Topics: Transportation, Land Use & Land Cover Change
What makes our communities livable and resilient? Living Maps: From Cosmos to Community explores the conditions that support life, from the outer edges of the solar system to their own communities in the Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina. Understanding these conditions can inform strategies for addressing interconnected challenges facing the region.
This event originally took place at the Land of Sky Regional Council, in collaboration with UNC Asheville’s National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center (Asheville, NC) on September 26, 2013. The production highlights concepts underlying the Livable Communities Initiative, a 3-year project funded by the HUD-DOT-EPA Partnership for Sustainable Communities. Three screenings and dialogues were hosted with audiences who represent an array of regional governmental, planning, NGO and academic institutions tasked to develop regional and local strategies for sustainable development, economic prosperity, and quality growth.
The “Living Maps” program explored three questions with audiences:
How can we make transportation between where people live and work more sustainable and affordable?
How do we balance land use demands among agriculture, development, recreation and environment?
What global and regional issues will affect our communities over the next 20 years?
The movie above showcases the first section of Living Maps, and the rest can be viewed online.
The Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Program, branded as GroWNC, supports metropolitan and multijurisdictional planning efforts that integrate housing, land use, economic and workforce development, transportation, and infrastructure investments in a manner that empowers jurisdictions to consider the interdependent challenges of:
economic competitiveness and revitalization;
social equity, inclusion, and access to opportunity;
energy use and climate change; and public health and environmental impact.
