Restoring Prosperity News
January 14, 2008 update
Land Policy Institute Gets $6 Million Grant (Michigan Farmer)
A new $6 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation will enable the Michigan State University Land Policy Institute to expand its role in helping shape Michigan’s future through the People and Land initiative.
Click here for more…
December 2007 Newsletter
In This Issue:
Restoring Prosperity Year in Review
Interview with Rep. Brian Higgins (NY)
Governor Spitzer Creates Smart Growth Cabinet
Policy Case Study: Fix it First in Michigan
November 2007 Newsletter
October 2007 Newsletter
In This issue
Growing Cooler Report
Vacant Properties Conference a Success
Upstate NY Funders Convene
New Vacant Properties Bill Introduced in Congress
Update from 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania
Genessee County Land Bank Gets Natl Recognition
Congressional Briefing on Vacant Properties
Articles
Reports
September 2007 Newsletter
September 2007 Newsletter
-Stronger New Orleans
-Bridge Repair Hearings
-Connecticut Responsible Growth Task Force
-Maine Bond Initiatives
-CDBG Bond Changes
-Articles
-Reports
Rebuilding for a Stronger New Orleans
Two years after Hurricane Katrina, rebuilding efforts are still underway in Louisiana. As the revitalization continues, many groups are working to use planning techniques that will provide for a stronger New Orleans both economically and physically. While the root cause of New Orleans’ troubles is unique, many of the policies the city is pursuing are relevant to the revitalization of America’s older industrial cities.
Louisiana Speaks, a project of the Louisiana Recovery Administration, provides the official regional plan for rebuilding and contains input from 27,000 Louisiana citizens. The plan includes locating new government and state buildings within already urbanized areas and removing obstacles to infill. It also suggests utilizing existing infrastructure to encourage emerging industries. For example, old oil platforms could be reused “to support new fisheries practices, greenhouse gas sequestration, wind energy, and recreational fishing and diving parks.” This creative approach to existing infrastructure can also be helpful in other older industrial cities.
Out-of-state groups are lending a hand in the planning process as well, with a group of University of Missouri-Kansas City students proposing a plan for a three mile “Greenway” that “would link several historic neighborhoods in the central part of the city with the still-bustling French Quarter at one end and a large park on the other.”
House Transportation Committee Holds Hearings on Bridge Repair Proposal
Last Thursday, the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held hearings on improving the country’s more than 70,000 “structurally deficient” bridges. Representative James Oberstar (D-MN) has proposed increasing the federal gas tax by 5 cents per gallon, to create a new $25 billion trust fund for bridge repairs in legislation that will be introduced later this month.
To ensure upkeep of existing road and bridge networks, several states have adopted ‘Fix it First’ policies, which help focus infrastructure investment on repair before new building. In New Jersey, for example, the state passed legislation in 2000 that requires cities to adequately maintain current roads before beginning construction of new transportation projects. Other states, however, have been slower to make changes, as Toni Gold of 1,000 Friends of Connecticut points out.
For many of America’s older industrial cities, new highways to the suburbs do little but increase gas use and encourage sprawl. But Representative Oberstar’s legislation will likely face opposition, both from opponents of a gas tax increase, as well as from those who maintain that our country’s infrastructure problem isn’t lack of funding, it’s federal policies that allow states to shirk their repair responsibilities.
Connecticut Creates Responsible Growth Task Force
Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell recently signed legislation that would create a Responsible Growth Task Force in the state, charged with helping to “guide the state’s economic development decisions and study state land use laws, policies and programs.” The bill also creates a “regional performance incentive program, which encourages regional planning to incorporate compact, transit-accessible, pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use development patterns,” according to the Hartford Courant.
Perhaps the most important part of the legislation is a requirement that all discretionary spending from state agencies comply with the state’s responsible growth platform. This means that nearly all investment decisions in the state must compliment responsible growth. The new task force must issue a report by February 15, 2008 with its recommendations for smarter growth. For the latest news on this and other Connecticut smart growth issues, visit 1,000 Friends of Connecticut.
