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Help Restore Urbanism to Our
Built Environment

Contribute to CNU's Success with a Year-End Donation

Dear [firstname],

Thank you for being a part of CNU. I’m writing to share with you how your support helped us accomplish a lot this past year and to ask for your continued commitment to help us carry our success on into next year. Please consider showing your support by making a donation to enable us to expand our reach.

Today's financial uncertainty is on everyone’s mind as investment account statements arrive in the mail. Amid these worries, we can take some comfort in indications that New Urbanism has been holding a greater share of its value than sprawl as the housing bubble popped and the stock market plummeted. This trend affirms the principles of the CNU Charter and exposes an opportunity for new urbanist projects to attract investment as credit begins to flow again.

New Urbanism can't bail out the economy, but we can point a way toward recovery based on the value and desirability of good urban development. CNU has been working on removing incentives for sprawl and barriers to urbanism, so that new urbanists are positioned to deliver our solutions to a world that increasingly realizes it needs them. We are taking the lead in shining a light on the "New American Dream" that can serve as a more sustainable path to prosperity. But our work would not be possible without our members and supporters.

CNU is our collective organization—our vehicle for advancing the practice of New Urbanism. People like you generously donate their time and money to make this organization a success. Together we are working to make our vision a reality through exciting programs and initiatives, for example:

  • We've created an urban thoroughfares design manual in partnership with the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). It will be published by ITE next year as a Recommended Practice, giving engineers, planners, local decision makers, and citizens a widely respected alternative to suburban-style street design and enabling multi-modal, walkable streets for urban communities.
  • A communication strategy that we're developing will establish a broader understanding of the built environment as a major driver of climate change, and a new professional curriculum will link energy performance research with new urbanist design strategies.
  • Next year we will launch the first full version of LEED-ND in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council and the Natural Resources Defense Council, establishing a new standard for sustainable neighborhood development.
  • As Congress takes up the reauthorization of federal surface transportation spending, we will be back on Capitol Hill working with our partners and allies in Congress and the new administration to increase transit's share of funding in the reauthorization and to give urban street types equal standing to freeways and arterials, currently favored in the criteria that drive federal funding.
  • We are advocating nationwide for the replacement of urban freeways with neighborhood-friendly boulevards.
  • Our newest transportation project, in partnership with the U.S. EPA, will address the objections of emergency responders to urban street forms, balancing new urbanist human-scaled design with road safety and the need for emergency vehicle access.

CNU and its guiding Charter exist to restore urbanism to the built environment. Through all of our efforts, we are making it easier to design, build, and redevelop urbanism. Learn more about our 2008 Accomplishments online.

We depend on our members and donors to support our initiatives. That is why I ask you to please help however you can with a year-end, tax-deductible donation, even if it's just $10. Your gift can help CNU fight to restore and enhance the position of urbanism in the built environment. Please respond today if you can.

Thank you,

John Norquist
President & CEO

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Congress for the New Urbanism
140 S. Dearborn St., Ste. 310
Chicago, IL 60603, USA
TEL 312.551.7300
FAX 312.346.3323