Smart Growth Business Partnership Project] (fwd)

[Ignacio Dayrit <rda@best.com>]

NALGEP LAUNCHES SMART GROWTH BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP PROJECT

The National Association of Local Government Environmental Professionals
(NALGEP) has launched a "Smart Growth Business Partnership Project" to
explore how urban sprawl impacts business.  The project will examine what
types of incentives might foster corporate decisions to locate and invest in
urban communities rather than in non-urban areas which contribute to sprawl.
Sponsored by the U.S. EPA+s Urban and Economic Development Division, the
project will convene business leaders and local government officials to
identify potential ways to build corporate support for the principles and
practices of brownfields renewal and smart growth.

Urban sprawl is threatening the social, economic and environmental resources
of cities and the regions surrounding them.  Sprawl threatens local
communities by inducing disinvestment in existing communities; raising costs
for new infrastructure; creating urban brownfields; increasing traffic and
congestion; degrading air and water quality; consuming prime agricultural
lands and habitat; and undermining community and family life.

Increasingly, businesses are experiencing the effects of urban sprawl.
According to "Beyond Sprawl," a recent report sponsored by the Bank of
America, some of the adverse impacts of sprawl on business include decreased
employee productivity; flight of suppliers and customers from urban areas;
decreased urban tax base; and the breakdown of the sense of community upon
which successful businesses depend.  A key to success in solving the
problems of sprawl and brownfields will be to build corporate support for
smart growth concepts.  Corporate leadership, such as General Motors+
innovative redevelopment of former sites in urban areas, will be fundamental
in the effort to control sprawl.

NALGEP+S Smart Growth Business Partnership will conduct a series of
interviews with business leaders to gather information on which businesses
want smart growth and why.  The project will be guided by a Smart Growth
Advisory Council of local government and business officials.

Smart Growth Advisory Council members include:

Brownfield Development Corporation; Bank of America; Arvida Development;
City of Charlotte; National Small Business United; Minnesota State
Representative Myron Orfield; Chrysler Corporation; Oregon Association of
Minority Entrepreneurs; Chicago Department of Environment; Philadelphia City
Planning Commission; Saint Paul (MN) Port Authority; Baltimore Department of
Planning; Portland Office of Transportation; Brownfields Project -
Englewood, Colorado; Northeast-Midwest Institute; Team Association, Inc. -
Chattanooga Smart Park; Interface Research Corporation; Electric Power
Research Institute; Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group; and the U.S. EPA.

In late 1998, NALGEP will issue a public report that provides
growth policies and practices.  The project report will be unveiled at a
summit in Washington, D.C., that will involve project members, mayors and
executive officers of the cities and businesses that participated in the
project.

Founded in 1993 by a group of local officials, NALGEP is the only national
organization representing local government professionals responsible for
environmental compliance and the development and implementation of local
environmental policy.  NALGEP brings together local environmental officials
to network and share information on innovative environmental practices,
conduct environmental policy projects, promote environmental training and
education, and communicate the view of local environmental officials on
national environmental issues.  NALGEP offers its members numerous
opportunities to interact and benefit from each other's experience and
expertise.

For more information, contact NALGEP at (202) 638-6254 or by email at
NALGEP@spiegel.becltd.com.