Morning and Afternoon "Optional" Tours of Local Model Projects
Additional information on these tours can be found in the Special Features section.

Building Healthier Communities: Fundamentals and Strategies for Integrating Public Health into Community Design (space is limited; requires preregistration and fee)
Land use and transportation planning decisions impact a wide range of public health concerns - from traffic safety, obesity and psychological functioning to health inequities and air and water quality. Public health professionals have an important role to play in raising public health concerns as a priority in the planning process and in promoting healthier community design strategies. To be effective, public health professionals need to understand the key policy processes and practices that affect the built environment and the strategic points for public health intervention. They also need to learn approaches for developing new partnerships with planning and transportation agencies. This training offers fundamentals and a "how to" for integrating public health issues and public health professionals into the land use and transportation planning process. Discussions will highlight the importance of cross-programmatic collaboration within state and local public health agencies, as well as across professional disciplines. While much of the session addresses the training needs of public health professionals, planning and transportation professionals will learn how to integrate their health partners and the health message into the local planning process.

How to Implement an Active Living Program in Your Community
What successes and barriers have you had in developing an active community? This interactive session will enable a variety of disciplines to share their experiences and learn from others about implementing local approaches to active living. Participants will discuss innovative strategies that are working nationwide and the types of local-level policies and detailed programs that support healthier, more active places. They will also receive practical resources that will help them further their efforts at home. Issues that contribute to dynamic, walkable communities include: community design, housing, transportation, public safety, open space, schools, mixture of uses, social equity and more.

Water, Water Everywhere: Protecting Water Resources with Smart Growth (requires preregistration and fee)
How are zoning codes and building designs related to Clean Water Act regulations? How do transportation choices or different land uses affect the quality and quantity of stormwater runoff? How are development patterns associated with protecting the nation's water resources, including water supplies and drinking water? Come to this special smart growth and water session to explore how smart development patterns can help you meet your water quality protection goals.

Noteworthy Transportation Planning Practices: Transportation Planning Excellence Award Winners
The Transportation Planning Excellence Awards Program is a biennial awards program developed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) in partnership with the American Planning Association (APA) to recognize outstanding initiatives across the country to develop, plan and implement innovative transportation planning practices. The program is co-sponsored by the American Planning Association. This pre-conference session will focus on highlighted aspects of noteworthy transportation planning projects and processes.

Smart Growth for Local Elected Officials
Local elected officials have a critical role to play in assuring better planning in their communities--without their leadership, there will be no progress! This session will outline the basic principles and benefits of smart growth. Then, city and county elected officials will offer examples of tangible actions that they have undertaken to implement Smart Growth principles, making their communities better places to live.

Smart Growth 101
This pre-conference session is geared towards first-time attendees to the conference or for participants who are new to the practice of implementing smart growth solutions. The session will cover general topics, such as the ten principles of smart growth, the process of how land development typically occurs, and the basics of planning and zoning for smart growth. The goal of the workshop is to provide a good working background on smart growth and prepare participants for more in-depth sessions during the main conference.

Active Living by Design and Active Transportation
A growing body of evidence suggests that the built environment and transportation are important in promoting public health, especially physical activity. The emerging Active Living movement is becoming an influential factor in shaping the way disciplines such as city planning, landscape architecture, and transportation engineering cultivate places to accommodate various health promoting behaviors, particularly walking and bicycling. This session will provide a general overview of the relationships between the built environment, transportation, and health, and will highlight the Active Living by Design national program, the 25 community partnerships doing work to promote physical activity, and the strategies and tactics that have been effective in this effort. A special focus will be oriented to the Active Transportation (AT) initiative - an effort intended to increase walking and bicycling by encouraging more active trips to work, school, and throughout the community. This project is the result of a unique partnership among numerous corporate partners in the walking, running, and bicycling industries.

Conference Welcome and Acknowledgments

Kickoff Keynote: Equity Partners
The smart growth movement is based on the principles of strengthening existing communities and providing a range of choices. However, framing how we deal with the harder realities of social equity, gentrification and neighborhood change has been a tough and uneven evolution. As debate over the larger picture continues, community development corporations, developers, local governments and countless others have been getting down to business in neighborhoods by building more housing, putting in parks, bringing innovation to local schools and making better places. At this stage, how do we frame where we have been and where we need to go?

Networking Reception

Morning Break

FRIDAY BREAKOUT SESSIONS (concurrent sessions in the morning and afternoon)

• Health Impact Assessments
  This session would feature local officials that are actually using HIAs in their communities to identify and encourage planning and development that has a positive impact on public health.
  
