Stop threatened cuts to Sustainable Communities Initiative

As a friend of the Metropolitan Planning Council, you care about economic recovery and quality of life in your community. That’s why I’m using my blog post this week to ask for your help to stave off threatened cuts to the Sustainable Communities Initiative and other critical resources that support local and regional economies.

The Partnership for Sustainable Communities was formed in 2008 by U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secy. Shaun Donovan, U.S. Dept. of Transportation Secy. Ray LaHood, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson. At MPC’s 2009 Annual Luncheon, these three agency leaders talked about their joint initiative, through which they have committed to:

make smarter federal investments that support livable communities;
govern more efficiently and effectively by aligning U.S. transportation and housing plans and funding; and
cultivate similar approaches at all levels of government by offering incentives to states, regions and municipalities to advance these same goals.

And they’ve followed through. In October 2010, MPC and our regional partners celebrated when northeastern Illinois earned two highly competitive Sustainable Communities awards: $4.25 million to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, to begin realizing its GO TO 2040 ; and $2.35 million to the South Suburban South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association, to scale up historic municipal collaboration in the south Cook County that is paving the way for economic development through targeted land acquisition, planning, and transit-oriented development.

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to cut funding for the Sustainable Communities Initiative and other sensible programs that are helping build stronger economies, create jobs and provide transportation choices for the 21st Century. Yesterday, Congress passed a continuing resolution that preserves funding for these and other discretionary programs through March 18, when government once again faces a shut down. In other words, cuts to the Sustainable Communities Initiative are still on the table.

Quite simply, the Sustainable Communities Initiative is a smart program: It makes the most of taxpayer funding to support communities and regions that are attractive to people and businesses. Please join me today in keeping this program off the chopping block. MPC’s online advocacy center makes it easy for you to send a letter to your lawmakers, urging them to continue to support funding for this innovative program. And please take the extra step of sharing this opportunity with your friends, neighbors and colleagues so that they, too, can support a more livable, economically competitive and sustainable metropolitan Chicago.

Keywords

CMAP, GO TO 2040, interjurisdictional collaboration, Partnership for Sustainable Communities, Sustainable Communities Initiative

Comments

1. Melvin Thompson on March 3, 2011

Clearly, this is a dire situation. Just when government entities are starting to productively coalesce the administration proposes to not only significantly reduce funding but also eliminate Empowerment Zones in favor of so-called "Growth Zones," which dramatically limits the number of hard hit communities (20) and forces them to compete even harder against one another. This isn't smart and severely limits prospects for measurable growth.
2. Chicago Dao from Chicago on March 3, 2011

I cannot vouch for the track record of all awardees of SCI funds announced in 2010. But clearly some of the awardees made SCI appear to be nothing more than a "jobs program" for urban planners.
This is an apt observation and criticism that is hardly unique. As such it could have been addressed had the fed agencies done a less "stimulus-politicized" job at picking proposals. But the urban planning community at large also has its own self to blame for forever looking the other way as the most mediocre amongst them produce word-processed products liberally sprinkled with the same grant-attracting buzz words, yet lacking substance or a connection with real-world implementation realities.
Fanciful projections of transit ridership? Self-righteous heckling to Love Density? Reams of drawings devoid of honest financing Uses and Sources projections (we’re too busy – or our good causes are too haughty for worrying about costs? Yes, yes, not all are guilty of such hubris.
But where your peers were, you too often stood silent.
And allowed the whole profession and SCI awardees to be painted with the same brush.
If you don't want fleas, don't sleep with dogs. And there are dogs abound within the profession and its Enablers.
Also, the urban planning profession seems to be a bit slew-footed with a political tin ear. No one amongst active planners saw this "Claw Back" coming? I saw it the makings of a Claw Back coming in 2009 when the first Big 3 signed their MOUs in DC....but it was not inevitable. Yet no where along the way since the MOUs were signed was there a robust house-cleaning of urban planning dead weight followed by a earnest steps to ensure that what would be a $150 Million disbursement wouldn’t reek of simply being paying urban planners to dust off dormant plans they already had been paid to originally create, then updating them with no graphics and fresh buzz words and then returning them back to dusty shelves....from coast to coast, a 2-year funding ploy to keep urban planners payrolls intact and feed the hordes of mediocre planning firms and consultants.
Correctly or not, outside the cloistered cubicles of planning-dom, this is how SCI smelled when forced to pass the ‘sniff test’: 2-year employment retention program for urban planners.
3. Mr. Clean on August 29, 2011

Sounds good, MarySue! The problem with the current cut on economics is the fact that everyone wants to out run the "little guys". The little guys meaning the small private businesses. The biggest threats to society are the commercial chains. Small privately owned stores and businesses cannot take their place in the community alongside of a Super Walmart (or any other super store) with every gadget you could think of, at a lower price. Yet what the customers don't realize is that it's those major store chains that forget to think about quality, when more money gets on the scene. They don't care about their customers welfare, but are too focused on the greed of it all.
Little family owned businesses are usually proud of their legacy of quality, and their commitment to society. These are the types of businesses we need in our communities. Yet how can they stand, when all their traffic is being stolen by the "convenience" of the super stores? Anyone agree?

Everything is determining the next thing. For instance natural cleaners and soaps without the use of chemicals are determining the quality of the eco system. More money is used to solve problems with the eco, than it would take to do one third the amount of prevention. See what I mean?

Mr. Clean
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