Via Good…Infographic: How to Have a 100-Mile Thanksgiving

AMATS, the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study, is one of the four Metropolitan Planning Organizations involved in Vibrant NEO 2040 that we discussed in our post last week.  One of their many initiatives is the Connecting Communities program which “is designed to provide communities with funding to develop transportation plans that will lead to the identification of projects eligible for AMATS funds.” The Connecting Communities grant program was a recommendation from  AMATS’s Connecting Communities Planning Initiative (link is to a large pdf file) in 2010.   The purpose of Connecting Communities – A Guide to Integrating Land Use and Transportation is to promote a region that balances environmental, social and economic concerns by improving coordination between land use and transportation. Connecting Communities utilizes a regional planning process to explore strategies to increase transportation choices and accessibility, help communities make collaborative, informed decisions to coordinate development, reduce environmental impacts and improve regional connectivity….

With the weather, rainfall and flooding in the news, we thought it an appropriate time to discuss the Environment Work Stream findings.  Are environmental conditions in Northeast Ohio getting better or worse? The answer to that question depends a lot on the type of environmental issue being considered.  Here is a bit of a summary for rainy day reading. Since the 1970s, the region has made a lot of progress cleaning up what is typically thought of as “pollution.” Industry has reduced emissions from smokestacks and effluent pipes. Wastewater treatment plants are doing a much better job treating sewage. And some of dirtiest sources of industrial pollution have closed down or moved to places with lower environmental standards. As a result, the air and water are cleaner than they used to be. But other types of environmental issues have been harder to address. These are “nonpoint” sources of pollution —…

As a stakeholder in Northeast Ohio, you and your input can help to guide our region, to preserve and build upon the things we value most and ensure our communities thrive. Our organization, the Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC), which is a collaboration of 33 organizations from across the 12-county Northeast Ohio region, understands and shares this responsibility. To help Northeast Ohio leaders and residents ensure that our region is sustainable, resilient, and vibrant, we have created a tool to help us better understand the existing conditions of our region. This tool is the NEOSCC Conditions and Trends Platform, located online at cat.neoscc.org. The Conditions and Trends Platform is a groundbreaking, comprehensive compilation of research about economic development, the environment, housing and transportation in 12 Northeast Ohio counties: Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Mahoning, Medina, Portage, Stark, Summit, Trumbull and Wayne. It helps Northeast Ohioans better understand the region’s…

As two of the most significant expenses in our personal lives, housing and transportation cost can play a key role in our quality of life and where we choose to live.  Over the last few years a new tool has been developed by the Center for Neighborhood Technology to analyze some of these costs relative to income and geography. To integrate this way of thinking into the choices and decisions made by home buyers, renters, urban and transportation planners, and developers, CNT and our collaborative partner, the Center for Transit Oriented Development (CTOD), developed a groundbreaking tool, the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, that measures the true affordability of housing choice-by factoring in both housing and transportation costs in a neighborhood. The cost of getting around takes a significant bite out of household budgets. The average family in the United States spends about 18% of after-tax income on transportation, but…

Throughout Northeast Ohio, different organizations are integrating sustainability into their approaches to planning, operations and decision-making. As part of a recent Energy Efficiency & Conservation Block Grant, Stark County Regional Planning Commission (SCRPC) created the Sustainable Planning and Zoning Handbook.  Created in 2011, SCRPC developed a tool that provides principles, examples and approaches to planning and zoning. SCRPC describes the handbook as… The purpose of this handbook is to provide local communities with guiding principles to assist them in becoming more sustainable. Each section will briefly cover different steps that communities can take to achieve this goal. Examples and/or resources of what other communities are doing will also be provided in each section. The appendix of this document contains sustainability-designed, model zoning ordinances that can be tailored to conform to individual zoning resolutions. Please note that not every principle in this handbook may apply to every community. Do keep in mind, however,…

NEOSCC Consortium Member, the Green City Blue Lake Institute has launched a wonderful new website:   The new site is based on a three-step process: Explore: Until you experience Northeast Ohio and the natural systems that support life here the soils, the water, the plants and animals, the climate it’s hard to know how to take care of this place. So the first step is to explore the bioregion, root yourself here, learn to love your home territory. Live: Empowered with the intimate knowledge of place, you can begin to improve your own life. You can lead a healthier, more fulfilling life that has less environmental impact. Transform: Beyond the changes you can make in your own life, we all need to work together on big, complicated things like the design of more sustainable cities, buildings, and transportation systems. We need a sustainability policy agenda and projects that transform the region.   What…

The spreading out of Northeast Ohio’s population has occurred in tandem with an increase in lower density development. The options for meeting the transit needs of residents from areas of low-density development are different from residents from high-density areas. Public transit is most effective and efficient when serving high-density areas. Transit in low-density areas requires more routes to reach fewer riders. As a result, lower density development leads to an increased dependence on private automobiles. Daily Vehicle Miles Traveled, 2000-2010 These maps show by county how the daily vehicle miles traveled (DVMT) by Northeast Ohio’s residents have changed from 2000 to 2010. DVMT increased sufficiently to move four counties – Medina, Wayne, Summit, and Stark counties – into higher categories of miles. In 2000, only Cuyahoga County experienced more than 15 million daily vehicle miles traveled.  By 2010, Summit County had joined Cuyahoga County in the highest category of DVMT. Only Geauga…

