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About the Event

Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century
Global warming, water and air pollution, droughts, floods, high gas prices, housing foreclosures, obesity, food scarcity - properly implemented, smart growth has a role to play in meeting each of these future challenges.

The New Partners for Smart Growth Conference has grown significantly since it began several years ago — increasing in scope, attendance, and prestige — and is now considered to be the "premier" smart growth conference held each year. The strength of this conference comes from the variety of participants and speakers who cross disciplines to share experiences and insights, and valuable tools and strategies to encourage smart growth implementation and "get it done."

Planning for the 8th annual conference comes on the heels of a hugely successful conference held in our nation’s capitol in February ‘08. Join us in January 2009 in the beautiful state of New Mexico, for the latest in smart growth — the latest research, cutting-edge implementation tools and techniques, best practices, model projects, policies and codes, coordinated networking activities, interactive learning experiences, and new partners. Most importantly, this dynamic event offers you the opportunity to network and coordinate with your peers as well as practitioners from many different disciplines.

Who Will Benefit

The conference will draw a multidisciplinary audience of local elected officials, city and county staff, landscape architects, developers and builders, planners, transportation professionals and traffic engineers, public health professionals, architects, bankers, realtors, urban designers, parks and recreation professionals,school superintendents and board members and facilities staff, environmentalists,crime prevention professionals, advocates for older adults and youth, bicycle and pedestrian advocates, advocates for social equity and affordable housing, labor representatives, and all others committed to building safer, healthier, and more livable communities everywhere.

The Venue — “The Land of Enchantment”

The vibrant city of Albuquerque, in the heart of New Mexico’s "land of enchantment" is the perfect setting for this year’s event. Known to many as the "Duke City", Albuquerque can be viewed a crossroads city, trying to balance future challenges with the desire to preserve centuries of cultural heritage. The city is a perfect laboratory for the potential of smart growth to enhance the cultural, environmental and economic fabric of the city and state. Sitting at the intersection of Interstates 25 and 40, the region stands on the verge of rapid growth, with new "green-tech" and film industries emerging in the local economy to compliment the legacy of high-tech capital flowing from the Sandia National Laboratory and Intel in nearby Rio Rancho.

It’s how Albuquerque chooses to accommodate growth pressures, as a growing competitor in the Southwest region that brings the region to a crossroads. Water and climate change are key factors compelling the area leaders to reassess its past devotion to sprawl and car-centric transportation systems. The centuries-old confluence of cultures, and the fragility of the high-desert, water-scarce landscape adds a rich and unique dynamic to the way the state must meet the challenges of growing an economy and a region. As the largest metro region of the state, Albuquerque exerts positive and negative influences on the entire state, from its diverse traditional farming villages to numerous sovereign Indian Pueblos and the Navajo Nation. Around town, attendees will witness smart growth principles in practice, at times in its early stages, like redevelopment of the historic rail yards. Other times at its best like the Sawmill Community Land Trust, a nationally recognized affordable housing infill project in the cultural heart of the city. At the fringe of the city, new master-planned developments of a tremendous scale promise to bring the region into national prominence, both because of the innovative community design being employed and because of the prospect of major economic development for the region. The region is an outdoor enthusiast’s mecca, with beautiful Santa Fe, the state capitol, and skiing, biking, hiking all an hour away or less. The legendary Rio Grande runs the length of the city and is easily accessible to walkers and bikers from downtown.

The Program

The program will span three full days. There will be some pre-conference tours scheduled for Wednesday, January 21st, but the main program will kick-off on Thursday morning, January 22nd and continue through Saturday afternoon. The three-day schedule includes a dynamic mix of plenaries, breakouts, implementation workshops, specialized trainings, peer-to-peer learning opportunities, and coordinated networking activities. It will also feature exciting tours of local projects in the Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos areas, and many other interesting case studies from throughout the region.

There will be something for everybody, from veteran experts to smart-growth novices, with over 100 sessions and workshops. Learn from hundreds of speakers who cross disciplines to share insights, valuable tools and strategies for making smart growth a success in your community.

Conference History

The origins of this smart growth conference can be traced to late 1995 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency first launched its smart growth program. As part of this effort, they looked to organize a national conference that would focus on environmentally sensitive growth and development.

In December 1997, the EPA, together with the Urban Land Institute, co-sponsored the first "Partners for Smart Growth" conference. This year marks the 10-year anniversary of that first groundbreaking event. Conferences followed in Austin in 1998, then San Diego and finally, in Atlanta. The LGC participated in the San Diego conference, organizing a third day focused on smart growth in the Western States.

The LGC began organizing conferences on "livable communities" somewhat earlier, producing five installments of its highly successful “Putting Our Communities Back on Their Feet Conference” on the East and West Coasts in the mid-to-late 1990’s.

In 2001, the LGC partnered with the Centers for Disease Control, the California Department of Transportation and Penn State University to produce a “first of its kind” national, multidisciplinary event titled "Redesigning Community: A Smart Growth Approach to Street and Neighborhood Design, Crime Prevention, and Public Health and Safety" in San Diego.

Immediately following that event, the EPA approached the LGC about merging their collective efforts. Addressing the key issues on the table in 2001 through 2008, the appropriately titled "New Partners for Smart Growth" multidisciplinary conference has been offered successively in San Diego, New Orleans, Portland, Miami, Denver, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC.

The strength of the conference comes from the diversity of participants who cross disciplinary lines to share experiences and insights, valuable implementation tools and strategies. The 2009 event continues this exciting trend and includes even more new partners who recognize smart growth as a viable solution to the problems they face in their own professions.

With the challenges our nation is currently facing, there are more reasons than ever to join hands with new partners and work toward our common goal of creating safe, healthy, walkable, economically vibrant and livable communities for all.