Research Links
TulsaNow offers this list of bookmarks as a reference to make our city better. Links you'll find here include topics such as urban planning, economic revitalization and community relations. This list was begun in 2001 by Larry Silvey and has constantly evolved ever since.
1,000 Friends of Oregon
Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs). The crisp demarcations between what is urban and what is not have had profound impacts on both sides of the lines. Since 1975, 1000 Friends has worked to ensure UGBs are based not on unrealistic aspirations of local landowners, developers, and elected officials, but on solid data about future growth and clear principles government where development is appropriate. We have worked to ensure cities develop in efficient, effective patterns that save taxpayers money and protect our resource lands. Because urban growth boundaries literally determine the shape of our communities, they are always contentious. With your help, we can continue our efforts to keep Oregon’s communities, and rural areas, places we’re proud to call home.
ADAM: Art, Design, Architecture & Media Information Gateway
UK-based search engine covering arts info found on the internet
ADAM is a service being developed to help you find useful, quality-assured information on the Internet in the following subject areas: Fine Art, Design, Architecture, Applied Arts, Media, Theory; Museum studies and conservation; Professional Practice related to any of the above.
American Farmland Trust
American Farmland Trust is the only nationwide nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting agricultural resources. Founded by a group of concerned farmers in 1980, AFT's mission is to stop the loss of productive farmland and to promote farming practices that lead to a healthy environment. Every day we lose more than 3,000 acres of productive farmland to sprawling development. Today, more than 75 percent of our fruits and vegetables are produced near urban areas, directly in the path of relentless development. Every single year, we lose an area of productive farmland the size of Delaware.
American Institute of Architects
Site for architectural advice. Learn about architecture, locate an architect or see historical examples.
American Planning Association
The American Planning Association is a non-profit public interest and research organization representing 30,000 practicing planners, officials, and citizens involved with urban and rural planning issues. Sixty-five percent of APA's members are employed by state and local government agencies. These members are involved, on a day-to-day basis, in formulating planning policies and preparing land use regulations. APA's objective is to encourage planning that will contribute to public well-being by developing communities and environments that meet the needs of people and society more effectively.
Annotated Webliography of Downtown Revitalization Efforts
www.hawaii.edu/~kleban/Revitalization.htm
Collection compiled for urban planners, landscape architects, architects, city management officials, and concerned citizens involved in revitalizing the inner core of a town or city.
Site focuses on re-introduction of mixed use zoning in urban centers, the historic preservation of architecturally and culturally important buildings, and the replacement of overly restrictive and unnecessarily proscriptive building codes with performance-oriented codes that allow compliance alternatives.
Architects Designers Planners for Social Responsibility
Architects, Designers and Planners for Social Responsibility is a national non-profit organization of architects, designers, planners and related professionals. We are committed to correcting the imbalance between the need to provide for the common defense and the need to promote the well being of all our citizens. ADPSR’s efforts are directed towards arms reduction, protection of the natural and built environment and socially responsible development.
Bicycle Federation of America
This site is designed to support the activities and initiatives of people working across the country, in their professional work and private lives, to make America a better place to walk and to bicycle. We present informational resources, and outline actions government agencies, non-governmental organization and individuals can take to improve the environment for bicycling and walking.
Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy
www.brook.edu/es/urban/urban.htm
Seeks to shape a new generation of urban policies that will help build strong neighborhoods, cities, and metropolitan regions. In partnership with academics, private and public sector leaders, and locally elected officials, the Center informs thedebate on the impact of government policies, private sector actions, and national trends on cities and their metropolitan areas. By connecting expert knowledge and practical experience to the deliberations of state and federal policymakers, the Center aims to help develop integrated approaches and practical solutions to the challenges confronting these communities.
California Futures Network
www.spur.org/documents/030301_article_03.shtm
California Futures Network (CFN) was a statewide coalition created to educate and organize at the state, regional and local levels to achieve land use policies that are fiscally, socially and environmentally sound. CFN Affiliates are united in the belief that California should steer public and private investments toward existing developed areas; provide for increased social justice, economic, and housing opportunities; and conserve the state's agricultural and natural lands.
Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development, US Dept. of Energy
Sustainable development is a strategy by which communities seek economic development approaches that also benefit the local environment and quality of life. It has become an important guide to many communities that have discovered that traditional approaches to planning and development are creating, rather than solving, societal and environmental problems. Where traditional approaches can lead to congestion, sprawl, pollution, and resource overconsumption, sustainable development offers real, lasting solutions that will strengthen our future.
