RPA today released "Redevelop Camden," a research report that evaluates Camden's capacity to implement land use and redevelopment plans based on its prior experiences. The report makes recommendations to the public, private, non-profit, and philanthropic sectors to improve urban planning outcomes over the next decade and help to lower barriers to redevelopment in this important city of need.
Community Design
RPA is committed to strengthening the region's centers. The goal of redirecting much of the region's growth to centers is based on the principle that centers-places that provide housing, jobs, education, shopping, and recreation in close proximity-are the form of community that can deliver the largest number and greatest diversity of people. By providing for efficient use of land, energy, infrastructure, and other resources, centers also provide critical benefits to the region's economy and environment. Finally, the region's hundreds of city and town centers provide a permanent organizing framework for future growth in the region.
Physical planning and design is the centerpiece of this campaign. Design studies - models, drawings, "before and after simulations" - make it possible to test the physical capacity of the region's centers and to understand the impacts of new structures on the visual and natural environment. Even more importantly, design studies enable communities to understand the consequences of planning policy, and to articulate their own vision for how their communities should grow. In this way it is possible to link locally-based place-making with a regional smart growth agenda.
One of the centerpieces of our advocacy efforts for the Regional Design program is the New Jersey Mayor's Institute on Community Design, held at Princeton University to promote better planning and development in communities throughout New Jersey. RPA's work with the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York has also featured the principles of the design program, most notably in the Planning and Design Workshop. In addition to these special projects, the Regional Design Program is built around four major initiatives, each of which combines research with place-based planning and design studies:
Featured Projects
On Thursday, June 2nd and Friday, June 3rd, RPA's America 2050 initiative brought together 90 people in Hartford to learn about Connecticut's plan to improve rail service in the Knowledge Corridor region, connecting New Haven, Hartford, and Springfield, Massachusetts with frequent rail service every half hour at peak, and to identify strategies that the region must implement in order to maximize the rail's economic impact.
"Dependable Rail in 2016: What Will It Mean for the Knowledge Corridor Region" included guest experts Patricia Quinn of Maine's Downeaster Service and Gene Skoropowski, who ran the Capitol Corridor in California. They shared how their regions leveraged rail investments with: effective marketing campaigns that boosted ridership, by working well with host freight railroads to achieve on time performance, attracting private investment around station areas, developing partnerships that brought together municipalities, and maximizing connecting transit services that brought riders to their final destinations.
Continue Reading for Visuals and Audio from the Program.
Over 60 residents of the City of Paterson, NJ - many with specialties in the arts - came together to participate in a community workshop this past weekend. The purpose of the workshop was to identify the great "places" in the City and in particular around the Great Falls Historic District, that could be used to integrate the arts into revitalization efforts in this future National Park. Community ideas included a natural amphitheatre in what is currently a rock quarry, re-use of a crumbling stadium as fairgrounds, and a guided tour of cultural hotspots led by community artists.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded a $3.5 million grant to the New York-Connecticut metropolitan region, one of 45 grants awarded under the highly competitive Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant program. An unprecedented bi-state collaboration of nine cities, two counties and six regional planning organizations in New York City, coastal Connecticut, Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley submitted an application with Regional Plan Association as the lead applicant.
An unprecedented bi-state collaboration of nine cities, two counties and six regional planning organizations has come together to form the New York-Connecticut Sustainable Communities Consortium. The Consortium, designed to integrate housing, economic development, transportation and environmental planning in the metropolitan region, has submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for a Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant, a competitive national program. Working together, the Consortium will develop livable communities and growth centers around existing and planned transit to enhance affordable housing efforts, reduce congestion, improve the environment and continue to expand economic opportunities.
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Publications
- 2011.09.19: Redevelopment Potential in Camden, NJ
- 2007.06.05: Managing Growth in Southeast Orange County
- 2006.04.01: Eatontown Report
- 2005.08.01: Hope Township
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