Resource Guide for Exuberant Cities

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by Johanna Zetterberg, Mark Overbay

posted Jun 30, 1999

Organizations

Center for Livable Communities

Organizes individually tailored conferences, workshops, and training sessions on land-use issues. The Center also offers publications, slide, and video resources and provides regional Community Image Surveys.

Contact: 1414 K Street, Suite 250, Sacramento, CA 95814; 916/448-1198; fax: 916/448-8246; e-mail: center@lgc.org; web: www.lgc.org

Green Development Services

GDS, a consulting firm run through the Rocky Mountain Institute, assists architects and developers with integrating energy-efficient and environmentally responsive design into their projects. Offers workshops and provides project guidance at every stage of development.

Contact: c/o Rocky Mountain Institute, 1739 Snowmass Creek Road, Snowmass, CO 81654; 970/927-3807; fax: 970/927-4510; e-mail: gds@rmi.org; web: www.rmi.org/sitepages

Walkable Communities

Offers site-specific training courses, facilitation workshops, troubleshooting charettes, and a series of videos on how to develop practical strategies to combat sprawl and urban decay.

Contact: 320 South Main St., High Springs, FL 32643; 904/454-3304; fax: 904/454-3306; e-mail: walkable@aol.com; Web: www.walkable.org

The National Trust Main Street Center

Helps communities create pedestrian-friendly downtown areas. Offers on-site staff and volunteer training, fund raising, and program evaluations for revitalizing urban environments and commercial downtowns of all sizes.

Contact: 1785 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC 20036; 202/588-6219; fax: 202/588-6050; Web: www.mainstreet.org

Midwest Center for Environmental Science and Public Policy

Run by a team of attorneys, scientists, policy analysts, engineers, community organizers, and concerned citizens, CBE has developed effective strategies for improving transportation and land use practices. Their Livable Communities Program creates model development plans to illustrate ecologically sound design and offers resources to communities working toward pedestrian-friendly development.

Contact: 1845 N. Farwell Ave., Suite 100, Milwaukee, WI 53202; 414/271-7280; fax: 414/273-7293; Web: http://www.mcespp.org/

Surface Transportation Policy Project

A watchdog group that keeps tabs on federal and federally funded efforts to improve transportation policies. Offers a monthly newsletter that emphasizes the needs of people over vehicles.

Contact: 1100 17th st. NW, 10th floor, washington, dc Washington; 202/466-2636; fax: 202/466-2247; e-mail: stpp@transact.org; web: www.transact.org

Victoria Transportation Policy Institute

This think tank develops practical tools for incorporating social and environmental values into transportation policy-making. Offers transportation cost-analysis software and informative papers on such topics as the costs of paving and alternative traffic management.

Contact: Todd Litman, VTPP, 125 Litman V8V, Victoria, BC v8v 3RVCanadaa;
250/360-1560; e-mail: litman@islandnet.com

Sierra Club

Through their sprawl campaign, the Sierra Club provides well-researched reports, fact sheets, articles, and reading lists on sprawl, as well as assistance with developing ballot initiatives and educational campaigns. Their Web site includes many links and an overload of information on sprawl.

Contact: Larry Bohlen Dierra Club, 408 C Street, NE, Washington, DC; 301/445-1548; e-mail: information@sierraclub.org; Web: www.sierraclub.org

American Farmland Trust

AFT works to stop the loss of productive farmland and promote farming practices that lead to a healthy environment. Offers tools and techniques to protect farmland on local, state, and national levels, as well as access to their Technical Assistance Center and Farmland Information Library.

Contact: 1200 18th St. NW, Ste. 800, Washington, DC 20036; 202/331-7300; fax: 202: 659-8339; e-mail: info@farmland.org web: www.farmland.org

Sustainable Communities Network

A valuable resource for citizens concerned with creating healthy, vibrant, sustainable communities. Their Web site provides links to other organizations and an extensive list of case studies.

Contact: CONCERN, Inc., 1794 Columbia Rd., NW, Washington, DC 20009;
202/328-8160; e-mail: concern@igc.apc.org; web: www.sustainable.org

Books & Publications

The Urban Ecologist

Award-winning bi-monthly featuring current news about sustainable architecture, public transit, urban agriculture, and other city-rejuvenating activities worldwide.

Contact: Urban Ecology, 405 14th St, Suite 900, Oakland, CA 94612;
510/251-6330; fax: (510) 251-2117; e-mail: urbanecology@urbanecology.org; Web: www.urbanecology.org

New Urban News

Covers innovations in New Urban design techniques (See . Eco-cities,. pp. 29-30).

Contact: PO Box 6515, Ithaca, NY 14851; 607/275-3087; fax: 607/272-2685

How Smart Growth Can Stop Sprawl

by David Bollier

Essential Information, Attn: Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse, 1100 17th St., NW, 10th Floor, Washington, DC 20036 75 pages; $15 paperback

Overview of issues raised by sprawl, outlining ecologically sound, socially constructive ideas and policy remedies.

Voices from America: Ten Healthy Communities Stories from Across the Nation

edited by Chris Freeman

Adams American Hospital Association, Order Services, PO Box 92683, Chicago, IL 60675; 1-800/242-2626; 66 pages; $20 paperback

An inspiring collection of case studies demonstrating the breadth and diversity of the expanding smart growth movement.

The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-made Landscape

by James Howard Kunstler

Simon & Schuster, 1999
303 pages; $10.40 paperback

A quickly moving, entertaining journey through America's evolution from the first Pilgrim settlements to the auto-dominated homogeneous areas our landscapes have become.

Ideas That Matter: The Worlds of Jane Jacobs

edited by max allen

The Ginger Press 848 Second Ave. East, Owen Sound, Ontario N4K 2H3 Canada
213 pages; $ 24.95 hardcover

This recent collection of the writings of Jane Jacobs. , author of the classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities includes previously unpublished letters, essays, and speeches, as well as reactions and commentaries from 82 contributors. Subjects range from city life and population growth to self-employment, urban sprawl, and the wealth of nations.

Just Transportation: Dismantling Race & Class Barriers to Mobility

edited by Robert Bullard, et al.

New Society Publishers, PO Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC VOR 1X0 Canada;
192 pages; $12.75 paperback

Essays by a variety of environmental and transportation activists, lawyers, and scholars relate the historical roots of unjust transportation practices in US civil rights from Rosa Parks and the Freedom Riders to the present.

Metropolitics: A Regional Agenda for Community and Stability

by Myron Orfield

Brookings Institution Press, 1775 Mass. Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036; 224 pages; $18.95 hardcover

The forward-thinking Minnesota state legislator provides strategies for regional agendas that cross racial and class lines and promote community, stability, and sustainability throughout a metropolitan region.

The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream

by Peter Calthorpe

Princeton Architectural Press, 37 East 7th St., New York, NY 10003;
175 pages; $27.50 hardcover

Calthorpe advocates a fundamental change in our patterns of building. Useful to architects, planners, environmentalists, and engaged citizens, this how-to book both defines a new direction in planning and provides the means as well as the principles for positive change.

Better Not Bigger: How to Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community

by Eben Fodor

New Society Publishers, 1999
176 pages; $14.95 paperback

Full of ideas, insights, tools, and resources, this book convincingly shows the costs of suburban growth. This action guide is an easily accessible manual for urban revitalization.

Web Sites

Sprawlwatch Clearinghouse
www.sprawlwatch.org

Transportation Action Network
www.transact.org