Finally, someone is looking at the sidewalks!

How many times have you been walking somewhere when the sidewalk suddenly ends and your only options are walking on a busy road or walking through an unkempt field? Even Google is guilty of providing walking routes to people without taking into account whether sidewalks actually exist on those roads. Well, someone is finally starting to recognize that usable sidewalks matter and can spur economic development. AMATS (Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study) is compiling a comprehensive map of the region's sidewalks.  You can view the most up-to-date list at http://ci.akron.oh.us/AMATS/whatsnew.asp.

An Ohio.news article Sidewalks are strolling to forefront discusses AMATS' project and how sidewalks contribute to sustainable development.

Even relatively short sidewalks can be attractive to people who don't want their kids walking to a neighbor's house in the street. But linking scattered stretches certainly makes sense — assuming the money is there.

''We're not talking millions of dollars,'' Baker says, ''but maybe there are missing links, places where $100,000 could make important connections, especially in those heavily used commercial corridors.''

Livable Communities: Just What the Doctor Ordered

Smart Growth America Release

CONTACT: David Goldberg

Communications Director

(202) 412-7930

Livable Communities: Just What the Doctor Ordered

Smart Growth America Praises American Academy of Pediatrics’ Community Prescription for Child Health

Washington, D.C. — Geoff Anderson, President and CEO of Smart Growth America, today praised the American Academy of Pediatrics for prescribing community design as a crucial part of child health (“POLICY STATEMENT: The Built Environment: Designing Communities to Promote Physical Activity in Children”). The American Academy of Pediatrics today:

• links community design to overall child health,
• encourages pediatricians to work with parents to promote more walkable, livable communities, and
• calls on government to plan for and invest in transportation in ways that best advance the health, safety, and financial well being of American families.

American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statements are “Organizational Principles to Guide and Define the Child Health Care System and/or Improve the Health of All Children”. Today’s policy statement appears in the June issue of Pediatrics^®, the flagship journal of the AAP.

Pediatrics has been ranked #1 out of 74 pediatrics journals by the Thomson/ISI Journal Citation Reports for the fourth consecutive year.

Geoff Anderson:

“Healthy communities mean healthy kids. The American Academy of Pediatrics is the most authoritative voice in the United States for healthy kids, and we applaud the Academy for stepping forward to connect smart neighborhood design to the well being of our children. We also applaud the Academy for calling on our government leaders to act on that connection.

“We can have a direct impact on reducing childhood obesity, lowering the pollution that causes asthma, and improving our children’s quality of life. We can—and the American Academy of Pediatrics says we should—build less car-dependent communities, make existing routes to school safer, and ensure that children and their parents have safe, active transportation options like walking or bicycling.

“Looking ahead, we encourage the Obama administration, the U.S. Congress, and our state and local leaders to include childhood health as they make transportation decisions. By spending transportation portions of the economic stimulus and shaping upcoming transportation legislation in ways that prioritize healthier, better living, they can build 21^st Century infrastructure that is safer, cleaner, smarter and healthier for the next generation.”

The AAP Policy Statement is available at: http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;123/6/1591

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ABOUT SGA

Smart Growth America is a coalition of national, state and local organizations working to improve the ways we plan and build the towns, cities and metro areas we call home. The coalition includes many of the best-known national organizations advocating on behalf of historic preservation, the environment, farmland and open space preservation, neighborhood revitalization and more. Our state- and regional-level members are community-based organizations working to save treasured landscapes while making our towns and cities ever more livable and lovable.

Greater Ohio speaks at the upcoming "Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference"

On Monday, June 1st from 2:30-5:30, Greater Ohio's Lavea Brachman will join other experts on the Building a State Vacant Properties Campaign training session. The session is part of the Reclaiming Vacant Properties Campaign in Louisville, KY from June 1st-3rd. Although online registration is now closed, on-site registration is available.

With the rising number of foreclosures, blight from vacant properties confronts communities across the country and severely threatens neighborhood stability. Cities of all shapes and sizes are searching for innovative, cost effective strategies to abate these public nuisances and transform vacant properties into catalysts for revitalization. As the new Obama Administration gets under way, what better time to join your vacant property colleagues to share successful initiatives taking place across the country and discuss the new opportunities to change the federal and state policies that affect our cities and towns.

Reclaiming Vacant Properties: Building Leadership to Restore Communities is the only national conference focusing on building the knowledge, leadership, and momentum to reclaim vacant and abandoned properties for thriving neighborhoods.

Civic Capacity: Some cities have it, other do not

The Wall Street recently published an interesting comparative piece of two cities in Michigan: Ann Arbor, a city with promise and Warren, a city in decline. The article, Ann Arbor and Warren: A Tale of Two Economies, not only addresses the need for cities to move beyond the automotive industry as the economic driver, to a more diverse group of innovative industries, it also shows the difference civic capacity makes in fostering growth. During my travels as the Project Coordinator at Greater Ohio, I have witnessed the decline in civic capacity throughout the entire state of Ohio. As big box stores overtake mom and pop businesses, the city loses the people who traditionally fill civic leadership roles. Ann Arbor is fortunate to have the University of Michigan and has wisely invested in this asset to create more jobs and spur innovation. New technology companies crop up and there is a supply of leaders to improve the quality of the city and offer residents a safe and unique culture.

"Over the years, the city [Ann Arbor] developed the types of schools, cultural institutions and amenities that made it an attractive place to live and work. Google, whose co-founder Larry Page attended the University of Michigan, opened an Ann Arbor campus in 2006. About 70,000 people commute to this city, about 40 miles west of Detroit, each day.

Accio Energy got its start in 2007, based on plans two of the founders hatched at Zingerman's Deli, Ann Arbor's renowned gourmet-food destination."

