2009 February : Center for Neighborhood Technology

News for February, 2009

Support the “Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act”!

Friday, February 27th, 2009

Green infrastructure has arrived on the national agenda, with funding to back it up. Thanks in part to CNT.

The federal stimulus act explicitly places a clear priority, and 20 percent of water infrastructure funding, onto green roofs, rain gardens, pocket wetlands, native vegetation, sustainable streets and parking lots, and other landscape-based water-conserving measures.

CNT recently advised President Obama’s Transition Team on the value of green infrastructure in federal water, housing, energy and other programs and was gratified to see that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 dedicates at least $1.2 billion to green infrastructure.

Posted in Featured Portfolio News, Natural Resources | 3 Comments »

Investing in a New Direction: A Call to President Obama and Congress

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

CNT is part of the Transportation for America (T4America), a coalition of more that 225 organizations and 15,000 individual members, advocating for new federal transportation mission.

Today in Washington, D.C, T4America released its transportation platform (.pdf). In opening remarks, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) called the coalition perhaps the “most formidable” such coalition assembled on behalf of transportation reform. In a keynote address, Mayor John Robert Smith of Meridian Mississippi noted that towns large and small, in every region of the country, would benefit from more transportation options, while the county as a whole would reap reduced oil dependency, lower carbon emissions and greater access to opportunity. Other panelists spoke on behalf of the public health benefits, implications for real estate development and the need for local areas to have greater latitude to address their mobility issues.

Scott Bernstein on Commuter Rail in Southeast Wisconsin

Friday, February 20th, 2009

CNT’s President, Scott Bernstein, recently spoke about the benefits of the proposed Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail in SE Wisconsin.

His talk, “Building Wealth through Investment” generated several editorials.

You can read a recap of Scott’s talk at the Transit Now website and his response to one of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorials.

Posted in Featured Portfolio News, Scott Bernstein, Transportation and Community Development | 1 Comment »

New Analysis of Housing and Transportation Costs for Metro DC Workers Released

Monday, February 9th, 2009

In partnership with CNT and the Center for Housing Policy (CHP), the Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing released a report which finds that housing located far from transit and employment centers places a heavy financial strain on working families in the Washington, DC metropolitan region. According to the study, Beltway Burden: The Combined Cost of Housing and Transportation in the Greater Washington, DC Metropolitan Area, households, region-wide, are spending an average of $23,000 on housing and $13,000 on transportation annually.