Center for Livable Communities
The Center, a national initiative of the Local Government Commission, helps local governments and community leaders be proactive in their land use and transportation planning and adopt programs and policies that lead to more livable and resource-efficient land use patterns.
Center for Neighborhood Technology
Mission: To invent and implement new tools and methods that create livable urban communities for everyone. We believe that the combination of economic growth and accelerating urbanization holds the promise of a better life for the world's population, because cities are the key to equitable wealth creation, efficient resource use and livable communities. We believe that urban communities can only fulfill this promise and achieve fundamental change based on a new sense of collaborative advantage. Positive change requires that communities realize their chances of succeeding are greater when they act together, rather than on their own.
Central Atlanta Progress: Atlanta downtown redevelopment site
www.centralatlantaprogress.org
CAP is a private association representing the interests of businesses and Downtown organizations that share a common vision of central Atlanta that is thriving, secure and vibrant. CAP and its affiliate organizations have been a driving force in shaping Downtown development and public policy through innovative programs and public-private partnerships since 1941.
Congress for the New Urbanism
THE CONGRESS FOR THE NEW URBANISM views disinvestment in central cities, the spread of placeless sprawl, increasing separation by race and income, environmental deterioration, loss of agricultural lands and wilderness, and the erosion of society's built heritage as one interrelated community-building challenge.
WE STAND for the restoration of existing urban centers and towns within coherent metropolitan regions, the reconfiguration of sprawling suburbs into communities of real neighborhoods and diverse districts, the conservation of natural environments, and the preservation of our built legacy.
Design Matters
www.uic.edu/aa/cdc/AHDC/website
This project is an Affordable Housing Catalog compiled by the City Design Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The objective is to highlight quality examples of affordable housing and show that "Quality design can be affordable– Affordable housing can embody quality design."
Economic Impacts of Recreation and Tourism
www.msu.edu/course/prr/840/econimpact/
Course guide, Michigan State University. Concepts, methods, research papers and related links.
Recreation and Tourism Activities have significant impacts on regional economies. This site summarizes economic impact concepts and methods, focusing particularly on their applications to recreation and tourism.
Form-Based Codes Institute
Form-based codes are an alternative method of regulating development. The FBCI works to educate, stimulate discussion and set standards for form-based coding.Greenbelt Alliance
Our mission is to make the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area a better place to live by protecting the region's Greenbelt and improving the livability of its cities and towns. Since 1958 we have worked in partnership with diverse coalitions on public policy development, advocacy and education.
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives
ICLEI is the international environmental agency for local governments. ICLEI's mission is to build and serve a worldwide movement of local governments to achieve tangible improvements in global environmental and sustainable development conditions through cumulative local actions.
International Downtown Association
The International Downtown Association seeks to be the principal advocate for North America's urban and community centers; coalescing public, business and non-profit interests into civic partnerships that affirm the diversity of these centers, and creating livable communities.
International Parking Institute
www.parking.org/awards/archive
The International Parking Institute provides education and technical resources to the parking profession. Each year since 1982 they have recognized the most innovative and aesthetically appealing parking solutions. View the parking garages that have earned the IPI's Award of Excellence.
Local Government Commission
A California nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization, the Local Government Commission (LGC) is composed of forward-thinking elected officials, city and county staff, and other interested individuals. Commission members are committed to developing and implementing local solutions to problems of state and national significance. The LGC provides a forum and technical assistance to enhance the ability of local governments to create and sustain healthy environments, healthy economies, and social equity.
Local Initiatives Support Coalition
Helps community-based development organizations transform distressed communities and neighborhoods into good places to live, do business, work and raise families.
Mayors' Institute on City Design
www.arts.endow.gov/partner/design/micd.html
The Mayors' Institute on City Design was established in 1986 to assist mayors in using the design process to enhance civic livability. Each year, individual meetings of the Institute are implemented by schools of architecture and urban planning. To date, over 350 mayors, representing each of the fifty states and Puerto Rico, have participated in Institute activities.
National Civic League
The NCL advocates a new civic agenda to create communities that work for everyone and promotes the principles of collaborative problem-solving and consensus-based decision making. Its Healthy Communities Program provides technical assistance, facilitation of the healthy communities process, and leadership training.
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts, an investment in America's living cultural heritage, serves the public good by nurturing the expression of human creativity, supporting the cultivation of community spirit, and fostering the recognition and appreciation of the excellence and diversity of our nation's artistic accomplishments.
Partners in Tourism: Culture and Commerce
www.nea.gov/about/Facts/Cultourism.html
Site addresses cultural tourism development in the United States. Regional Forums, (Partners in Tourism) identified four major priorities:
- Creating sustainable and fruitful partnerships among the various stakeholders of cultural tourism.
