Best Practice Actions [See action tools, guidance, city reports]

Organize or participate in a community planning/design process for a mixed use area of the city.

Locate or lease a school, city building or other government facility that has at least two of these attributes:

a.	Adjacent to an existing employment or residential center.
b.	Designed to facilitate and encourage access by walking and biking.
c.	Accessible by regular transit service.

benefits

According to a 2006 Brookings Institute study a typical family in the central Twin Cities mixed-use neighborhoods of Seward and Longfellow spent $446/month on transportation, but that cost increases in more pure residential neighborhoods to $715 in Fridley just 6 miles north, and to $941 in Farmington about 25 miles south.
Land Use and Driving: The Role Compact Development Can Play in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Urban Land Institute: 2010).
Changes in the physical design of a city can facilitate people incorporating physical activity into their daily routines. The benefits of these active living by design, or design for health, strategies are documented by Design for Health
PLACE3S, a land use and urban design software package, quantifies energy, economic, and environmental effects of alternative plans.
The National Association of Realtor's 2011 Community Preference Survey reveals that most Americans would like to live in walkable communities where shops, restaurants, and local business are within an easy walk from their homes, as long as those communities can provide detached single-family homes. The survey also shows that most Americans would choose a smaller home and smaller lot if it would keep their commute time to 20 minutes or less.
How Walkability Raises Housing Values in U.S. Cities (CEOs for Cities: 2009), Market Acceptance of Smart Growth (U.S. EPA: 2011) and Smart Growth for Conservatives (Bacon's Rebellion: 2012).
In cities across the nation, compact development with a mix of land uses, transportation options and pedestrian-friendly design has reduced driving from 20% to 40%. A 2010 Metropolitan Council analysis of the effects of land planning and urban design on travel demand documented that changes in vehcile miles traveled are most strongly related to (1) accessibility/proximity to destinations, especially jobs, and (2) street network design variables (intersection/street density).
Location Efficiency and Housing Type - Boiling it Down to BTUs (Jonathan Rose Companies & U.S. EPA: 2010) and Greenhouse Gas Reductions Achievable Through Smart Growth and Improved Transportation Choices (Center for Clean Air Policy: 2009). The EPA study makes clear that the "most green" home (with a Prius) in a low-density residential-only development uses up to 2.4 times more energy than the "least green" home in a walkable, mixed use neighborhood.
Measuring the Health Effects of Sprawl (Smart Growth America: 2003) found that people living in sprawling developments tend to weigh more and have higher blood pressure, partly due to sorting themselves and lack of routine exercise opportunities.
Smart Growth & Conventional SuburbanDevelopment: Which Costs More? An Infrastructure Case Study Completed for the EPA (Morris Beacon Design: 2009).

Optional for all cities

Category B and C cities that choose to implement this best practice must complete at least one action.

Category A cities that choose to implement this best practice must complete at least two actions.

summary

Meeting sustainable urbanism's goal of complete, compact and connected development depends on mixing land uses, which lowers infrastructure costs, minimizes environmental impacts and increases a community's quality of life. A city can use its land use authority and other tools to help create a vibrant community that attracts jobs, fosters economic development, and that is an appealing place in which people can live, work, and recreate without having to drive everywhere for every activity of daily living. Growth can happen in a manner where roads, transit, schools, ecologic services, and access to retail, commercial, and industrial facilities are planned for and efficiently provided through connection and coordination with existing local and regional infrastructure and services.

greenstep advisor
Carissa Schively Slotterback, Urban and Regional Planning Program of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota: 612/625-0640, cschively@umn.edu, http://www.hhh.umn.edu/people/cschively/

connection to state Policy

As of July 1, 2009 the new Minnesota Education Omnibus Law includes provisions to eliminate minimum acreage requirements for schools, and to remove the bias against renovating, rather than rebuilding, old, typically more compact schools within walking and biking distance of residential neighborhoods.