  
• Implementing Smart-Growth Revitalization: Florida Success Stories
  This session will feature Florida communities that have successfully integrated land use and transportation planning, and have implemented these strategies to revitalize cities and reinvigorate the local economy; preserve community character and affordable housing, and provide safe, convenient access to retail and commercial corridors.
  
  
• Intergenerational Opportunities for Livable Communities
  Housing surveys consistently show that the majority of people 50+ prefer intergenerational living to age-segretated living. This panel will look at how intergenerational opportunities contribute to livability and how to create them. Panelists will discuss models of housing and transportation that meets the needs of people of all ages and promotes intergenerational interactions and synergies.
  
  
• Planning to Work: Using Smart-Growth Strategies to Promote Economic Development
  How relevant is smart growth when a community faces stagnant growth or decline? Can built-out places ever compete for new jobs and investment with greenfield suburbs? In Pennsylvania and Pinellas County, Florida, the answers are "very" and "you bet." In both places, a quest for economic competitiveness is bringing leaders to the realization that smart growth--in particular, reinvestment in existing places--must underlie economic development planning. Working at the county level, Pinellas County developed an economic development and urban redevelopment strategy to coordinate regional economic growth with a carefully crafted program for real estate development and community place-making. In Pennsylvania, the statewide Renew Pennsylvania campaign is developing an ambitious state reform agenda that links the state's competitiveness to the revitalization of older places.
  
  
• Parks for People
  In cities across the country 2 out of 3 children aren't within a 1/4-mile--or a ten-minute walk-- to a park. City park accessibility is an important aspect of a healthy city neighborhood. TPL's Center for City Park Excellence has been studying city policies regarding access, park "carrying capacity" and walkability. This session will address a new framework for looking at park accessibility and how some cities are weaving park access and equity issues into their neighborhood plans.
  
  
• Preventing Crime Without Gates, Locks and Alarms
  This session will provide three primary benefits to participants: 1) learn what essential attributes of the built environment dissuade crime and fear; 2) realize how to site and design multifamily housing to reduce crime; and, 3) understand the collective interrelationship between elevation, plan, and section of urban space from the perspective of encouraging productive activity. Building from their combined experience, the presenters will offer practitioners with insights, tools, and resources that can be adapted to new development and redevelopment to achieve safer, more livable communities.
  
  
• Getting Smart about Hurricanes and Other Natural Disasters
  Through better design and planning, communities can become safer in terms of crime. The same is true of natural disasters. Neither threat can be totally eliminated, but by integrating natural hazards mitigation into all aspects of their development process--from the comprehensive plan to incentives, regulations, and review--communities can better withstand the blow when it comes, be it flood, hurricane, wildfire, earthquake, or landslide. They can also plan and prepare for more sustainable redevelopment in the aftermath of such an event. This session will examine both short and long-term techniques, showing how to achieve smart growth that is also "safe growth."
  
  
• The Department of Defense as a New Smart-Growth Partner
  This session would focus on the Department of Defense's (DoD) new Initiative to promote smarter growth and compatible land use around its vital training and testing ranges, with a particular focus on activities in the Southeast and Florida. DoD manages almost 30 million acres of land within the U.S, most of which are used for training and testing ranges to prepare troops for their mission. Sprawling development is now often encroaching upon these ranges, which were once protected amidst greenfields. In response to this growing concern, DoD's new Initiative, which was announced this summer, is promoting win/win "outside-the-fence" partnerships with stakeholders at all levels interested in smart growth, land preservation, and sound planning and development. Concrete partnerships to preserve land near bases have been leaping forward--particularly in the Southeast and Florida. One such partnership, the Northwest Florida Greenway, has been hailed by the Nature Conservancy as protecting a "critical epicenter of biodiversity," an epicenter increasingly threatened by sprawl.
  
  
• From Smart Growth to Reality: Infill and Mixed-Use Development from the Home Builders Perspective
  The phrases "infill" and "mixed use" are all the rage these days. Local elected officials desire it, and consumers want to buy it, and builders are willing to build it. So what's the problem? Many zoning codes don't allow it, and many neighbors are wary of this type of development. This session will address how to overcome obstacles that both the builder and the public sector face, in order to achieve reality. Specific problems and corresponding solutions will be identified, and case studies of successful projects across the country will be highlighted.
  
  
• Taking Green Building into the Mainstream
  This session could look at best practices in the field among standard homebuilders, commercial developers, lenders, and local government (or fill in any of a number of categories). The point is that once you've established the desirability of green activities, you feature the type of people who account for much of the nation's construction and show how they've used the techniques successfully.
  
