boston metropolitan area will receive an investment averaging $3.75M each, enabling the One Region transit funders group in NY and the Fairmont Corridor Collaborative in Boston to scale up their efforts in increasing equitable TOD and create a more regional impact on planning. Washington and Oregon, two states Surdna has invested in for several years, will receive $4.99M and $1.45M respectively. For the complete list of the HUD Sustainable Communities Planning Grant finalists, please click here.To review the HUD press release, click here.

A working group of major philanthropic and financial institutions, Investors for Sustainable Communities, has announced an effort to coordinate up to $150 million in investments to build stronger communities grounded in more resilient, regional economies that provide opportunity to all residents and that firmly embrace environmental stewardship.

Investors for Sustainable Communities is sponsored by Living Cities, a consortium of 22 of the world's largest foundations and financial institutions working to revitalize America's cities.  Participants in Investors for Sustainable Communities include national philanthropies such as the Ford, Surdna and Rockefeller foundations, regional funders such as the McKnight Foundation, and financial institutions such as Citi and Morgan Stanley (a full list is provided below).

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