- Preserving cultural integrity, remaining true to the authentic story being told, and being faithful to the cultural organization's mission.
- Involving the community in the cultural tourism development process.
- Acquiring credible and consistent research demonstrating the social and economic impact of cultural tourism.
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Preserving America's past for the benefit of America's future. Learn about preservation issues, how to suggest structures for the National Historic Register and much more.
The National Main Street Center
Since 1980, the National Main Street Center has worked with communities across the nation to revitalize their historic or traditional commercial areas. Based in historic preservation, the Main Street approach was developed to save historic commercial architecture and the fabric of American communities' built environment, but has become a powerful economic development tool as well. The Main Street program is designed to improve all aspects of the downtown or central business district, producing both tangible and intangible benefits. Improving economic management, strengthening public participation, and making downtown a fun place to visit are as critical to Main Street's future as recruiting new businesses, rehabilitating buildings, and expanding parking.
Natural Resources Defense Council
NRDC uses law, science, and the support of more than 400,000 members nationwide to protect the planet's wildlife and wild places and to ensure a safe and healthy environment for all living things.
Neighborhood Link
Provides free interactive web site service to home owners and neighborhood associations. Easy to use tools make it possible to create a site in minutes featuring contact information, calendar of events, newsletters, links and classifieds.
New Urban News
New Urban News began publishing in May of 1996 in response to a growing interest to the planning and development trend called the New Urbanism. Also known as "smart growth," and traditional neighborhood development, the trend focuses on building mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods instead of conventional suburban subdivisions, shopping centers and office parks.
People 2000: Livability and Freedom – Portland
www.urbanfutures.org/people2000.html
Metro planners have a vision of Portland's future approximately fifty years from now. As planners describe it, it is a very pleasant vision of people living and working in pedestrian-friendly communities, walking to the store, taking light rail to work, and using the automobile only as a last resort. So despite a near doubling of the region's population, congestion and pollution remain at low levels while parks, farms, and other open spaces are preserved to the maximum possible extent.
But there is a dark side to this vision. In order to succeed, Portland residents will face the greatest coercion ever applied to an American city. (more at site).
Planner’s Web: City and Regional Planning Resources
Links & information about more than 150 planning web sites across the U.S. & Canada.
Planning Commissioners’ Journal (subscription)
Tracking Trends section reports on nine key trends that are shaping the future of cities and towns. Each is linked to one or more articles on the subject listed.
- Cooperation Between Developers & Environmentalists
- Increased Focus on "Participatory" Planning
- Cyberspace Impacts on Land Use
- More Compact Developments & Mixed Use Centers
- Open Space Networks & Greenways Expand
- Integrating Transportation & Land Use Planning
- Growing Needs of the Poor & Older Americans
- Downtowns Come Back
- Regional Cooperation Increasingly Valued
Planning Magazine
www.planning.org/planning/nonmember
If you're like most Americans, you're looking for ways to make your community more livable. You want to curb traffic congestion and manage growth . . . to eliminate pollution and make housing more affordable. These are the challenges planners face daily. And now more than ever, planners aren't the only ones turning to Planning magazine for answers. Every month thousands of people—professionals and interested laypeople alike—read Planning to learn how innovative planning programs and techniques are reshaping America's communities.
Preservation Institute
Today, most people recognize that modernization and growth can harm the natural environment. The Preservation Institute believes that modernization also damages the social environment - that many of our social problems are side effects of modernization and economic growth. To preserve the natural environment and the social environment, we must modernize selectively. Factory mass production is an efficient way of producing most goods that used to be made by hand. But we are in danger of using the same centralized, standardized methods for every aspect of life, from housing to retail shopping to childcare.
Putting the People in Planning
darkwing.uoregon.edu/~pppm/landuse/docs/toc.htm
Putting the People in Planning is a "how to" manual about public participation in land-use planning. It tells how to run a successful program for citizen involvement. The manual focuses on citizen involvement programs for communities in the state of Oregon, although, the techniques described in this manual can be applied to any citizen involvement program.
Rails to Trails Conservancy
Clearinghouse for action in building trails along defunct railroad right-of-way. Learn about trail use and view the featured "Trail of the Month."
Resource for Urban Design Information
RUDI is a multimedia Internet resource for teaching, research and professional activity in urban design and its related disciplines. Urban design in this context includes the physical design, management, planning and use of buildings and landscape in terms of their relationship to public and open space. The service gathers and re-publishes multimedia material; it also researches and creates new resources. Focus is on examples of good practice in urban design, and aims to contribute to a better built environment.