  
• The Transportation System
  There is no argument that transportation choice is a hallmark of smart growth. Elevating the role of transit, walking and biking, as well as the ability to park once and combine trips, are common recommendations. But in real urban settings governed by zoning ordinances and traffic impact studies, and with criteria such as "level of service" and a political focus on "congestion," what does smart growth have to offer? Jim Charlier, a national expert on transportation planning, will describe how smart growth networks can support evolving community objectives and still fit within local planning and development review systems. He will address design of smart growth networks for new development as well as techniques for retrofitting existing poorly-connected neighborhoods and districts. This session will provide attendees with "Smart Growth Network Toolkits" drawn from recent work in Honolulu, the Puget Sound Region, Arizona, and the Front Range of Colorado.
  

FRIDAY IMPLEMENTATION WORKSHOPS (up to 5)
(includes a 20-minute refreshment break at 3:30 p.m.)

• Tackling the Last Frontiers of Viable Communities: The Nature and Impact of Commercial Corridor Revitalization
  Almost every community has some - those once-bustling lines of retail or commercial buildings that everyone used to drive to, but now just drive by. These areas present some of the greatest losses for planners and economic development officials, challenges for adjoining neighborhoods, and opportunities for localities to recoup a tax base and turn the corner for sustainable, quality communities. Come join this implementation session that will explore in depth how others have successfully tackled commercial corridors as part of whole, healthy, economically sustainable communities.Included will be topics like: cleaning up contaminated properties, reusing public investment, joining housing and commercial redevelopment, successful community-based planning, and successful marketing of older downtowns and inner ring suburban corridors. The workshop will focus on corridors that are served by automobiles, but will include information on "pre-plumbing" the corridor to support future transit lines.
  
  
• Advancing Technology: Tools for Measuring the Smart-Growth Potential of Your Community's Land Portfolio
  One constant theme in discussions on smart growth is how traditional standards and real estate evaluations are inappropriate for complex mixes seen in comprehensive plans. This workshop looks at new software and ways to use technology for land market monitoring, infill, value assessments, and land protection prioritization that can provide better information about guiding growth in your community. The first half of the presentation will feature presentations, while the second half will feature group exercises to develop the suite of public policies needed to ensure successful use of softwater in planning, conservation and redevelopment.
  
  
• TOD City
  TOD city is a variation of the popular planning exercise, "Box City." This workshop will focus on the how the sum of the parts around transit stations--buildings, parking, streets, parks and policies - fit together to make successful TOD. Participants will take several scenarios around stations for rail lines and buses (including bus rapid transit), describe common challenges, work on policies and a building plan to overcome those challenges, and use boxes to represent a building plan. This three-dimensional site plan will help participants visualize the relationships among density, walkability, and the station area, with the goal of how to better arrange the parts to get a better sum for TOD.
  
  
• Reclaiming Abandoned Buildings and Vacant Properties to Foster Community Revitalization
  During the first year of its technical assistance and training program, the National Vacant Properties Campaign has worked closely with public officials and community/business leaders in several cities (e.g., Las Vegas, Cleveland, New Orleans, Dayton-Miami Valley, Buffalo-Amherst, etc.) on how they can reclaim abandoned buildings and vacant properties and how such a strategy can become a catalyst for neighborhood revitalization and Smart Growth. One common theme derived from these assessment studies is the important role of the state government and its partnership with local governments. New Jersey Commissioner of Community Development, Susan Bass Levin will kickoff this interactive workshop by discussing New Jersey's cutting edge vacant properties legislation and its innovative state rehabilitation code.
  
  The Campaign's Director of Research, Joe Schilling, from Virginia Tech's Metropolitan Institute, will then lead this workshop in an interactive discussion surrounding the insights and lessons learned from working in these communities-those from fast growing regions, such as the southwest and southeast, and those from struggling regions in the northeast and Midwest. Vacant property inventory and tracking systems, land banking, nuisance abatement actions, housing/environmental courts, and the need for holistic neighborhood planning, are some of the successful prevention and acquisitions strategies that will be highlighted.
  
  
• A New Approach to Thoroughfare Design
  Streets, roads, and highways shape development patterns and quality. Smart growth and new urbanism require new attention to the layout and design of streets to create an effective foundation for compact, mixed-use, pedestrian places. These objectives are being incorporated into the practice of context sensitive design in a national project focused on urban settings. Participants in this workshop will learn about new guidance for designing major thoroughfares in cities and towns, and will work with resource people in small groups to focus on implementation topics including revising municipal standards, changing performance measures, and achieving network connectivity.
  