In contrast to Warren which "has the largest concentration of auto workers in the country, job transitions are more difficult to make. Just one in five of Warren's workers between the ages of 25 and 64 holds a bachelor's degree or higher, a relic of the days when a college degree wasn't necessary to find a job that paid well. By comparison, three-quarters of Ann Arbor's work force has at least a college degree."

There are leaders in Ohio's cities, however they can not go it alone and will need to grow in numbers and in strength in order to make an impact.

The Greatest Threat to Our Planet...Sprawl

Cleveland pushes for bike accessibility in the downtown

The bike movement has hit Cleveland and the city is responding by constructing a bike station that will offer downtown bikers a place to park their bike as well as have access to showers, changing rooms, lockers and even a small repair shop staffed by a mechanic. As Mark Lefkowitz of GreenCityBlueLake reports in Downtown bike station can catalyze mode shift, this bike station needs to be viewed in the context of a continuous movement: "Consider the question in the context of the region’s long-range plans for transportation investment. We are incorporating climate action goals in NOACA’s long-range plan. The next logical step is specific carbon reduction strategies such as offsetting Vehicle Miles Traveled by “X” percent. One way we reduce greenhouse gasses is to take cars off of the road. Investing in bicycling infrastructure can help."

Cleveland has the right mindset toward transportation; it is time that Ohio start looking at alternatives to the automobile, however one thought: What will bikers do during the winter?

• See the plan and architectural drawings for the Gateway bike parking station here and here.

Saving Energy: Does every little bit really count?

David MacKay, a physics professor at the Univeristy Cambridge, wrote an insightful commentary on CNN news, Let's get real about alternative energy. The article gives a realistic view of the feasibility of alternative energy and how that would impact our lives. In the article, MacKay breaks down the amount of energy simple household products use (One kilowatt-hour (kWh) per 40-watt bulb on for 24 hours), how much the average persons uses in a year (the average European uses 125 kWh per day per person; the average American uses 250 kWh per day for transport, heating, manufacturing, and electricity). MacKay uses this information to put into perspective how much alternative forms of energy really produce. For those of you interested in learning more about "green" energy this is a great article. Ultimately, in current economy the best thing you can do to save energy is to buy an electric car (Hydrogen cars use around 254 kWh per 100 km, the average fossil car in Europe uses 80 kWh per 100 km; the electric vehicles use as little as 20 kWh per 100 km, or even 6 kWh per 100 km)!

Event: Restoring Prosperity to Cleveland Mini-Summit

Restoring Prosperity to Cleveland Mini-Summit

Monday, June 8, 10:30 a.m.-4:15 p.m.

As part of the Brookings Institution/Greater Ohio Restoring Prosperity to Ohio Initiative, join Policy Bridge and corporate, civic, political, academic and philanthropic leaders from the Cleveland area to explore alignment of the Cleveland urban revitalization agenda with state reforms.

The Cleveland Mini-Summit will build on the momentum and success of the Brookings/Greater Ohio Restoring Prosperity to Ohio Summit held last fall. The State Summit launched the Restoring Prosperity to Ohio Initiative and unveiled a state reform agenda with the goal of revitalizing the state’s communities and reinvigorating their economic competitiveness.

View the flyer here.

Register.

The low-down on Columbus, Ohio

The Urbanophile Blog recently wrote an article, Columbus: The New Midwestern Star, discussing the ins and outs of Columbus. It does an excellent job of examining the strengths and the weaknesses of the city as well as providing suggestions for future improvement. As the author puts it "On the whole, I think Columbus is rocking and rolling. Because of its weak name recognition and the fact that it is in Ohio, I think it flies almost completely under the radar. But this an impressive city and one that is arguably the best positioned of any Midwestern metro to really prosper in the 21st century economy. For those of you who haven't been to Columbus, I strongly suggest a visit. This is not a Cincinnati or Chicago like place where you will be immediately wowed by the coolness of the built environment. But I think it will surprise you nevertheless."

Although Columbus has managed to escape many fo the effects of the economic downturn, it is important to remember that other cities throughout Ohio, which also contribute to the success of the state, have not been as fortunate. These cities will need to take lessons from Columbus as well as develop local area agendas that align with the state reform agenda to target their assets and grow sustainably.

Northeast Ohio Group examines possible regional approach

Regional Governance is a must. Ohio has over 3800 jurisdictions; there is a cost to this fragmentation. Creating incentives for regional collaboration and governance experiments through shared support services, county or metro-wide efforts to increase efficiencies will reduce administrative costs. There are also opportunities for agency realignment & collaboration through aligning state departmental (e.g. ODOT, OBOR & ODOD) strategic plan recommendations.

Many community leaders recognize the inefficiencies of Ohio's current government and are coming together to create a new way to conceptualize Ohio's economy. The Regional Prosperity Initiative (RPI) taking place in Northeast Ohio appears to have the most headway in creating a new conceptualization of how Ohioans do business. The Regional Prosperity Initiative is composed of multiple drill down teams which collaboration to create policies that, once implemented, "will provide the structure for region-wide land use planning and new growth revenue sharing in the 16-county Northeast Ohio region. In short, the RPI will allow our region to plan, share and grow…together" (Click for more information).

A recent article by Governing magazine, Ready-to-Go Regionalism has caught many leaders' attention. This article argues that regional governance is desirable but rarely a priority for America's Metropolitan areas due to the inability for agreement, often due to the myriad of political jurisdictions, coupled with the unwillingness of cities, counties, suburbs and townships to sacrifice for regional governance creates a huge roadblock. However, it argues that many of these areas unknowingly have a regional government through their Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). The strength of these MPOs varies with each city but may be a vehicle, if stregthened with the upcoming federal transportation bill, to create metropolitan regions.