Resource Renewal Institute
RRI assists governments and other sectors in the implementation of Green Plans, which are long-term, comprehensive environmental strategies.
Seaside Institute
When the town of Seaside, Florida was created, it was the first manifestation of what has since become known as the New Urbanism. This return to the traditional neighborhood as a model has changed the way builders and planners view development, worldwide. Robert Davis, Seaside's founder, realized that Seaside would benefit from study and refinement. He created The Seaside Institute in 1982 for this purpose, using Seaside as a living laboratory. Through its forums and conferences on architecture, planning and urban affairs, The Institute has become a resource for everyone interested in making communities better.
Sierra Club
Mission: Explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; Practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources; Educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; Use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.
Smart Growth Network
Smart Growth creates communities in which people have increased choice, a higher quality of life.
Sprawlwatch Clearinghouse
www.sprawlwatch.org/frames.html
Mission: to make the tools, techniques, and strategies developed to manage growth, accessible to citizens, grassroots organizations, environmentalists, public officials, planners, architects, the media and business leaders. We identify, collect, compile, and disseminate information on the best land use practices. The Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse was launched in 1998.
Sustainable Communities Network
Imagine what a safe, livable, healthy community might look like. Around the country citizens are coming together to create a vision of what their community might be and to develop steps toward making these visions come true. Alternatively called "healthy", " livable" or sustainable communities, these efforts are integrative, inclusive and participatory. In many communities --large and small, rural and urban -- issues are being addressed in an interconnected manner. They are demonstrating how innovative strategies can produce communities that are more environmentally sound, economically prosperous, and socially equitable.
The Sonoran Institute
The Sonoran Institute promotes community-based strategies that preserve the ecological integrity of protected lands, and at the same time meet the economic aspirations of adjoining landowners and communities.
Tools for a Sustainable Community: One-Stop Guide for Local Governments
www.iclei.org/la21/onestop.htm
This section of the ICLEI website identifies resources from the federal government and other agencies (technical assistance, funding, publications, and Internet sites) that can help local governments create sustainable communities.
Trust for Public Land
Founded in 1972, the TPL is the only national nonprofit working exclusively to protect land for human enjoyment and well-being. TPL helps conserve land for recreation and spiritual nourishment and to improve the health and quality of life of American communities. TPL's specialists work with landowners, government agencies, and community groups to: create urban parks, gardens, greenways, and riverways, build livable communities by setting aside open space in the path of growth; conserve land for watershed protection, scenic beauty, and close-to-home recreation; safeguard the character of communities by preserving historic landmarks and landscapes.
Tulsa Neighborhood Revitalization Planning
www.cityoftulsa.org/Community/Revitalization
Official page from the City of Tulsa web site. View details of comprehensive short and long-term plans to revitalize areas such as Tulsa's east side, Brady Village and the Pearl District at 6th and Peoria.
Urban Ecology
Urban Ecology works to build cities that are ecologically thriving and socially just. Founded in 1975, we envision, design, and plan cities to support a healthy natural environment, a multicultural and thriving community, and an innovative and vigorous local economy. Through educational programs, tools for community planning, and advocacy, Urban Ecology assists diverse constituencies engaged in changing their land use and building patterns. We connect individuals to their neighborhoods, neighborhoods to cities, and cities to the entire Bay Area region.
Urban Land Institute
Mission: is to provide responsible leadership in the use of land in order to enhance the total environment. ULI’s strategic direction is to extend its industry leadership to: bring together the people able to influence the outcome of important issues related to land use and the built environment; communicate who we are and what we—our members and our Institute—have learned about land use to increase ULI’s influence on land use policy and practice; and continue to provide relevant and current information about land use and real estate development to all our members and stakeholders.
U. S. Conference of Mayors
www.usmayors.org/USCM/home.asp
Forum for and about U.S. mayors, with links to issues and articles
Walkable Communities Inc.
A non-profit corporation, established in the state of Florida in 1996. It was organized for the express purposes of helping whole communities, whether they are large cities or small towns, or parts of communities, i.e. neighborhoods, business districts, parks, school districts, subdivisions, specific roadway corridors, etc., become more walkable and pedestrian friendly.
Why TND Traffic Systems Work, Florida Sustainable Communities Center
www.state.fl.us/fdi/fscc/resource/articles/tnd1.htm
Traditional neighborhood development, variously called "neotraditional" development or "urban villages" refers to a style of urban or suburban development, evolving since the 1970's, that revisits many of the features of urban neighborhoods of 50 to 100 years ago.
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