FRIDAY CONCURRENT BREAKOUT SESSIONS

• Improving Environmental Health through Smart-Growth
  This session will take a look at some of the many environmental health issues related to growth and the built environment, looking beyond just water and air. Hear how national agencies and organizations are looking to the implementation of smart growth principals to address these health concerns, as well as what local health agencies are accomplishing by forming new "smart growth" partnerships.
  
  
• Examples of Excellence: Smart-Growth Projects That Work
  Industry leaders will show some of the best examples of smart growth master-planned communities from around the country. These successful projects prove that you can do well while doing "good." Featured projects include Stapleton Airport in Denver; and River Islands, a 5,000-acre, mixed-use development near San Francisco.
  
  
• Smart Growth Coastal Communties
  This panel will highlight Smart Growth approaches in coastal communities with examples from Massachusetts, South Florida, and the Georgia coast. New Bedford, MA, is encouraging community and waterfront revitalization in their city center by redeveloping brownfields and enhancing intermodal transportation. Through the Eastward Ho! Initiative, the Southeast Florida Regional Planning Council is taking a regional approach to focus new development in existing urban areas rather than sprawling west into the Everglades. NOAA's Coastal Services Center, the Georgia Conservancy, and the Georgia Coastal Program have completed a new Web-based tool which explores conventional, new urbanist, and conservation development scenarios in a coastal setting. The project includes a comparative analysis of specific environmental, social, and economic indicators for each scenario and 3-D visualizations of the three designs.
  
  
• Planning for Agriculture
  Farm, ranch and forestland are an important part of our economy, environment and culture. Yet, they are being developed at a faster rate than ever before, especially in urban-edge communities. This trend is being reversed in communities that understand that planning for agriculture is as important as planning for development. In this session, participants will learn how to build support for the protection of working landscapes, as well as how to create and implement a strategy to make agriculture economically viable and environmentally sustainable. Success stories from around the country and a case study from Carroll County, GA will be provided.
  
  
• Safe Routes in the Neighborhood
  Safe Routes to School programs by design focus on getting children to school safely. But it's just as important to promote safe routes for other road users too, such as seniors and other high-risk populations. Moreover, traffic safety education is a vital component of any effort to create a livable community. This session will explore how to promote pedestrian and bicycling safety to some other groups while also highlighting an innovative case study of a Safe Routes to School Program.
  
  
• Fixing It First: Targeting Infrastructure Investments to Improve State Economies and Invigorate Existing Communities
  This session is a behind-the-scenes look at "Fix It First"--a group of policies and programs employed by an increasing number of Governors and legislatures to build sustainable communities from the inside out. Building on the plenary session and using Massachusetts as a case study, panelists will explore a strategy that prioritizes state investments in existing communities before using state resources to develop in greenfields. Goals are accomplished by incentives and state agency restructuring that target and prioritize road, school, sewer, utilities, housing and other existing infrastructure. Come learn from real world players about the opportunities and challenges of "fix it first"--gaining policy support, realigning state investments, improving efficiency and coordinated planning to revitalize communities and create a sustainable quality of life for all persons.
  

FRIDAY CONCURRENT BREAKOUT SESSIONS

• Preserving the Environment in Dense and Sprawling Regions
  South Florida would be a perfect case study given the environmental issues associated with growth encroaching into the Everglades, including growth management and planning. People are moving into the Everglades at an alarming rate. This issue touches on housing, jobs, water, economic development, and local, state, and federal government.
  
  
• Sustainable Development: The Oldest and Newest Pioneers
  Two projects will be presented. The first, Village Homes, was completed 25 years ago. We'll look at how it is working out. The second, Haymount, builds on the success of the first, utilizing the most current technologies. Fully designed, it is now being built.
  
  
• From Point A to Point Z: Getting the Smart-Growth You Need
  Almost every smart growth project will require a zoning change. By now, most local governments know they cannot get the communities they want with existing zoning (or no zoning), and recognize there are better zoning options. But going from existing zoning to the new zoning needed is one of the largest hurdles out there; cautious property owners are wary of changes and neighbors fear a loss of control. Rezoning, like planning, is a process, and this session will look at the common challenges that come with deciding how to choose among new options for zoning codes, as well as better ways to execute the re-zoning process.
  
