Nation's Cities - December 5, 2011

2 NATION’S CITIES WEEKLY
December 5, 2011

COLUMNIST
The 52-Cent Case for ‘Sustainability’

by Neal Peirce
“Sustainability.” It’s 14 let-
ters, six syllables. Small wonder
many people blanch when they
read or hear the word. Some
may ask: “Is it something about
the environment?”
For clarity and to stress
the timeliness of their work,
the managers of the Obama
administration’s “Sustainable
Communities” program
are switching strategies.
Competitive planning grants
for cities and regions are still
the top goals. But instead of
talking first about more effi-
cient land use, transit or town
planning, the new focus is on
raw economics.

Clearly, more and more local communities “get” the salien-cy of this approach. Shaun Donovan, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, cites the outpouring of interest in HUD’s most recent Sustainable Communities nationwide competition, announced Nov. 21. There were eight times as many applicants as awardees, $500 million in funding requests, but only $96 million to distribute among all winners.

Significantly, Donovan noted, this awards process is evoking growing interest among chambers of commerce and economic development corporations that are glad to become “core partners” in the local applicant coalitions.

The grants — 27 for individual communities, 29 for regions — are spread from Boston to Denver to Seattle, from the deeply depressed city of Opa-Locka, Fla., to heavily rural Fremont County, Idaho.

All provide federal seed or stimulus money to challenge local areas to create high-quality, interconnected housing, transportation and workforce development plans that show clear potential economic payoffs.

Each project has to incorporate clear fact-based assessments; all are followed closely in implementation by the HUD Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities headed by Shelley Poticha.

“We’re unusual for the
federal government,” notes
Poticha, “by investing in pro-
active strategies to shape the
future and not just the historic
pattern of federally supported
capital projects.”
The HUD effort doesn’t
stand alone: It is one section
of the Obama administration’s
Partnership for Sustainable
Communities (smartcom
munities.gov), which works
to coordinate smart growth,
sustainable and economically
promising initiatives and poli-
cies across historically rigid
departmental lines. Encouraged
and endorsed by the White
House Domestic Policy
Council, the three official play-
ers are HUD, the Department
of Transportation and the
Environmental Protection
Agency.

Neal Peirce’s e-mail address is nrp@citistates.com.

© 2011, The Washington
Post Writers Group
The opinions expressed in this
column are not necessarily those of
the National League of Cities or
Nation’s Cities Weekly.