A new Rutgers report highlights the coming problem of aging and abandoned suburban office parks. Those facilities that cannot be repurposed to meet the market demand for mixed-use, transit-accessible employment centers should not be the recipients of state job-creation incentives.
Transportation
The Coming Boom in White Elephants
Wednesday, January 2nd, 201325 Years of Smart Growth in New Jersey
Thursday, November 8th, 2012The 25 years during which New Jersey Future has advocated for smarter growth have seen some important successes: greater transit use, more land preservation, and a rise in redevelopment activity. However, more work remains to be done.
Planning to Build on Light Rail Success
Thursday, November 1st, 2012The Federal Transit Administration’s awarding of a $400,000 grant to examine the possibility of building a new light-rail station in Jersey City demonstrates tangible commitment to advancing economic development through transit-oriented development.
TOD Line Newsletter Launched to Highlight TOD Advances and Experiences
Wednesday, October 17th, 2012A new newsletter from the Land Use Law Center at PACE University, focused on transit-oriented development issues.
Safe Routes to School: Small Steps for Healthy Kids
Thursday, October 11th, 2012During National Walk and Bike to School month, we look at some compelling reasons to make it easier for schoolchildren to walk or bike to school – most notably increased physical activity and reduced traffic. The new federal transportation legislation includes funding for cycling and walking programs and infrastructure, but also enough flexibility that those funds might get diverted for other uses. We urge the New Jersey state DOT to keep bicycle and pedestrian funding, and we encourage the development of more communities where housing and schools are within walking distance of each other.
Comprehensive Transit Inventory Allows for More Strategic Investment Decisions
Monday, September 24th, 2012The transit station inventory provides policy makers, municipal officials and development professionals with a systematic way to identify the highest-potential opportunities for various kinds of development around transit stations.
Johnson & Johnson To Establish Innovation Centers
Wednesday, September 19th, 2012Johnson & Johnson is establishing four life-sciences innovation centers but none in New Jersey, even though the state has many of the key assets that can make innovation districts successful. New Jersey needs ways to put an innovation district strategy to work here.
State Strategic Plan Recognizes Importance of Ports to NJ’s Economy
Wednesday, September 12th, 2012Ports, and their attendant goods-distribution industries, are one of the pillars of New Jersey’s economy, and they have their own unique land-use needs. To its credit, the New Jersey State Strategic Plan, which articulates a vision for future physical and economic development in the state, recognizes the importance of the ports and cites them as future growth areas.
Targeting Industry and Geography Together to Foster Job Growth
Wednesday, September 12th, 2012New Jersey has recently been losing jobs in several of the key industries highlighted in the draft State Strategic Plan. An examination of innovation districts as an economic growth strategy suggests state investments in key industries should be strongly linked to the kinds of smart-growth places where they can flourish.
Dunellen and East Orange as Transit Villages: One Designation, Two Strategies
Wednesday, August 29th, 2012Dunellen and East Orange can each use the Transit Village designation in a way that best serves residents – to increase residential growth (and, presumably, residential values) near a station that should be starting to see higher ridership rates, or to expand employment opportunities and building its commercial tax base.