  
• Smart Schools and Smart Growth
  This session would focus on the importance of coalition-building and linking concerns between smart growth advocates and education equity and reform advocates in order to promote real sustainable change in our neighborhoods. There is a growing appreciation that these two movements are interrelated and both necessary for building healthier communities, especially for our most vulnerable children. The panel would discuss new national, statewide, and local linkages. On the national level, the new Smart Schools, Smart Growth Initiative has brought together the Public Education Network, Smart Growth America, and the Kellogg Foundation as lead partners. On a statewide basis, several states are looking at how to lessen their reliance on local property taxes to promote education equity and reduce sprawl. They are also trying to change school infrastructure spending so that it doesn't lead to "school sprawl." And, on the local level new coalitions are forming to link schools and smart growth and trying to promote "schools as centers of communities." The panel will discuss how these issues are co-joined, the opportunities for collaboration, and specific examples of how communities are bringing about change.
  
  
• Transportation Funding 101
  The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) was groundbreaking legislation that gave the states and localities more authority to use federal transportation funds, as they deemed appropriate. This Act especially encouraged local citizens' input and promoted transportation options through its Transportation Enhancements (TE) program and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program. In 1997, after ISTEA expired, Congress passed the Transportation Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21).
  
  This session will discuss the basics of transportation funding sources that provide funding for transportation projects that create livable communities as well as what a metropolitan planning organization and a state DOT has done to maximize their transportation funding to initiate transportation planning that results in communities that are safer and healthier for all.
  
  
• Regional Housing: Ascertaining the Reality, Assessing the Costs, and Addressing the Politics
  The recent wisdom on regional housing strategies suggests an attempt to move beyond the targeting of scarce housing resources to local jurisdictions without consideration of the regional and market contexts. Regional housing strategies focus on broadening a household's access to social and economic opportunities, including the location of housing and its influence on the educational performance of children. Regional housing strategies have been touted as a necessary step in delivering decent housing that is affordable, accessible to job and educational opportunities, reduces social exclusion and the need to travel, as well as fulfilling a basic need for shelter. This session provides a closer look at the reality, costs, and politics behind implementing regional housing approaches.
  

OPTIONAL FRIDAY EVENING SALON SESSIONS

• Smart-Growth and Older Driver Safety
  The salon session on Smart-Growth and Older Driver Safety will explore the relationship between community design and accommodating age-related changes that impact the ability to drive safely. Traffic engineers and gerontologists alike agree that steps can be taken, whether in original design or in retrofits, to facilitate safe driving by older adults--steps which will improve driving and walking safety for all.
  
  
• Mastering Plans
  This interactive session is intended to help developers, local governments, and smart-growth advocates learn how lines and shapes on a map might work once residents, workers, and visitors begin to interact with the built or rebuilt environment. Is the village square too big? Is the housing component too separated? Is the parking in the right place? Come trade stories with seasoned experts, planners and scholars in an informal and relaxed setting.
  
  
• Learning from Each Other: An Information Exchange for Public Health Professionals
  Come share your ideas, approaches and lessons learned on developing and implementing public health efforts to address the built environment. This salon is intended for both the novice and experienced and will give participants from all areas of public health an opportunity to exchange information and discuss strategies and opportunities.
  
  
• Systems Planning for Quality Transit Projects: Transit-Supportive Growth and Development
  We could use your professional opinion: The Federal Transit Administration is developing guidelines for conducting metropolitan-based systems planning. The objective is to improve the quality of transit, especially New Starts proposals, by strengthening the prerequisite technical, programmatic, and policy work conducted through metropolitan planning. A number of planning topic areas have been targeted as particularly crucial to support subsequent major capital transit project development, including: setting a regional context, strengthening regional partnerships, and land use planning. Today's session will look at how best to establish a regional policy framework for future land use and development at the metropolitan planning level while creating a long-range regional vision that maximizes the influence of transit.

Morning Break

SATURDAY CONCURRENT BREAKOUT SESSIONS

• Segregated Schools, Segregated Neighborhoods: What's the Smart-Growth Solution?
  The 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education has passed, and yet many American children go to schools as segregated as they were in 1954. What is it about our patterns of metropolitan development that contributes to this trend? Can the smart growth movement provide solutions to improve urban schools? Hear from a panel of national experts as they discuss the links between suburban sprawl and troubled schools, and the prospects for revitalizing urban neighborhoods through providing educational opportunity for all. Main points covered: patterns of racial and class segregation are entirely bound up with the trend of suburbanization over the past 60 years; troubled urban schools are a major (and often ignored) barrier to the revitalization/repopulation of urban neighborhoods; potential for a win/win/win for civil rights/school equity/smart growth advocates.
  
