We put together this self-guided activity that asks you to explore your neighborhood in a new way. What destinations can you reach in a 20-minute walk or bike ride from your home? Get outside and let us know by taking pictures and using the tag #BRin20 and/or #within20.
We spoke with Joyce Coffee, founder and President of Climate Resilience Consulting. Here are some of the highlights of our wide-ranging conversation about climate resilience.
An update to our partners, funders, clients, and members regarding our response to the COVID-19 outbreak
Happy New Year! The CPEX team is excited for a new decade of planning and progress for Louisiana communities! We are already hard at work building new partnerships and new initiatives for the year ahead and beyond. But before we get too far into the new year, I want to take a moment to look back at 2019 to reflect on the successes we can celebrate and the seeds we’ve planted for the future.
Inspired by the possibilities of a New Urbanist approach to planning, Cordell Haymon helped spearhead Plan Baton Rouge in 1998 and found the Center for Planning Excellence in 2006. He has served as the chair of CPEX’s board of directors for thirteen years, and he created CPEX’s membership program in 2011 alongside CPEX’s founding CEO, Elizabeth “Boo” Thomas. At the end of this year, Cordell is stepping down from his position as board chair, so this seems like the perfect time to reflect on the more than twenty years he has dedicated to advancing the practice of planning in Baton Rouge and Louisiana.
The advent of the holidays and our recent Smart Growth Summit provided an opportunity for me to reflect on the role planners play in discussions about community self-determination, and the difficulties of tackling tough subjects on a large scale.
From the hills above the small town in Maine where he grew up, Mike Lydon could see the winding roads that would take him through New England and across the country as a disciple of New Urbanism. Lydon will bring his expertise and insights to share with participants as a featured speaker at this year’s Smart Growth Summit on Tuesday, November 12, at the Shaw Center in downtown Baton Rouge.
CPEX is bringing Ross DeVol to our Smart Growth Summit on November 12th to share his findings on both small towns (micropolitans) and larger metros (metropolitans) in depth. In advance of his visit, we chatted with him to get a sneak peek into the insights he has for Louisiana.
Casually mention the term “green infrastructure” in a discussion, and it’s likely that every participant will conjure a different picture of what those words mean. But for planners devoted to its principles based on restoring natural processes in the built environment, the term is generating a lot of enthusiasm. By mimicking natural systems and using vegetation and soil instead of relying solely on concrete systems to facilitate drainage, green infrastructure offers communities affordable, scalable solutions to storm water management and chronic flooding problems. These can range from large-scale regional interventions to small installations on residential and commercial lots.
