Talking Headways Podcast: The Evolution of Federal Livability Policy

Welcome back Mariia Zimmerman of MZ Strategies for her second appearance on the podcast. We discuss how livability initiatives have changed over time at the federal level, from the initial attempts to foster growth by transit to more recent efforts to ensure equitable results from the coordination of transportation and development policy.

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Livability and the GOP: A Conversation With HUD’s Mariia Zimmerman

By Tanya Snyder |
Perhaps the Obama administration’s greatest contribution to building more livable, less traffic-choked communities has been the new partnership between three agencies — DOT, EPA, and HUD — which are helping towns and cities grow more sustainably, using strategies from brownfield redevelopment to the provision of affordable housing along transit corridors. The agencies have collaborated to […]

Talking Headways: Mapping Out Local Transportation Advocacy and Reform

By Jeff Wood |
Mariia Zimmerman of MZ Strategies joins me to chat about her new report on local advocacy for transportation reform called Transportation Transformation. Mariia, former deputy director for the Office of Sustainable Communities at HUD as well as former chief of staff to Congressman Earl Blumenauer, spent a year probing the local transportation advocacy landscape to […]

Turning the Queen Mary: A Conversation with HUD, Part II

By Tanya Snyder |
How do three massive governmental bureaucracies (HUD, DOT, and EPA) nimbly change their approaches and procedures to work together on the Partnership for Sustainable Communities? How can communities ensure that transit-oriented development doesn’t end up pricing out existing residents? How can recipients of federal planning grants move from planning to implementation of livability strategies? Streetsblog […]

Talking Headways Podcast: Indexing Livability for All Ages

By Jeff Wood |
This week we chat with Rodney Harrell of the AARP Public Policy Institute about their new Livability Index Tool. I ask him who the tool was created for and tell him why it should be regarded as more than just magazine clickbait. We talk about the robust policy tools that were included for each section […]

House Approves Transpo Spending Bill After Stripping Out $ for Livability

By Noah Kazis |
Congressmen Oberstar and Blumenauer, here speaking together at the 2007 Bike Summit, were on opposite sides of a dispute about increased funding for livability programs yesterday. Photo: Bike Portland The House of Representatives passed its 2011 appropriations bill for Transportation and Housing and Urban Development yesterday, significantly increasing the amount going to both highways and […]

U.S. DOT Previews How New Transit Rules Could Define ‘Livability’

By Elana Schor |
When the Obama administration announced an ambitious revamp of transit funding rules to, as the Transportation Secretary put it, "take livability into account," urban planners and transit advocates alike were pleased — but also uncertain. Baltimore’s rail network, with the proposed new Red Line — which could get a boost from the U.S. DOT’s livability […]