Infrastructure is Our Competitive Advantage

By: Catherine L. Ross, Ph.D.

Saporta Report, 18 May 2009

"They came from all over the southeast and New York. They came because they heard our infrastructure was wearing out. They came because they are concerned about preserving our competitive advantage, and the quality of life in the south eastern United States."

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Megaregions: Planning for Global Competitiveness (2009)

Edited by Catherine L. Ross

This book is an edited volume of the work of a select group of scholars and theoreticians that contributes to the development of the theoretical underpinnings of spatial planning in an American context. The volume addresses the most critical issues confronting us over the next 50 years of American growth, development, and global competition. The authors examine particular ways in which spatial planning may be useful in addressing equity, environmental, and economic concerns. The rising significance of the region and city-regions in the global economy, and the challenges currently confronting American cities and regions, clearly signal the timeliness of this book.

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Quality Growth Quarterly (QGQ) Newsletter

More than 100 engineers, urban designers, city planners, municipal and state officials, community and nonprofit representatives, and others met with national experts in May 2004 to learn more about context-sensitive design (CSD), a philosophy for transportation system and public space design that takes into account environmental, aesthetic, historic, and community resources to produce projects that meet transportation needs and support the community's goals and surroundings. The presentations and results of the hands-on workshop are available online.

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Connecting Transportation and Health: Health Impact Assessment (2009)

By: Catherine L. Ross and Michelle Marcus

The City of Decatur, GA wanted to create a safe and efficient multimodal transportation system but it was open to improving overall quality of life and well being of the community. Working with a team of consultants and researchers from Georgia Tech, Decatur decided to undertake a Community Transportation Plan (CTP). The Georgia Tech team introduced Decatur officials to a series of tools to meet the city’s transportation needs under these principles. The tools include: a Street Typology Overlay, Bicycle and Pedestrian Latent Demand Score (LDS) analysis, Multimodal Level of Service analysis, a Quality Growth Audit, and a Health Impact Assessment (HIA). In responding to the wishes of Decatur, the team: held community workshops, conducted analysis of the mobility needs of Decatur including innovative methodological approaches to better measure the demand and location of bicycle routes connecting to major attractors; focused more explicitly on the location and size of pedestrian facilities; crafted a new way of thinking about the classification of streets and expanded city services targeting quality-of-life improvements. Decision-makers were actively involved throughout the planning process; there was a focus on increased opportunities for non-motorized transportation alternatives and a commitment to support existing and future economic development opportunities in the downtown area. In this way, they enabled the continued development of Decatur as an economically successful and livable city.

Visit the Decatur Transportation Plan (2007) page

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