Event Overview
In affiliation with World Habitat Day, the Urban Land Institute convened Sustainable Suburbs: Developers’ Perspectives on Transportation and Compact Development on October 8, 2009. This free forum, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and ULI Trustee Jim Curtis as part of the ULI National Transportation Policy Dialogue, explored how to leverage transportation and land use investments to promote sustainable growth in the suburbs. Over 110 people, drawn from the public and private sectors, including a number of representatives from the federal government, participated in the event.
The forum was keynoted by Georgia Institute of Technology professor Ellen Dunham-Jones, co-author of the book
Retrofitting Suburbia. Three panels then explored different aspects of the Sustainable Suburbs topic, starting with big picture issues of regional spatial planning and governance, moving to an examination of neighborhood design, and then focusing on where we should go from here.
Key ideas from the forum included the following:
Why the suburbs?
o Suburbs represent a key opportunity, because they are where the biggest gains can be made
o Suburbs are diverse places that will become more diverse over time
o Options for reusing suburban areas include reinhabitation, redevelopment, and regreening
o But suburban cities are unprepared for development
What should federal, state, and regional governments do? o At the state level, streamlined approvals and funding for the right kind of projects are needed
o The federal government should be funding infrastructure at the appropriate levels and creating incentives for the right kind of development
What are the challenges? o Connecting the dots between suburban projects-- doing effective subregional planning and creating an appropriate frame-- is a key challenge
o Another challenge will be creating the highly connected street system that supports compact development and aligning the other infrastructure with it (which is one of the reasons why dead malls are attractive places to start)
What have we learned about Transit Oriented Development (TOD)? o The TOD value premium comes from creating a place near transit- rather than the transit itself
o “Transit-ready” development can't afford to wait until the transit is built. It is important to get started now even if transit is 10-15 years away and develop the transit-ready project just like you would the TOD project.
o TOD will not happen on its own: projects are tough to design, entitle, finance and build
This event provided an opportunity to explore the themes of the ULI report
Transportation for a New Era in more detail, and for developers and policy makers from a number of levels to engage in a thoughtful discussion about the issues that each group faces. ULI will continue to host conversations about the issues at the intersection of transportation and land use as part of the National Transportation Policy Dialogue.
LINKS TO POWERPOINTS ARE BELOW
Welcomes and Keynote Address
The Big Picture: Putting the Puzzle Pieces Together
- Mark Schneider, Managing Partner, Fourth River Development, Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania (PDF)
- Stephen Friedman, President, SB Friedman and Company, Chicago, Illinois (PDF)
- Moderator: Carl Weisbrod, President, Trinity Church Real Estate, New York, New York
Transit Ready and Walkable: Recognizing the Life Cycle of Development
- Caren Dewar, Executive Director, ULI Minnesota Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Sam Zimbabwe, Technical Assistance Director, Center for Transit Oriented Development, Washington, D.C. (PDF)
- Marilee Utter, President, Citiventure Associates, Denver, Colorado (PDF)
- Moderator: Michael Lander, President, Lander Group Developers
Where Do We Go From Here?
- John Tschiderer, Vice President- Development, Federal Realty Investment Trust, Rockville, Maryland (PDF)
- Marilyn Taylor, Dean, Pennsylvania School of Design, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (PDF)
- Tony Greenberg, Associate, JBG Companies, Chevy Chase, Maryland (PDF)
- Moderator: Roger Platt, Senior VP of Global Policy and Law, U.S. Green Building Council, Washington, D.C.
ADDITIONAL FILES