News – Page 51

The Life and Death of the Highway Trust Fund

The University of Maryland Urban Studies and Planning Program and
the National Center for Smart Growth’s 2015 Brown Bag Webinar Series continues with

The Life and Death of the Highway Trust Fund

Presentation by:
Paul Lewis Eno Center for Transportation

Wednesday, May 13
12:00 PM to 1:00 PM

Preinkert Field House – Conference Room 1112V
University of Maryland College Park

The current federal program for funding surface transportation infrastructure in the United States is broken. This situation has created a state of perpetual uncertainty surrounding federal transportation funding. Lewis’s presentation details the circumstances that have led the U.S. transportation program to its current funding situation and explores how other nations have created sustainable mechanisms for ensuring adequate national-level investment in surface transportation systems. The Life and Death of the Highway Trust Fund is the result of an 18-month effort to evaluate the current political, economic, and legal forces behind the U.S. Highway Trust Fund (HTF), including an examination of peer countries and their lessons on providing long-term sustainable funding for transportation investment.

PAUL LEWIS is the Director of Policy and Finance at the Eno Center for Transportation where he is responsible for overseeing policy research and forum products. He has been a co-author on several Eno papers, including The Life and Death of the Highway Trust Fund and Getting to the Route of It: the Role of Governance in Regional Transit. He has worked at Eno since August 2011 applying his background to help tackle policy issues in transportation at the federal, state, and local levels. Prior to joining Eno, Lewis worked as a contract researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Through work at Eno and MIT, Lewis worked directly on projects and research papers that involve highways, railroads, transit, and aviation, covering movement of both passengers and freight. Lewis’s bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Ohio Northern University and master’s in Transportation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Nick FinioMay 15No Comments

Opportunity Collaborative Set to Release Baltimore Regional Plan for Sustainable Development

The Regional Plan for Sustainable Development (RPSD) represents the first ever comprehensive regional plan to bring together workforce development, transportation and housing. The Opportunity Collaborative is a consortium that includes local governments, state agencies, universities and nonprofit organizations. The co-chairs of the Collaborative are William H. Cole IV, president and CEO of the Baltimore Development Corporation, and Scot T. Spencer, of the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

The RPSD is the culmination of three years of work and will help the Baltimore region coordinate investments in housing, transportation and workforce development to reduce disparities and connect all of the region’s citizens to a prosperous future. The outcomes of the plan will lower transportation costs for families, create cleaner and safer communities and increase educational and employment opportunities throughout the region.

Please join other regional leaders on Monday, June 8 in Baltimore as the Opportunity Collaborative launches the first joint and sustained effort by the governments and significant non-governmental organizations in the region to collectively address regional planning issues.

You can learn more and register to attend the launch here.

Learn more about the NCSG’s participation in the Opportunity Collaborative here.

Nick FinioMay 15No Comments

No Place Like Home: Wealth, Community and the American Dream

The University of Maryland Urban Studies and Planning Program and
the National Center for Smart Growth’s 2015 Brown Bag Webinar Series continues with

No Place Like Home:

Weath, Community and the American Dream

Presentation by:
Brian J. McCabe Georgetown University

Wednesday, May 6
12:00 PM to 1:00 PM

Preinkert Field House – Conference Room 1112V
University of Maryland College Park

For decades, the promise of homeownership in the United States has focused on the importance of housing as a financial investment and the role that homeownership plays in building communities. On one hand, Americans hold more wealth in their homes than they do in any other investments. At the same time, we have long believed that the owner-occupied home is the centerpiece of upstanding citizenship and strong communities. In No Place Like Home, McCabe asks how the importance of building wealth through housing shapes the way homeowners engage in their communities. Often, as a way of protecting their property values, homeowners work to increase segregation and economic isolation in their neighborhoods, raising doubts about the civic benefits of owning a home. Investigating this core institution, No Place Like Home offers a new perspective on the place homeownership holds in American life.

BRIAN J. McCABE is an assistant professor of Sociology at Georgetown University. His previous research on housing, urban policy and public opinion has been published in Social Forces, City & Community, the Journal of Urban Affairs and the Journal of the American Planning Association. He is currently completing a book manuscript, titled No Place Like Home: Wealth, Community and the American Dream.

Nick FinioMay 06No Comments