  
• Second Generation Growth Challenges
  Each generation has something to offer the next generation - and smart growth is no different. This session will feature the story of Ontario, which developed a long term growth plan 40 years ago. Their story is one of a vision and plan, and what is required over time in keeping true to that plan while also adapting to new pressures. Their story has many useful lessons for communities here in the United States. The session also features a full discussion on the implications of Measure 37, a ballot measure in Oregon seen as a challenge to the state' smart growth planning and implementation.
  
  
• Livable Communities and Urban Forestry
  Urban forestry is a key part of any smart growth development project. Trees shade streets and neighborhoods, cooling them in the summer months and reducing air conditioning loads and ozone formation. Trees create healthier places by shading people from harmful ultra-violet radiation and increasing the appeal of outdoor physical activity. Trees increase the economic value of neighborhoods. Tree planting and maintenance create jobs. Tree roots make the ground more porous, reducing urban runoff and associated water pollution. Leaves on trees catch rainfall and release it slowly, reducing flooding. Tree-lined roads slow cars and reduce pedestrian accidents. Trees reduce crime by drawing people outside, thus increasing the sense of community and shared responsibility. The more we learn about trees, the more problems we find they solve.
  
  Few local officials grasp the importance of trees to community water supplies, safety and security, health, walkability and bikeability, air quality, energy use, jobs, economics and aesthetics. It is the purpose of this session to make this information available to local officials in order to advance the creation of more livable neighborhoods, towns and cities.
  
  
  
• Street Design and Emergency Response
  Developers and jurisdictions that try to build safe, narrow, slow streets often run into opposition from fire departments and other emergency responders. What are their concerns and are there ways to work things out so that we can still build streets that are slow and safe but also allow emergency responders to operate? Listen to a fire chief and a street design expert describe examples and approaches that work.
  
  
• Building the Political Leadership That Leads to Change
  Panelists will argue that the key to success involves identifying the audience, finding a message that will appeal to that audience, and sticking to the message through time. Come learn this technique from marketing specialists.
  
  
• Universal Design: Addressing Access through Livable Communities
  Home design that does not accommodate the widest range of ages and abilities can inhibit quality of life and personal independence. There are a number of design elements to increase the accessibility of the housing stock, including universal design and visitability type features. Such strategies make it easier and more cost effective in the long run to successfully meet the needs of residents. This session will review successful design ideas, and methods to make them happen in a variety of communities.
  
  
• We're in the Money! Lessons from the Field on How to Find Resources for Smart-Growth
  As revenues plunge and budget deficits soar, it is increasingly difficult to fund projects that support sustainable communities. Responses to the challenge by multisector players range from targeting new resources to creative redirection of existing funding streams. We've combed the country for stellar examples of making ends meet and getting the job done. Come learn how practitioners have found both practical and innovative ways to stretch the dollar and produce results.
  
  
• Scenario Planning: Applications for Good Public Involvement
  This session will provide a discussion on how scenario-planning processes are helping to facilitate increased public involvement in transportation and land use decision-making in metropolitan regions. In addition, understanding the social equity implications to ensure non-traditional populations are included in the process will be discussed. The basic theme of each of these presentations is that technical tools and inclusive public participation techniques can assist communities, elected officials, and others in making more informed decisions regarding transportation and land use investments. The presentations will discuss lessons learned from efforts to increase public involvement in the transportation and land use decision-making process through the use of various techniques and scenario planning applications. The three projects that will be highlighted during this session are: The Eastern Planning Initiative in Charlottesville, Virginia; The Gainesville, Florida Scenario Planning Process and lessons learned from Chicago Metropolis.
  
  
• Maximizing Existing Assets: Redesigning the Business Park
  Researchers tell us that the creative class wants to be able to live, work, and play in the same walkable neighborhood - they want to run into their colleagues on the street or at the local coffee shop. This session will describe examples of old-style, isolated business parks that are being updated to meet today's needs through the addition of housing, town centers, retail and other amenities.
  
  
• Smart-Growth Alliances: Regional Partnerships to End Sprawl
  Smart growth has gained national attention as a solution to the challenges associated with growth. Successful smart growth initiatives have placed a strong emphasis on collaboration. In several regions around the country the Urban Land Institute has been able to bring groups representing developer, civic, and environmental interests together and put aside their differences to work together on common goals for smart growth. This session will feature case studies of several regions where alliances have been making progress.
  
  
• LEED for Neighborhood Development: Certifying Smart-Growth Projects as "Green"
  LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a national certification program for high-performance, sustainable buildings. The U.S. Green Building Council, in partnership with the Congress for the New Urbanism and the Natural Resources Defense Council is developing a LEED certification system that will include locational and land-planning criteria in addition to standards for structures. Case studies of projects will be presented as potential candidates for certification. The audience and panelists, in an interactive process, will discuss how each case example may or may not meet criteria for certification as a green or smart-growth project.
  