Prosperity-Related Bonds Aim to Boost Education, R&D, Green Space Funding in Maine
This November, Maine will have three bond issues on the ballot that would provide increased funding for higher education, research and development, and the preservation of green space within the state. These bonds, backed by GrowSmart Maine, aim to help Maine retain its talent base and quality of life.
Spurred by a recent Brookings Institution report, Charting Maine’s Future, GrowSmart Maine has worked over the past year to turn around troubling statistics for the state, including the loss of college graduates, economic declines, and lower environmental quality of life. One of the Brooking Institutions’ main recommendations was that Maine should capitalize on its unique assets such as the environment and innovation-oriented service economy. These bond measures would help emphasize these advantages by injecting funding into education and the environment, both investments in Maine’s future.
The first initiative would set aside $55 million for increased research and development within the state. According to GrowSmart Maine, the state currently ranks last in state university research and development. The second bond issue would provide $43.5 million for improvements and additions to colleges throughout Maine, as well as financing to replenish the state’s school renovation fund, helping to bring facilities in the Maine Community College and University of Maine system into the 21st century. The third initiative allows for $35.5 million in spending to set aside green space throughout the state.
GAO Considers CDBG Formula Changes
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) held a briefing in August about the expected findings of its year-long evaluation of alternative formulas for allocating federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to the program’s entitlement communities. The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department’s CDBG program provides annual federal funding to cities, urban counties, and states for a wide range of activities focused on economic opportunity, development, neighborhood revitalization, and housing.
The grants stand out as a significant source of federal funding for older industrial cities and other communities throughout the country, and consequently formula changes for the program could have a significant impact on the flow of federal funds. GAO had been expected to release its formula report in September but the agency recently announced it would have the report ready for release in early 2008.
At the briefing, GAO officials explained that the agency’s proposed alternatives to the current CDBG formulas would flow from a GAO community development needs index for entitlement communities and the proposed formula factors that correspond to the needs index poverty adjusted for cost of living, pre-1970 housing units rented by poverty households, and the working age population lacking high school diplomas. GAO will offer a formula based only upon needs, with poverty levels adjusted for geographical differences in the cost of living. It will also present a formula that uses needs, but adjusts for geographical differences in the cost of services, especially construction, which accounts for over half of all CDBG spending. And GAO also will present a formula based on needs with cost-of-service adjustments but also adjustments designed to reflect a community’s ability to raise revenues, based on per capita income levels.
GAO will propose eliminating the current option that entitlement communities have to select their funding under one of two CDBG formulas Formula A and Formula B. Many older industrial cities now prefer to use CDBG’s Formula B, which was established in the 1970s to ensure federal dollars for communities with older infrastructure and lagging population growth or declining populations. It is not yet clear how GAO’s proposed formulas might affect older industrial cities or what the reaction will be from Congress to the GAO report. GAO is the investigative arm of Congress charged with auditing and evaluation of government programs and activities.
Articles
Size of New Homes Starts Shrinking As Builders Battle Housing Slump
The Wall Street Journal (September 12)
Housing Costs Consumed More of Paycheck in 2006
The New York Times (September 12)
Buffalo Bills quarterback rolling up his sleeves to beautify Buffalo, and invites others along
Smart Growth Around America and the Buffalo News (August 26)
Birmingham: Can This City Be Saved?
The Birmingham News (August 19)
[Lehigh] Valley’s boroughs offer more than one-stop malls
The Morning Call (August 30)
[Sioux City] Council takes comments on citywide urban revitalization
Sioux City Journal (August 27)
Report calls for better managed growth in [Albany, NY] urban areas
Albany Business Journal (August 13)
Reports
The Urban Land Institute recently released Regenerating Older Suburbs, a book that focuses on the issues surrounding aging, inner-ring suburbs. It addresses “the role of the public sector; incentives the public sector has utilized; what piques the interest of private developers; and what can be done to improve the quality and pace of redevelopment.” For more information, click here.
Hope Needs Help, a recent report from PolicyLink, outlines the challenges to rebuilding an equitable New Orleans. Difficulties include providing affordable housing, returning small businesses to the region, and providing quality education resources