Governor O’Malley Signs Sustainable Communities Financing Bill Into Law

2013 tax increment financing law enhances authority for local government funding for community revitalization and economic development

Press Release: Thursday, May 16, 2013; 10:30 a.m.

BALTIMORE, MD – Governor Martin O’Malley today signed into law a bill passed by the Maryland General Assembly that expands municipalities’ and counties’ authority to finance costs for infrastructure improvements located in or supporting a Sustainable Community through tax increment financing (TIF).

Spoke Shops Signal Smart Growth

The Return of Neighborhood Bicycle Shops: A Sustainable Community Indicator

“The communities that embrace the bicycle and all that goes with it NOW will be the successful communities of the next generation.”

–Alex Obriecht, President Bike Maryland & Race Pace Bicycles

Did you buy that bicycle at the hardware store?

Baltimore Bicycle Works baltimorebicycleworks.com
Credit: David Whitaker

This was quite likely several decades ago. From the 1950’s through the 1970’s, you could often find a bicycle shop combined with a local hardware store in communities throughout the U.S. This was a unique 20th century retail combination that was often located on or near a main street or at a nearby neighborhood commercial center.

Retail operated differently decades ago and both bicycle shops and hardware stores often were located in the neighborhood. Sometimes that first paper-route bike or later the Schwinn Stingray, Varsity or Paramount 10-speed was purchased at one of these long gone local hardware & bicycle shops.

Several years thereafter there was a commercial transition

Is There Life After Malls?

(co-authored by John Coleman)

A typical suburban enclosed mall (Crossroads Mall; Omaha, Nebraska; Labelscar, the Retail History Blog)

The enclosed suburban shopping mall came to symbolize the height of middle class American culture from the 1960’s through the 1980’s. The ubiquitous shopping mall was a retail model that wooed stores away from downtowns and main street shopping areas. The enclosed mall became the location for retail, socializing, cinema and the ever present food courts where teens and their families often spent the afternoon far from their community and the comfy confines of their kitchens and dining room tables.

Video: National Planning Award for Governor O’Malley

This is the video the American Planning Association produced to announce the “National Planning Excellence Award for Planning Advocate” that it gave to Governor Martin O’Malley this spring. He was the first governor so honored in nearly a decade by the national professional planning organization.

Postcard from the Colorado Front Range: Building transit as fast as they can

Historic Postcard of Colorado State Capitol, Denver, CO

“Build as much as we can, as fast as we can, until it’s all done!”

That’s the mantra of Colorado’s FasTracks program.