Promote local prosperity and economic growth through proven programs providing strategic, flexible, and effective investment in communities.
The nation's economic recovery and long-term competitiveness is centered on strong local economies and neighborhoods. Federal investment is vital and leverages additional private sector support. Proven programs, like Community Development Block Grants, are essential to encouraging local economic development and job growth by giving communities a tool to implement local plans and visions for the future. Many of these programs have seen significant cuts in funding in recent years. These cuts have been larger than overall reductions in domestic spending. It is vital to our economy that we take a balanced approach to tax and fiscal policy reflecting a place-based strategy that maximizes increasingly scarce federal resources and rejects disproportionate cuts to community development and infrastructure investment.
Legislative opportunities:
Meet the nation's growing infrastructure challenges by supporting innovative planning and critical investment.
Funding for the nation's infrastructure is critical to both economic recovery and long-term competitiveness. Our transportation and water infrastructure systems, which are so critical to economic growth, continue to face major challenges. Today's challenging fiscal environment requires an approach to federal policy that recognizes the need for reliable, flexible and innovative tools to meet growing demands for infrastructure investment. Likewise, a prudent approach to federal spending requires good planning to ensure that our investments are efficient and strategic. Federal infrastructure policy should focus on empowering metropolitan areas; supporting integrated planning; promoting economic growth, competiveness, and resiliency; fostering location-efficient decisions; creating safe, healthy, and strong communities; and expanding funding and finance options.
Legislative opportunities:
Improve and support planning in key federal programs.
Federal policy creates powerful incentives for growth and development. Innovative approaches to planning can create a framework for better investment decisions. These efforts improve coordination among agencies while increasing local economic competitiveness. Federal planning requirements should encourage innovation, improve performance, expand choices available to Americans and eliminate barriers to integrated planning and investment.Good planning is essential to effective federal programs aimed at local and regional development. Federal policy should support strong local and regional planning, help communities implement innovative and catalytic plans, and assist communities with dedicated planning resources in new discretionary infrastructure and community development programs. To maximize the impact of scarce federal funds, policy should reward communities that demonstrate a local commitment to planning and projects that advance critical national priorities.
Legislative opportunities:
Enact farm and food legislation that supports planning for rural development, sustainable food systems, and conservation of agricultural land.
The Farm Bill offers an important opportunity to address critical community development needs in rural America while also supporting efforts to make the food system for all communities healthier and more sustainable. New policy responses not only help address challenges such as access to fresh food but also provide needed resources that support and empower communities, rural and urban alike. A new Farm Bill should include adequate support for vital rural development, regional planning, and conservation programs that are critical to economic prosperity and strong communities.
Legislative opportunities:
Assist communities working to improve distressed neighborhoods.
Many communities continue to struggle with key housing and development challenges in economically distressed neighborhoods. Targeted federal programs can be a catalyst for renewed investment and lay the foundation for rebuilding local economies. Federal programs targeting the redevelopment of brownfields, rehabilitation of federally supported housing, revitalization of neighborhoods hit hard by foreclosure and vacant property, and development of affordable housing are vital tools for local communities. These programs should support essential local planning activities and encourage local partnerships and integrated investment. Communities can benefit from federal efforts to promote mixed-income communities, linkage to vital services and transportation, and improved access to jobs. Federal policy can also provide essential support and coordination for communities especially hard hit by major economic changes.
Legislative opportunities:
Advance the development of healthy, safe and active communities.
Federal policy should support the development and planning of communities that promote active, healthy living. These policies should be incorporated into federal transportation, housing, community development, health and food programs. Transportation policy should support design approaches and standards that accommodate all users and continue to provide reliable funding to local communities for bike, pedestrian and safety programs. Safe communities also require helping communities plan for hazard mitigation and maintaining vital protections for clean air and water.
Legislative opportunities:
Ensure that communities can adequately plan for future needs by providing high-quality data.
Good information is the backbone of good planning. Federal data inform a wide array of local planning decisions from identifying hazard zones to addressing the impacts of climate change. Federal data programs providing information to local governments, such as the Census Bureau, NOAA, USGS, and DOT, should be strengthened and improved to meet the needs of local users. Efforts to undermine the quality of critical federal data, such as the American Community Survey, by weakening standards should be rejected. Federal policy should support investment in vital science and research initiatives that help communities improve planning and local decision-making
Legislative opportunities:
Respect local planning authority.
Congress should continue to respects local planning and community safeguards by rejecting any efforts to impose new regulatory takings or eminent domain standards that increase lawsuits and undermine locally-adopted plans. Federal policy should respect and appropriately engage local decision makers in the siting of energy and telecommunications facilities. As federal agencies look to divest unneeded or underused facilities, local plans and officials should be consulted and directly engaged.
Legislative opportunities:
Cynthia A. Bowen, AICP, Chair
William R. Anderson, FAICP
Mitzi C. Barker, FAICP
Whit Blanton, AICP
Judith H. Breselor, AICP
Benjamin D. Frost, AICP
Jacques A. Gourguechon, AICP
George M. Homewood III, AICP
Sarah S. More, FAICP
Heather Morris
Jennifer M. Raitt
David C. Rouse, AICP
Soren D. Simonsen, AICP
Nancy Ellen Stroud, AICP
Charles R. Wolfe
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