Working for Smart Growth:
More Livable Places and Open Spaces

 

Development and Redevelopment

State Guidance for Locating Warehouses is Here

Friday, June 10th, 2022

The Office of Planning Advocacy, the staff for the State Planning Commission, has issued first-of-its-kind guidance on where and how warehouses should be located in New Jersey.

Community Design for All Ages: A New Sustainable Jersey Municipal Action

Friday, May 20th, 2022

Towns enrolled in the Sustainable Jersey program can now get recognition for completing actions that make their communities more livable. The Sustainable Jersey action, Community Design for All Ages, launched in March 2022, offers several ways for municipalities to engage in age-friendly community-building. New Jersey Future participated in the development of the action, which is based on New Jersey Future’s Creating Great Places To Age: A Community Guide to Implementing Aging-Friendly Land Use Decisions.

From Planning With Purpose to Action for All Ages

Thursday, December 2nd, 2021

In partnership with the NJ AARP chapter and other organizations, New Jersey Future is part of a collaborative effort to advance age-friendly state policy and local implementation, and with funding support from The Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation, the Community Foundation of South Jersey, and the Grotta Fund for Senior Care, we’ve been able to conduct NJ-specific age-friendly research, develop a NJ-specific community guide, and work directly with communities to facilitate their local initiatives.

Census 2020: New Jersey’s Older and Increasingly Diverse Centers Are Now Leading The State’s Population Growth

Monday, September 13th, 2021

The demographic story of the 2010s in New Jersey was the return of population growth to the state’s walkable, mixed-use centers—cities, towns, and older suburbs with traditional downtowns. Driven in particular by the Millennial generation’s desire for live-work-shop-play environments, many of the state’s older centers experienced their biggest population increases since before the 1950s.

New Jersey Needs More “Missing Middle” Housing

Monday, July 19th, 2021

New Jersey’s housing costs are among the highest in the country. The state ranks seventh in median home value and fourth in median rent. The state is losing younger households to other states, and evidence points to high housing costs as one of the reasons. To create more of the kinds of homes that younger households are looking for—in the neighborhoods they want to live in—New Jersey should consider revising the zoning and parking requirements that determine what kind of housing gets built and where.

Filling the Missing Middle: Context-Sensitive Design and Development Innovations for Diverse, Sustainable, Walkable Neighborhoods

Friday, June 25th, 2021

Increasing the housing stock in the most densely populated state in the country may seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. Panelists shared how they resolve the tension between municipalities’ need to grow and residents’ fear of change at the 2021 Planning and Redevelopment Conference’s Filling the Missing Middle: Context-Sensitive Design and Development Innovations for Diverse, Sustainable, Walkable Neighborhoods panel.

Municipal Approach to Racial and Economic Inclusion

Friday, June 25th, 2021

In a session entitled Municipal Approach to Racial and Economic Inclusion held at the 2021 New Jersey Planning & Redevelopment Conference and co-hosted by New Jersey Future and the New Jersey Chapter of the American Planning Association, elected officials explored what can be done to foster more racial and economic inclusion in planning and redevelopment.

How to Reinvigorate Retail-Anchored Downtowns in a Post-Pandemic World

Friday, June 25th, 2021

Downtown economies need to reimagine retail. With empty storefronts plaguing Main Streets across the state and country, the How to Reinvigorate Retail-Anchored Downtowns in a Post-Pandemic World panel at the 2021 Planning and Redevelopment Conference offered insight about the future of downtown retail amid a time of uncertainty. Recognizing that the pandemic rewarded retailers that were “adaptive, resourceful, and capable of reinvention,” the panel described a large-scale placemaking project in the redevelopment of key sites in downtown Westfield and offered a forward-thinking perspective for attracting and retaining retail.

The Future of New Jersey: An Economic Forecast

Friday, June 25th, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic devastated New Jersey in terms of both human life and the economy, but as the state opens back up, there are reasons to be optimistic for New Jersey’s future. There are also demographic and real estate trends that we must proactively counter and remain mindful of as our economy bounces back. Jeffrey Otteau, Managing Partner and Chief Economist at Otteau Group, presented facts and figures to show where we’ve been, as well as projections to show where we’re headed, during The Future of New Jersey: An Economic Forecast keynote session at the 2021 Planning and Redevelopment Conference.

Web Mapping to Support Smart Equitable Cities in Community Planning

Friday, June 25th, 2021

“Web mapping is a supertool for planners,” according to Rowan University Geography Professor John Hasse. The Web Mapping to Support Smart Equitable Cities in Community Planning session at the 2021 Planning and Redevelopment Conference demonstrated just that with several case studies highlighting new web mapping initiatives in New Jersey.

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