As the green movement continues to gain momentum, cities across the country are asking what they can do to become greener and more sustainable. There are many ways to define a sustainable city, but it is up to each community to create its own vision of what sustainability means to the people who live there and which specific goals they wish to achieve.

One of the more gratifying aspects of the growing embrace not just by the Obama administration but Congress of regional innovation strategies (including those supporting regional industry clusters) has been the increased recognition among rural thinkers and actors that such strategies are in no way exclusively “urban” or cosmopolitan or high-tech.

Allan Jacobs Great Streets is the definitive guide to good street design. As I'm working my way through it, I'm compelled to find the examples in the book on google streetview to get a closer look and explore the surroundings. The hand drawings and plan-view diagrams in the book are classic, but you can't beat the online tour for detail. Of course, I'm still logging these places away until I actually get a chance to visit some of them in reality.

How walkable is your Minnesota neighborhood?

"In the last 50 years, we've been building the suburbs with a lot of unintended consequences." Ezra Klein presents interesting projects that give us "tremendous reasons to be really optimistic that the big design and development project of the next 50 years is going to be retrofitting suburbia."

What will our cities look like in 2030 when we’ve run out of oil? The Our Cities Ourselves exhibition (June 24-Sept 11, 2010), a program of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy provides an intriguing answer to that question by matching ten of the world’s top urban designers with ten of the world’s most dynamic cities.

Study finds that lower rents mean more money for residents to spend on everything from health care to groceries, boosting local business and property values; federal tax credits seen playing critical role.

Walkable neighborhoods could be intentionally structured so that food production is integrated into the physical form and the lifestyle of the inhabitants. In other words, it is a synthesis between urban and rural.

The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) invested $607 million during 2009 to help transform distressed neighborhoods into good places to live, work, do business and raise families.

The Future of Public Housing Policy Framework, developed at the CLPHA-convened 2008 Summit on the Future of Public Housing, includes a commitment to greening the entire public housing portfolio in ten years.

HUD will be setting policies and programs on sustainable communities, but they are most interested in hearing from stakeholders about what works, said Jim Lopez, Senior Advisor to HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims.

Prepared Remarks for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan at the Congress for the New Urbanism

On April 29, 2010, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) officially launched its LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) rating system.

Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. joined Representatives Ed Perlmutter, Jim Himes and Paul Hodes along with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to discuss the importance of green affordable housing.

Bicycle boulevards save lives. Bioswales protect the environment.

Council passes a measure that could spend as much as $613 million over 20 years on new bike paths and other bicycling infrastructure needs.

Six important planning lessons to learn from Portland, Oregon

The city has selected 10 zones to focus on low-carbon technologies and initiatives

Eco-districts aim to move beyond the design of individual structures to focus on greening entire neighborhoods

Green Investment Fund aims to help three Portland housing projects

Internet-based tool lets residents track their personal carbon footprint and gauge how green their neighborhood is compared with the rest of the city

Program helps 11 partner municipalities increase affordable housing, take cars off the roads and foster a sense of community

Communities looking toward transit-oriented development can learn from the California capital region

The EPA has recognized four communities for innovative approaches to development that expand economic opportunity and protect public health and the environment.

DeSoto and Ferguson will build and maintain streets to accommodate safe travel for all users, not just motoris

Through a public-private partnership, the City will plant more than a million new trees in the next five years

Union Park development is key to revitalization and re-development of downtown Las Vegas

The city builds on its already impressive efforts with a world-class climate action plan.

City to make environmental sustainability a primary goal in all city planning decisions

Stapleton is an award-winning master planned community on a former airport site outside Denver, CO. Designed as a sustainable community, it will accommodate 12,000 homes and 13 million square feet of commercial space over the next 15 years.