  

SATURDAY CONCURRENT WORKSHOPS

• Andres Duany on Form-Based Codes
  Form-based codes are rapidly gaining acceptance across the country as the preferred way to implement smart growth concepts. Come learn from the pioneering new urbanist architect who first pointed us in this direction. Andres Duany will describe his SmartCode, a blueprint for the form-based code and an important tool for helping communities create beautiful, walkable, activity-friendly places.
  
  
• Street Design and Walkable Communities: A Technical Workshop
  Creating more walkable communities is becoming a greater priority for many jurisdictions concerned with health, safety, livability, and economic vitality. But how do we go about building new, more walkable neighborhoods? And how do we retrofit existing neighborhoods that discourage walking. Come hear one of the nation's leading practitioners describe the art and science of designing and building more walkable communities.
  
  
• New Options for Tapping into Planning Expertise
  
  
• Best Practices for Public Involvement: Charrettes, Visioning, and Hi-Tech Tools
  Get the keys for turning NIMBYs into champions straight from the leaders. Victor Dover will present his award winning Charrette techniques including how to run a hands-on-workshop, Gianni Longo will cover his unique Visioning Process including how to get the right people to show up, and Eliot Allen will give a review of the cutting edge hi-tech tools and how to pick the right one for your job. You will leave with a whole new set of invaluable skills for your process tool bag.
  
  
• Advanced Placemaking
  The official definition of placemaking is the design of a building or area to make it more attractive to--and compatible with--the people who use it. As communities build and rebuild, the concept of developing timeless, memorable places is taking hold. This session will look at the historic context of placemaking, as well as the challenges and elements of placemaking. This workshop will then feature several case studies where participants are in charge of making a new place. The task will be to come up with a physical design and retailing/mixed-use program in which commercial activity helps build a sense of place. The session will ask participants to design, draw and develop retail strategies for their new places. Finally, the session will feature a broader discussion on buildings, areas and placemaking--and the people who use them.
  

SATURDAY CONCURRENT BREAKOUTS

• Neighborhood-led Smart Growth
  It’s one thing when developers come to the neighborhood, but a growing number of communities are finding success in turning the relationship around. Instead of hoping a patchwork development, redevelopment and open space projects add up and deliver, these communities mapped out and marketed a plan so that everyday needs are close at hand. This session is a 90-minute “how to“ on several critical aspects of bringing smart growth to the neighborhood, from how to organize neighborhoods to how to attract grocery stores.
  
  
• Taking Off the Gloves - A No Holds Barred Approach to Success
  The success or failure of projects today are rapidly becoming vested in the ability to forge multi-interest partnerships that create awareness or each participating party's needs and redefine how agreements can be reached to incorporate all the needs of all entities. The intent of this panel will be to profile a real world case study that can serve as the basis for establishing a new model and framework for achieving effective public policy, capital infrastructure investment, and private sector investment implementation. The session will bring together a cross-section of key players from a nationally recognized project in which this framework has been able to navigate the difficulties of institutional and relational change. Of particular interest will be the ability of participants to convey firsthand their, understanding of roadblocks and how they were removed, along with alternative methods to achieve project goals, and some of the lasting benefits the accrue from taking this new approach. The ability to understand the needs of all involved in a project and how these needs can be met will also be discussed with each panel member conveying his/her personal experiences about what it takes to break from conventional patterns. Particular attention will be placed on the differentiators required to stimulate change and progress.
  
  
• Working Lands-Rural Smart Growth
  Many rural areas feel that the only definition of economic development for them comes in the shape of light manufacturing or big box retail. As more land gets developed, the market is beginning to pay attention to what is lost in the conversion, whether its aquifer recharge, agriculture, habitat or tourism. This session will look at how the market is officially recognizing this value, and what rural areas can do to capture the value.
  
  
• Talking it Up: Communicating Smart Growth
  We live in a world where there are competing views on just about everything and smart growth is no exception. Talking about complex subjects that mix values, economics and the hard-to-measure aspects of everyday life can pose an even bigger challenge since "sound bites" are not an option. Sure there are plenty of websites, publications and growing legions of specialists, but where do you start in your search for the information and context-setting that will work in your community? This session will feature speakers who have spent the last several years in communities that are facing a wide range of prospects with growth and development. Come hear what they've heard to get the inside story on communicating smart growth.
  
