coal, not the federal government. But in the case of transportation and housing—two sectors that accounted for more than 43 percent of the nation’s carbon emissions in
2008<\/a>—Washington’s
siloed approach of divided, blindered policymaking could put wheat farmers to
shame.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Obama administration is starting to break down those
barriers between agencies, asking the Department of Transportation (DOT), the
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to take an all-hands-on-deck approach to smart growth.
Dubbed the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, the effort aims to provide
federal support for localities that want to offer more walkable neighborhoods
and cleaner commuting options than the car.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“When it comes to housing, environmental, and transportation <\/p>\n To smart-growth advocates who have waged long battles <\/p>\n The biggest pot of money for the administration’s <\/p>\n “This isn’t a case of HUD and EPA saying, ‘DOT has all this <\/p>\n Shelley Poticha, a longtime transportation reformer who became <\/p>\n “To me this is about helping to rebuild our economy, about <\/p>\n But with Democrats facing deficit anxiety within their own <\/p>\n John Petro, urban policy analyst at the nonprofit Drum Major <\/p>\n “It’s making the best of this moment,” he said. “When Obama <\/p>\n Veteran urban infrastructure analyst Anthony Flint<\/a>, of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy<\/a>, echoed that perspective <\/p>\n While the administration has embraced the idea of a stronger <\/p>\n “It’s very much tied in to those who are calling action on <\/p>\n When asked about ideological obstacles to funding and <\/p>\n The ‘New Federalism’<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n A major part of the Partnership’s ethos is redefining the <\/p>\n “Today, challenges we once associated with cities—from <\/p>\n A sprawling metro area such as Raleigh-Durham, N.C., for <\/p>\n The Partnership is not the first federal attempt to get <\/p>\n That type of open communication between different levels of <\/p>\n “The proof will be in pushing that same type of <\/p>\n But Schroeer of Smart Growth America thinks smart-growth <\/p>\n The high level of interest in the TIGER program is evidence <\/p>\n Initially, Poticha confessed, “I’d been something of a <\/p>\n After hearing from local officials, however, she and other <\/p>\n “It was one of those moments when you just thought, ‘If they Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n Hop on the bus, texters<\/a><\/p>\n Van Jones explains his resignation from the White House<\/a><\/p>\n New cases of water pollution documented at U.S. coal ash dumps<\/a><\/p>\n
policy, it’s time the federal government spoke with one voice,” HUD Secretary
Shaun Donovan said this month in a speech that officially tapped his deputy,
former Seattle-area official Ron
Sims<\/a>, as the Partnership’s leader and “Designated Silo Buster.”<\/p>\n
against sprawl without much backup from Washington,
the Partnership is a cause for celebration.
The White House’s 2011 budget request included $527 million for the
Partnership, though Congress may not actually allocate the funds. Separately, HUD plans to award $100 million
in new grants for regional sustainability plans that integrate transportation,
housing, and land use by late summer.<\/p>\n
smart-growth focus is coming from the stimulus law—$1.5 billion in TIGER
grants<\/a> (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) for
transportation projects that create jobs and help develop livable
communities. DOT is administering the
program, but it asked HUD and the EPA to help choose the grantees.<\/p>\n
money, let’s get in on it,’” said Will Schroeer, state policy director for Smart Growth America<\/a>. “This is a
case of the agencies reaching out to each other, saying, ‘Your decisions affect
us and our decisions affect you—let’s make these decisions together.’”<\/p>\n
a senior adviser to the Partnership<\/a> in July, argues that smart-growth
efforts are key to fighting the recession.<\/p>\n
growing jobs in terms of making housing more energy-efficient,” she said in an
interview. “It’s also about helping places and regions really understand where
their economic future is going and how they can use that to be more
sustainable.”<\/p>\n
ranks and an opposition eager to depict new programs as the encroaching hand of
“big government,” it remains to be seen whether the Obama team can translate
their energy into significant progress toward denser, more close-knit local
development. A bill
sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd<\/a> (D-Conn.) would officially create an office
within HUD to focus on sustainable communities and authorize up to $4 billion
in grants over the next four years, but it has yet to see even one vote in
committee, leaving the administration to use its own devices and seek one-year
infusions of money for the Partnership’s plans.<\/p>\n
Institute for Public Policy<\/a>, offered a consciously pragmatic take on what the
Partnership can achieve during an economic downturn.<\/p>\n
came into office, transit advocates were giving high-fives, [thinking] that
from this moment forward, we’re going to see new priorities from the federal
government and even Congress. With the recession and the financial crisis, the
situation has changed.”<\/p>\n
but warned that budgetary constraints and political realities could turn into a
drag on the administration’s smart-growth agenda. “Somewhat similar to what’s
happening with the stimulus, the question is: Is it really enough?” he said.
