General News News
Monday, June 3rd, 2013
When communities grow compactly, close to jobs and along transit routes, households have greater choice between affordable communities in which to live, increased employment opportunities close to home, and multiple transportation options connecting the two. However, several decades of fragmented regional planning in the Chicago region de-emphasized this connection between housing, transportation choice, and economic development in favor of increased highway capacity and continued suburban expansion. Cheap oil reinforced the illusion of growth for decades, but surging energy prices raised transportation costs and exposed household pocketbooks and municipal budgets to the true cost of sprawl.
To address this challenge, CNT proposed, in Prospering in Place, that the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) establish Priority Development Areas (PDAs) that align investments in transportation, housing, and economic development across public agencies in regional activity centers.
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Posted in Featured, Featured Portfolio News, Sustainable Prosperity, Transit-Oriented Development, Transportation and Community Development | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, May 14th, 2013
First-of-its-kind Analysis Synthesizes Insurance Claims, Property Owner Reports, and Geography of Flooding in an Urban Environment
CHICAGO (May 14, 2013)—When it comes to flooding in cities, it makes little difference whether a property is located within a floodplain or not—damage happens, happens often, and can inflict significant costs. This stark lack of correlation between property damage claims and recognized floodplains is among the key findings of The Prevalence and Cost of Urban Flooding, a report released today by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT).
The report, the first of its kind to collectively analyze flood damage claims and sewer- and drain-backup claims data from multiple providers of insurance and other financial assistance, is part of a first phase of research at CNT on the prevalence and cost of flooding to property owners—such as homes and businesses—in urban and suburban areas. Urban flooding is caused by too much rain overwhelming drainage systems and waterways, and making its way into basements, backyards, and streets.
CNT researchers took the unprecedented step of combining insurance claims payout data for property damage in Cook County, IL (between 2007–2011, aggregated by ZIP code), with analysis of 115 responses to an online survey of property owners in Cook County that experienced property flooding in the last five years.
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Posted in Featured, Featured Portfolio News, Natural Resources, Press Releases | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
Report Reviews Regional Transit Zone Performance, Recommends Five Fundamental Fixes
CHICAGO (May 7, 2013)—While Chicago has made significant investments in transit-oriented development (TOD) over the past decade, the region has not seen the same levels of success as other major US metropolitan areas in the successful development of transit zones—the land areas within one half-mile of passenger rail stations. Whereas peer cities like New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and San Francisco saw positive growth between 2000 and 2010, Chicago actually saw a decline in development. A report released by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) recommends a series of policy actions Chicago leaders can take to get transit-oriented development on track, and to improve the region’s economic, environmental, and social sustainability.
In the report, Transit-Oriented Development in the Chicago Region: Efficient and Resilient Communities for the 21st Century, CNT researchers evaluated the dynamics of the Chicago Region’s 367 fixed Metra and CTA rail stations and station areas between 2000 and 2010.[1] Using the National TOD Database, a first-of-its-kind web tool developed by CNT that provides access to comprehensive information about more than 4,000 transit zones across the United States, researchers identified the transit zones that performed well: those that anchored vital, walkable communities that possess an affordable, high quality of life with minimal impact on the environment.
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Posted in Featured, Press Releases | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#7 Feral Dogs and Community Development
Feral dogs. Not exactly what you think of when you think “Center for Neighborhood Technology,” right? Well…
To be fair, this story predates CNT by just a bit, but you might say it was a catalyst of sorts. Here’s how it goes:
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Posted in 35th Anniversary, General News | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
King County Metro Transit, the public transportation administration agency for King County, Washington (which includes Seattle), recently released the Right Size Parking Calculator website, an innovative new tool that allows users to view estimated parking use in the context of a specific site for multi-family developments. The calculator was developed in collaboration with CNT, with grant support from the Federal Highway Administration’s Value Pricing Program.
The announcement came at a ULI Northwest luncheon headlined by Donald Shoup, who discussed the art and science of parking.
King County was interested in developing a tool that could be used to achieve a more balanced approach to parking for the region. Outdated parking requirements have led to parking supply that is not reflective of actual demand, which can have a direct impact on a jurisdiction’s ability to create compact, healthy communities.