Translating sustainability and the triple bottom line  into accessible concepts and actions has long been a difficult aspect of broadening the audience and stakeholders for sustainability initiatives.  This has been particularly true in how everyone can take action. At its recent Sustainable Cleveland 2019 Summit, The City of Cleveland launched its new dashboard.  The new tool includes performance measures that will help to capture progress made along the 10 year initiative: Measuring progress is essential to the success of Sustainable Cleveland. The performance indicators measure results, inform strategy, shine a light on what is working and they educate and inspire us through stories and metrics. The framework focuses on sustainability initiatives in the areas of business, personal/social, built and natural.  Most importantly, the site highlights how you can affect these areas at home, work and in your community.   While some of the measurements have yet to be published, it is definitely worth…

One of the most interesting findings in the Conditions and Trends Platform is that 90% of NEO populations is within 1 mile of a park or a green space. The highest concentration of parks and protected spaces is in the center of the region, around the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Ravenna Arsenal in Summit and Portage Counties. There are, however, areas concentrated along the edge of the region that are further than two miles from a park or protected space. These areas include western Lorain and Medina counties, southern Wayne and Stark Counties, and parts of Ashtabula, Trumbull, and Mahoning counties. What Can I Do Today? Learn: Watch the NEOSCC October Board Meeting on You Tube Share your thoughts: Take the Bike Cleveland Northeast Ohio Biker Survey Act: Become a member of the Conditions and Trends Platform and let us know what you think about our findings

As part of a grantee peer-to-peer exchange in Pittsburgh this week, we were given a tour of the East Liberty Neighborhood redevelopment project. From the East Liberty Development Corporation’s website: Our first community plan, A Vision for East Liberty, produced in 1999, helped guide our neighborhood’s recovery from urban renewal efforts. Recognizing the success that followed the 1999 plan, we decided to come together again to include new and old neighbors and expand and refine our vision. Through a process of community meetings, a broad range of people who live, work, shop, play, worship, and invest in East Liberty shared our love for the neighborhood, our concerns, and our dreams for its future. The guiding principles below, which emerged from these meetings, will guide residents, developers, organizers, and stakeholders through the ever-evolving process of planning and development toward our community’s goals. Over the last 12 years, 1,400 high-rise public housing…

Northeast Ohio has a story. Help us tell it. You are an expert on your piece of Northeast Ohio. No one else knows your experiences better than you. As part of the Vibrant NEO 2040 initiative, we want to tell stories about what makes Northeast Ohio such an extraordinary place to call home. Through these stories we can all have a better sense of what we need to create a more vibrant, resilient and sustainable present and future Northeast Ohio. MyVibrantNEO wants you! In fact, it IS you! What do you love about our region? What needs work? We started the MyVibrantNEO campaign to help connect Northeast Ohioans as part of a conversation about what makes each community great, and what could make each community better. Visit MyVibrantNEO to learn more.

Back in June, NEOSCC took its board meeting to Mahoning County.  As part of our 12 Counties in 12 Months Program, the NEOSCC Board had an opportunity to tour some of Youngstown’s unique assets as well as some of the redevelopment work that is occurring. Part of the tour was led by Youngstown Neighborhood Development Council (YNDC), a multifaceted neighborhood development organization launched in 2009 in partnership with the City of Youngstown and The Raymond John Wean Foundation to catalyze strategic neighborhood reinvestment in neighborhoods throughout the city.  YNDC highlighted some of the neighborhood revitalization work during the tour. We wanted to showcase a recent YNDC publication:  Lots of Green 2012 Impact Report. YNDC’s Lots of Green program is a nationally-recognized, vacant land reuse strategy implemented in Youngstown neighborhoods by the YNDC and multiple partner organizations. The program engages residents and volunteers through several programs, including Iron Roots Urban Farm, Market Gardener Training, Community Gardens,…

Eastgate Council of Regional Governments, a NEOSCC Board Member, and the Western Reserve Independent Living Center (WRILC) are working together to help improve the delivery of transportation services and options for older adults, and persons with disabilities. The WRILC is a non-profit community based non-residential center dedicated to empowering individuals with disabilities. The two surveys below will help with the four-county coordinated transportation network. Download the surveys for a chance to win a drawing that is sponsored by the WRILC. To take the transportation provider survey, please click here. To take the transportation services survey, please click here. Interested in more information on Eastgate, access their newsletter here.   What Can I do Today? Learn: Discover our Digi-NEO Gallery of Facts about NEO Act: Become a member of the Conditions and Trends Platform and let us know what you think about our findings Act: Attend our Board Meeting in Summit County

In The Plain Dealer yesterday, Hunter Morrison, NEOSCC Executive Director and Jason Segedy, NEOSCC Board Chair contributed a guest column, “Finding the tools to keep Northeast Ohio’s future bright”,  to the Forum section discussing NEOSCC, the Conditions and Trends Platform and Vibrant NEO 2040.  Here is an excerpt from the piece: Admit it: You love Northeast Ohio. You love the people, or the history, the museums, the food, or the parks and the sports. For all of us, there are aspects of our region about which we are proud, unique qualities that make it a great place to live. We all want to see the things that we love about Northeast Ohio thrive and grow, just as we would like to see the challenges facing our region addressed and put behind us. The Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium works to help residents preserve and build upon what we value, and to fix…

If you live in the Greater Akron and are interested in joining a growing sustainability network, you might want to check out the upcoming Greater Akron Innovation Network for Sustainability (GAINS) meeting. GAINS was launched over the last year.  The first meeting was inspired by a handful of people who are active and passionate local business owners and community members that knew each other through an organization called Entrepreneurs for Sustainability (E4S). From the organization’s Facebook page, membership is for… Anyone who wants to be part of a growing network of people who care about what happens in regards to our environment and healthy community living. We want to help our Greater Akron area grow sustainably and to make smart decisions moving into the future. We are people who want to contribute, lend a hand, offer experienced insight, and have a good time while we do it. To find out more about this growing sustainability network attend its upcoming meeting…