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You don’t need a degree in architecture or planning to help shape the future of your community. The real work of placemaking—the heavy lifting—is often done by people coming together from different walks of life to build a network, engage the broader community, define plans, and implement them. These efforts take time.

Boston Skyline

This website was created to help provide resources and connections to Massachusetts residents, merchants, and others—anyone who’s interested in improving the quality of life in their city or town. On this site you will find:

  • News about smart growth policy, events, and projects in Massachusetts, as well as a growing list of resources.
  • Information about municipal and statewide issues and policy related to smart growth.
  • Stories about local smart growth efforts at Great Neighborhoods sites.
  • Ways to get connected with others who are doing smart growth work.

Websites on Smart Growth

A Growing List of Smart Growth Allies in Massachusetts

  1. LivableStreets Alliance
  2. Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development
  3. Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development
  4. Massachusetts Downtown Initiative
  5. Massachusetts Public Health Association
  6. MassINC
  7. Sustainable Communities Consortium
  8. Transportation for Massachusetts
  9. Trustees of Reservations
  10. WalkBoston

Smart Growth Allies in the Northeast

5 Books on Smart Growth

  1. City: Rediscovering the Center, a journalist’s observation and mediation on how urban spaces work and why, by William H. Whyte (1988).
  2. Livable Streets, a groundbreaking study of how traffic and street design affect the quality of life, by urban designer and academic Donald Appleyard (1981).
  3. The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a now classic examination of the built environment, written by urban activist Jane Jacobs (1961).
  4. The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape explores the geographic and social effects of the automobile on American society, by James Howard Kunstler (1993).
  5. The Smart Growth Manual, a brief guide to smart growth concepts, from regional to local to street to building, by Andres Duany, Jeff Speck, Mike Lydon (2010).