Obama Creating Partnerships for Sustainable Communities

About a month ago I attended the New Partners for Smart Growth Annual Conference in Seattle,Washington. While there, I had a chance to listen to listen to Secretary Shaun Donovan of the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Secretary Ray Lahood of U.S Department of Transportation (DOT) and Lisa Jackson of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) present on their initiatives to work together to help build more sustainable communities and ways in which communities can partner with the federal government to make smart growth happen on the ground. They touched on building more walkable communities, focusing on Transit Oriented Development (TOD) and becoming a greener and more efficient nation.

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. These efforts include all three agencies creating offices of sustainable development and tearing down the "silos" between government agencies that will make it easier to partner with cities and states and provide them with federal resources

Below is the link to the Opinion Article that ran in the Seattle Times during the conference, written by Secretaries Donovan and Lahood and Administrator Jackson, outlining their joint efforts to help this country move into a future of sustainability.

For the full article from the Seattle Times, Click HERE

Posted by Scott Greenly: Project Coordinator, GVF