Community Development through EPA’s Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities Program

<p>Many of the local governments we assist at the Environmental Finance Center struggle to raise enough money to support their environmental services. Often, we work with these communities to improve the finance and management of their systems through better rate setting, cost controls, and long-term planning. But another solution for struggling communities is to increase and strengthen their customer base through community and economic development.</p> <p>EPA has a number of programs and resources aimed to revitalize communities through “Smart Growth” economic development, which builds upon existing assets, takes incremental actions to strengthen communities, and builds long-term value to attract a range of investments. In previous posts, we looked at aspects of EPA’s Smart Growth initiative including their new Framework tool for Small Cities and Towns as well as Smart Growth efforts here in North Carolina. This post examines another aspect of the Smart Growth initiative: the Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities program.</p> <p></p> <p>EPA developed the Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities program in 2011 when it recognized that many communities needed tools to help achieve their desired development goals, improve quality of life, and become more economically and environmentally sustainable. The Building Blocks program delivers quick, targeted technical assistance to communities in order to stimulate a discussion about growth and development and strengthen local capacity to implement sustainable approaches.</p> <p>The program is organized around a series of “tools” which include presentations and exercises to help facilitate discussion, data or information from the community that can be analyzed to help drive the conversation, and an action-oriented process that leads to [...]</p>