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New Resources and Events

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The Learning Network is a place to talk about what is happening in the sustainability field and share new resources and upcoming events.  View newly released resources, upcoming events and information to help incorporate environmentally, socially, healthy and economically sustainable practices into your work.

Have a resource or event you’d like to share? Please send questions and suggestions to sustainability@ca-ilg.org.  We ask that events be relevant and accessible to our statewide California audience.

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The Innovative DOT (2nd Edition)
Smart Growth America, January 2014

Smart Growth America has partnered with the State Smart Transportation Initiative to develop The Innovative DOT.  The handbook provides 34 recommendations to help transportation officials position their agencies for success in the new economy.  

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Health in All Policies: A Guide for State & Local Governments
Public Health Institute & Partners, 2013

Health in All Policies: A Guide for State and Local Governments was created by the Public Health Institute, the California Department of Public Health, and the American Public Health Association in response to growing interest in using collaborative approaches to improve population health by embedding health considerations into decision-making processes across a broad array of sectors.

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Dig, Eat and Be Healthy
ChangeLab Solutions, 2013

“Dig, Eat & Be Healthy” is a guide that helps community groups and public agencies understand the opportunities to grow food on public properties- from vacant fields, school yards, rights-of-way and even rooftops of public buildings. 

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Building Better Budgets: A National Examination of the Fiscal Benefits of Smart Growth Development
Smart Growth America, May 2013

This report by Smart Growth America looks at the costs associated with smart growth development and conventional suburban development, as well as each strategy’s revenue potential.

Through a survey of 17 previous studies, the report finds smart growth development:

  • Costs one-third less for up-front infrastructure
  • Saves an average of ten percent on ongoing delivery of services
  • Generates ten times more tax revenue per acre than conventional suburban development
Webinar
Safe Routes to School Toolkit Introduction

Safe Routes to School Toolkit Introduction

Watch the webinar explaining how to use ILG’s Safe Routes to School Toolkit, and then access the toolkit here. 

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Livable Community Indicators for Sustainble Aging in Place
MetLife Mature Market Institute, March 2013

Communities in the U.S. can follow a relatively simple and low cost initial set of indicators to determine if their services meet the needs of an aging population. These indicators can be measured using information that is readily available and adaptable to local governments, providing a low-cost way for local governments to begin to examine the specific needs of their aging populations.

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California State Parks Office of Historic Preservation

California State Parks, Office of Historic Preservation offers links, briefings and reports on how to integrate sustainability considerations into historic buildings retrofits.  Resources include information on energy efficiency, implementing solar and other green building techniques for historic buildings. 

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Making the Most of MAP-21
Transportation for America

In summer of 2012 Congress adopted an update to the federal transportation program known as Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st century, or MAP-21.  While it stopped short of providing more robust funding or a sweeping vision for infrastructure the 21st century, MAP-21 makes significant changes to federal transportation policy that are critical to understand.

Webinar City of Delano
City of Delano Achieves Broad Public Engagement for Health & Inclusiveness

City of Delano Achieves Broad Public Engagement for Health & Inclusiveness
Learn about health, land use & community design

Watch this webinar recording hosted January 13, 2013 and featuring Keith Woodcock, Director of Community and Regional Planning Center at California State University, Fresno discussing strategies the City of Delano used to engage its community to improve health through community design.

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2012 State of Worksite Wellness in America
Alliance for Healthier Minnesota

The States of Wellness is a national survey research project exploring the experiences, attitudes and opinions of human resource professionals regarding worksite wellness. 

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Methods for Estimating the Environmental Health Impacts of SRTS Programs
National Center for Safe Routes to Schools

This concise 14-page resource provides an overview of the connection between Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs and environmental health, a formula for estimating the environmental health impact of a program’s activities and examples of how real-life SRTS programs have estimated their environmental health impact.

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Promoting Active Transportation: An Opportunity for Public Health
American Public Health Association & Safe Routes to School National Partnership, 2012

This 25-page document focuses on the fact that everyone travels and thus transportation planning is an ideal place to promote better health through more active transportation. 

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Thinking Outside the Farebox

This free guidebook is designed to help community leaders across the country meet the demand for transit by raising money to build and operate it outside of the traditional federal funding sources.

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California Solar Permitting Guidebook

The guidebook explains state requirements for solar PV, outlines local permitting steps, and recommends several ways that local agencies can improve permitting of solar PV systems.

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Dialogue4Health Web Forums Available
Public Health Institute

The Public Health Institute’s Dialogue4Health initiative conducts regular web forums that invite multiple sectors together in conversation on topics that matter to health in its broadest sense.  Past web forums have covered topics related to promoting active transportation in rural areas, improving school policies to promote more physical activity and a three part series on integrating health in our homes and built environments. 

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Creating Healthy Regional Transportation Plans
Transform & CA Department of Public Health, 2012

The guide is a primer for California’s public health community on regional transportation plans and sustainable communities strategies from TransForm and the California Department of Public Health.

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NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) Urban Bikeway Design Guide provides cities with state-of-the-practice solutions that can help create complete streets that are safe and enjoyable for bicyclists. Designs in the Guide were written by cities, for cities, with the intent to help practitioners make good decisions about urban bikeway design.

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Model Design Manual for Living Streets

The Model Design Manual for Livable Streets incorporates features that public works staff, planners, and other local officials can use to make streets lively, beautiful, economically vibrant, and environmentally sustainable.

The free manual, developed by the LA County Department of Public Health RENEW LA County Initiative, is available in PDF, Microsoft Word and InDesign formats, allowing cities and counties to customize the document for their own local context and insert it in their local manuals. (November 2011)

Download the Manual on the right.

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All Aboard: How California Can Increase Investments in Public Transit
Bank of America, UCLA Law and Berkeley Law, July 2011

This paper looks at current public transportation infrastructure and identifies actions that government leaders can take to ensure that California maintains and expands it’s existing public transit system.

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Sustainable Communities Questionnaire
Summary of Results

Find out what local representatives had to say about opportunities to share information in this short summary of results from the Sustainable Communities Questionnaire (distributed July/Aug 2011).

Download the summary on the right.

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