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Posted in Featured, Featured Portfolio News, Transit-Oriented Development, Transportation and Community Development | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 17th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#6 Neighborhood Early Warning System (NEWS)
In 1984, the CNT-initiated Housing Abandonment Task Force issued over 30 recommendations for conserving Chicago’s affordable housing, yielding programs and organizations that addressed equity financing, energy conservation financing, housing cooperatives and public access to housing information. As members of the task force, CNT took on some of these recommendations; the Neighborhood Early Warning System (NEWS) was developed to address the lack of transparent information on housing and building conditions.
NEWS was created as an alert system for residents where they could see “at risk” buildings in their area. As housing was being abandoned and buildings were being demolished, NEWS provided a way for community organizations and citizens to be aware of underlying information about buildings in their community. Read more »
Posted in 35th Anniversary, General News | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 16th, 2013
Flickr image: NASA Goddard Photo and Video
CNT is part of a collaborative team working to assist Illinois’ Lake Michigan water supply utilities improve water loss control. The year-long project aims to identify the obstacles, best practices, and potential solutions for managing water loss by Lake Michigan public water suppliers.
Unchecked water loss within water supply systems is of public concern: it wastes money, hinders the economy, and risks long-term water scarcity. Water loss from crumbling infrastructure, faulty metering, and flat-out theft leads to lost revenue for utilities and higher rates from consumers. With rates going up and infrastructure integrity going down, we need to rethink our investments in water resources, and from all sides: rate payers, utilities, and municipalities.
We need to fix the leaks. Read more »
Posted in Featured, General News, Natural Resources | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 10th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#5 Chicago Recycling Coalition
When most people think about recycling, they think about the good feeling of separating glass, plastic, paper, etc., from their waste so that new materials and products can be created from old ones. It’s a pretty clean process, and one that can, in many homes, be done without much thought at all.
Recycling has certainly evolved. In Chicago, recycling is still a work in progress, but it—like the organizations that advocate for it—has come a long way.
The Chicago Recycling Coalition (CRC) is one organization that has been at the forefront of championing how recyclables are handled in the City of Chicago. In fact, before CRC was CRC, it was CAWD (Coalition for Appropriate Waste Disposal), and it worked on some pretty dirty projects. CNT was right there with them. Read more »
Posted in 35th Anniversary, General News | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#4 Solar Greenhouses
Growing tomatoes in a hydroponic greenhouse on a rooftop in West Garfield Park. It was audacious—and caught the attention of the New York Times, resulting in CNT’s first national press story (NYT subscription required).
Christian Action Ministry (CAM) was a faith-based community development organization on Chicago’s West Side. CAM ran a range of programs, including preschool and job training. For the late 1970s, they were on the cutting edge. When Scott Bernstein proposed building a rooftop greenhouse on their building at West Madison between Homan and Pulaski to increase local access to fresh fruits and vegetables, they embraced the idea enthusiastically.
A skeptical Christian Science Monitor took note, as well, observing that “this kind of urban self-help agriculture is very new. There is much excitement about the possibilities, but little proof of how things will work out.” Read more »
Posted in 35th Anniversary, General News | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#3 Deep Tunnel
Maybe we were just ahead of our time. In the late 1970s, the early days of CNT, we had the radical notion that multiple, smaller investments in infrastructure were better than a gargantuan, one-size-fits-all approach. It’s a concept that’s certainly more in vogue now, in fields from planning to engineering to fundraising. (Heck, just ask a certain former CNT board member about the impact of thousands of small donations…)
Back then, though, we were attempting to advocate our position as relative Davids in the face of a Goliath called “Deep Tunnel.” This time, David didn’t fare as well.
Photo: Chicago Tribune (Oct. 9, 1980)
The Deep Tunnel Project, officially known as the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP), was commissioned in the mid-1970s and billed as a solution to reduce flooding in the Chicago region and curtail the flow of raw sewage into Lake Michigan. As civil engineering projects go, Deep Tunnel was in a league of its own: a megaproject.
CNT was part of a larger coalition of organizations and individuals called the TARP Impacts Project (TIP), which initially came together over the proposed price tag of Deep Tunnel relative to its projected impact. The $7.3 billion budget translated to $4,000 per Chicago-area household, or over $100 million per neighborhood in the region. TIP, and CNT, believed that smaller, more affordable, and more direct actions could work as well or better than the pricy Deep Tunnel. Read more »
Posted in 35th Anniversary, General News | No Comments »