  
• Healthy People, Health Communities: New Partnerships between Smart Growth and Public Health
  The wide range of health implications influenced by land use, community design, and transportation makes it imperative that health considerations are included and also prioritized within state, regional, and local planning processes. Gaining community support and finding champions among local leaders is key to ensuring that initiatives that link health and smart growth are successful. In jurisdictions across the country, planners, public health officials, elected officials, and community advocates are working together to develop healthy planning and design solutions. This session will describe several collaborative planning/public health initiatives currently underway and provide tools for community members, planners, and public health representatives who are interested in launching such an initiative in their community
  
  
• Take the Streetcar to Smart Growth
  As we plan for higher densities in cities, providing convenient transportation for destinations of 1 or 2 miles is critical. This session will examine the relative advantages and disadvantages of buses, streetcars and trolleys for this purpose. We will also get a chance to view fully developed streetcar suburbs and how they work.

SATURDAY CONCURRENT BREAKOUTS

• Innovative Infrastructure Financing Solutions
  States are facing tough budget choices today, and the question of how to provide roads, schools, water and wastewater systems has become a major issue. Yet the vast majority of local governments manage their infrastructure needs using the same tools and assumptions they used three decades ago. Given the budget problems facing so many state and local governments, it is time to update the way governments deliver infrastructure. Come hear about a new report from the NAHB, Building for Tomorrow: Innovative Infrastructure Solutions, which highlights a variety of alternative funding sources and mechanisms and the new climate for increased cooperation between the public and private sectors. This session will focus on implementation, innovative partnerships and "in the ground" case studies.
  
  
  
• Smart Growth's Urban Interface: Where New Density Meets the Old Neighborhood
  Smart growth's toughest battles can come down to the edge of the neighborhood where new density meets the established neighborhood. Fears of change and the introduction of urban unpleasantries dominate discussions, leaving little room to ask if there are ways to blend the new and old that minimizes the disruption while improving the quality of life for the existing residents. This session answers that question with a resounding--and thoughtful--yes. Come hear the planning and design secrets along the edges where new development meets the neighborhood.
  
  
  
• Boomburbs: Getting Smart Growth on the Fringe Now
  Many metropolitan regions have fast-growing suburban communities--the boomburbs--that often dwarf many medium-sized cities. Although smart-growth practices have been very successful in urban revitalization and infill situations, growth pressures continue to make sprawl the dominant pattern of development on the fringe in many regions throughout the country. Given the pace of growth and sprawl development patterns, the future of these regions requires that they integrate smart growth from the get go!
  
  Robert Lang, executive director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech and author of an upcoming special report commissioned by the Brookings Institute on Boomburbs, will provide an overview of the boomburbs, the challenges they face and what they are doing or not doing about smart growth. In June, the Urban Land Institute (ULI) brought together a team of expert designers, open-space specialists, developers, planners, and transportation specialists to respond to the challenges of accommodating growth on the fringe. From this meeting, ULI then synthesized a set of principles specifically tailored to address growth on the fringe; these principles could also assist many of these Boomburbs. James Heid, a participant in the meeting, will outline the ULI principles and the insights from this June meeting. After the presentations, two or three local respondents (local government officials, such as a mayor from one of the boomburbs, along with local private developers) will lead the discussion with their thoughts about the presentation and what it could mean for their communities.
  
  
  
• Preservation and Smart Growth: Finding Common Ground
  The preservation and smart growth movements both share a desire to promote mixed land uses, preserve farmland, and direct development towards existing communities. Hear how smart growth organizations can partner with preservation groups to accomplish their common goals. Recently Heritage Ohio/Downtown Ohio and Greater Ohio have begun to work together to encourage the passage of a state tax incentive for rehabilitating older structures. In Philadelphia, preservationists are teaming up with like-minded groups to address the issue of hundreds of vacant buildings. Learn how you can find common ground with new partners.
  
  
  
• Moving from Housing to Comprehensive Redevelopment: Affordable Housing as a Part of Sustainable Revitalization
  Affordable houses and affordable neighborhoods are not what your grandmother used to write home about! Gone are the days of scattered sites with poor design that are disconnected from transit, schools, jobs, services, and open space. In its place, affordable housing is emerging as a fit in every community. Affordable housing is the product of comprehensive planning, produces mixed-income neighborhoods, and provides quality suburban and core city lifestyles. Thoughtful strategies and distinctive compact redevelopment now link housing to transit, jobs, health care, and green space. Join on-the-ground practitioners as they discuss how to create a vision for comprehensive revitalization, facilitate community-based planning, and complete renewed sustainable communities that work.

Morning "Optional" Tours of Local Model Projects
Additional information on these tours can be found in the Special Features section.