This article examines the complementarity of livability and sustainability at a theoretical level but recognizes that linkage in practice is complex. Connection between these concepts is examined through the analysis of comprehensive plans in fourteen jurisdictions in the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where a federally funded regional planning process was initiated to create “livable sustainability.” Results show variation in local plan compliance with the livable sustainability guidelines in the region, with particular challenge integrating nontraditional planning concerns. Attention to issues of scale, context, and potential to enable change will help planners promote long-term sustainability while recognizing local livability preferences.
Local governments are increasingly forging creative alliances to solve community problems and provide local services. The literature recognizes cultural institutions as partners for local community development, yet these alliances remain underutilized. This article identifies the contributions that local government partnerships with cultural institutions—specifically public gardens—make to community development through their services, presence, and location in urban America. Using data from a national survey and 96 expert interviews of public garden and government officials, we explain why these alliances are forming, document their potential to improve communities, and suggest steps that local governments might take to benefit from this vital partner. Results expand our understanding of how nontraditional community development partners can provide resources to local governments to address urban challenges.
Immediately following Hurricane Katrina, the Mississippi Governor's Commission for Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal partnered with the Congress for the New Urbanism to provide teams of planners and designers to work with communities along the coast in preparing rebuilding plans. Following a week-long charrette in October 2005, each coastal community was provided with a rebuilding plan that was intended to be based on the principles of New Urbanism. The initial plans have been followed up with further long-range planning. Two years after Katrina, this paper examines the degree to which New Urbanism has been incorporated into the long-range comprehensive, master and other rebuilding plans developed in the communities along the coast in Harrison County, Mississippi. This study finds that New Urbanist principles were integrated into some community plans, but were largely absent from others. In those that do incorporate the principles, the realities of post-Katrina planning created serious challenges to the feasibility of implementing New Urbanist plans. While the goals of the New Urbanist consultants were to create better communities and regions, these good intentions have primarily failed on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In many cases, communities felt dissatisfied with their design-based plans because they were not appropriate for the time and place of post-Katrina Mississippi. The paper concludes by offering suggestions on how communities can improve their plans relative to integrating the principles of New Urbanism that can help rebuild better communities, while balancing community priorities for rebuilding.
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