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Who We Are |
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The National Center for Smart Growth
Research and Education is a non-partisan center for research
and leadership training on smart growth and related land use
issues in Maryland, in metropolitan regions around the
nation, and in Asia and Europe. Located at the University of
Maryland in College Park, MD., just eight miles from
Washington, D.C., the National Center for Smart Growth was
founded in 2000 as a cooperative venture of four University
of Maryland schools:
Architecture, Planning and Preservation,
Public Policy,
Agriculture and Natural Resources, and
Engineering.
The mission of the Center is to bring
the diverse resources of the University of Maryland and a
network of national experts to bear on issues related to
land use and the environment, transportation and public
health, housing and community development, and international
urban development. The Center accomplishes this through
independent, objective, interdisciplinary research, outreach
and education. It is aided in these efforts with the work of its three
affiliated centers: Environmental Finance Center, Center for the Use of Sustainable Practices, and the Transportation Policy Research Group.
In addition to its research efforts,
the Center also is partners with Smart Growth America in the
Governors' Institute on Community Design, a program designed
to assist governors throughout the United States who are
interested in issues of land use, development land
conservation, community design, or related issues. This
project is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Upon request, the Center also offers
smart growth leadership training to federal, state and local
government officials as well as to private sector
decision-makers. The Center staff and its affiliate faculty
offer specialized education and training programs as well as
smart growth study tours and workshops. Center staff invites
suggestions or ideas for tours, training or workshop
programs and is interested in establishing partnership
arrangements.
Environmental Finance Center
In 2007, the
National Center for Smart Growth merged with the
Environmental Finance Center. The merger allowed the Center
to expand its capabilities beyond land use research and
education and to provide technical and outreach assistance
to individual communities.
The Environmental
Finance Center is one of nine university-based centers
across the country established by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency in 1992. These centers help create
innovative financing solutions that assist communities
manage the costs associated with environmental protection
and improvement.
The Environmental Finance Center promotes a comprehensive
model of environmental financing where state and federal
funding programs are combined with innovative financing
techniques to create a sustainable watershed protection
financing strategy. It uses a number of tools to help
communities identify the financing strategies that best fit
their needs including:
- Technical Assistance and training programs;
- Financing charrettes, seminars, conferences and workshops;
- Handbooks and publications; and,
- Program facilitation, coordination, and management.