“And is it going to go to the right things?”<\/p>\n
federal role in local community-building, Flint
added, Obama aides seem to have paid less attention to countering politically
motivated critics who depict smart growth as an attempt to
dictate Americans’ lifestyle choices<\/a>.<\/p>\n
climate change a distraction and unnecessary,” Flint said. “In the court of public opinion,
that seems like pretty tough going. Do they [the Obama administration] have a
talking-points kind of campaign for that? I don’t know.”<\/p>\n
support for less auto-centric development, Poticha cited studies that have
found walkable communities generating up to 50 percent of future housing-market
demand—not to mention a lower
share of foreclosures<\/a>. “We’re not dictating anything, we’re not saying,
‘You’ve got to build in a certain exact way,’” she said. “There are still
plenty of sources of money that help all the folks who don’t agree with this
approach.”<\/p>\n
way Americans view their hometowns, treating the urban-suburban cultural divide
like another outmoded silo to be dissolved.<\/p>\n
homelessness to foreclosures—have become suburbanized,” HUD chief Donovan
noted in his speech this month, calling for “a new federalism, attuned to
place” that encourages different regions to connect their residents in ways
that make sense locally.<\/p>\n
example, would be encouraged to pursue different transportation and land-use
strategies than denser, already transit-rich cities (think New York) or
fast-growing exurbs (think Loudoun County, Va., or Kendall County, Ill.).<\/p>\n
involved in local projects such as mixed-use zoning laws and pedestrian plazas.
More than a decade ago, Vice President Al Gore promoted an array of
smart-growth grants under the umbrella of “Livable Communities
for the 21st Century<\/a>.” The Clinton
administration effort even included a “listening tour” with local officials working
on development reform, similar to the September
tour<\/a> that Poticha made with the three Cabinet members she advises.<\/p>\n
government will be crucial to the Partnership’s success, said John Robert
Smith, who succeeded Poticha at the helm of the transportation-reform group Reconnecting America<\/a>.<\/p>\n
collaborative effort down to the state and local faces” of HUD, DOT, and the
EPA, Smith said. “If it doesn’t get to the local level of implementation, it’s
not going to happen effectively.”<\/p>\n
efforts are better positioned to succeed now than ever before. During the late
1990s, he said, “we just didn’t know how to do some of those projects, and now
we do. [Now] it’s not so much being pushed from Washington as it is being demanded by
communities.”<\/p>\n
of that demand. More than 1,450
applications for grants, seeking a total of $59 billion in funding, flowed into
the DOT, but only
51<\/a> [PDF] got to split the $1.5 billion available. The winning proposals included $50 million
for Kansas City’s urban Green Impact Zone<\/a>, which aims to
give low-income residents weatherization job training as well as better transit
access, and a $5.6 million remodeling of downtown
Dubuque, Iowa<\/a>, one of the three stops on the Partnership’s September
sustainability tour.<\/p>\n
skeptic about including Dubuque,” a city of less than 60,000 that is known more
for its actual silos than for any commitment to bicycling or green buildings.<\/p>\n
Partnership officials walked away believers. “It was incredible—here in this
small community in the middle of the country, they had just completely embraced
the idea that the key to the future of their town was reinvesting in downtown,”
Poticha said.<\/p>\n
can do it in Dubuque,
we can do this anywhere.’”<\/p>\n
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