mikejersha's blog

Attention to all of our loyal CNU members; today is the National Call-In Day for a Transportation Bill. At this very moment, the House of Representatives and Senate Conference Committees are meeting to develop a final transportation bill.

New Urbanism has reached a new type of community in its attempt to promote healthy, walkable places: military bases. The traditionally auto-centric suburban design of bases is clearly inefficient, where thousands of empty parking spaces are common, and the overall developed area is equivalent to the physical footprint of Wal-Mart Stores. To combat this, eariler this week the Department of Defense laid plans to focus on compact, transit-oriented developments for its bases to improve quality of life for those residents.

The 12th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth Conference will be held February 7-9, 2013 in Kansas City, MO. The gathering will bring together professionals and practitioners from various backgrounds in development, planning, engineering, and architecture to see what has been done the past year and what goals are to be accomplished throughout the next year.

Henry Cisneros, the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), will be signing copies of his new book,Independent for Life: Homes and Neighborhoods for an Aging America, as well as delivering the keynote address at the upcoming Designing Homes and Neighborhoods for an Aging Population event.

Ottawa, Canada will be home to the 7th Meeting of the Urban Economics Association, as a part of the 59th Annual North American Meeting of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI). 

On Tuesday May 1, 2012 at 6PM Jeff Tumlin of the transportation planning and engineering firm Nelson/Nygaard will be discussing his new book, Sustainable Transportation Planning: Tools for Creating Vibrant, Healthy, and Resilient Communities, as part of CNU NorCal's Speaker Series. The event will take place at the AIA East Bay Office, 1405 Clay Street, Oakland, CA. 

Richard Louv, author of The Nature Principle, will be speaking at DePaul University on Thursday, April 19th. He will be discussing various aspects of The Nature Principle, most notably his work on why both kids and adults need encounters with nature to live healthy lives.

This concept has been coined as Nature-Deficit Disorder, and Louv is thorough with solutions and examples on how to deal with this problem and why it is significant for todays urbanites. 

The event is free and open to the public.

Emily Talen, PhD, FAICP, is now offering an e-course for urban planners based on her book Urban Design Reclaimed: Tools,Techniques and Strategies for Planners that is an no-experience-necessary introductory course on urban design. The course focuses on basic map creation through open source GIS, 2D graphic designs and 3D Sketchup models.

EPA's Office of Sustainable Communities will present a Smart Growth Webinar April 6th, 2012 from 3:00 - 4:00 EST  featuring Mayor Chris Koos and Town Planner Mercy Davison from Normal, IL to discuss a recent plan that converted an inefficient traffic situation into a new vibrant and environmentally conscience public space. This project is a category winner for EPA's 2011 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement. 

Rail-Volution 2012: Building Livable Communities with Transit is coming up in October, but the deadline for proposals to speak at the summit is this Friday, March 30, 2012. Make sure to submit your proposal today in order to take part in this wonderful event that prides itself on spreading knowledge about transit-oriented developments and their impacts on the health and livability of a community.