Sponsorship Opportunities Available for the 2013 Summit!

We are thrilled to invite you to Center for Planning Excellence’s 8th annual Smart Growth Summit to be held on November 18–20, at the Manship Theatre at the Shaw Center for the Arts in downtown Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Summit is made possible through the support of sponsors and we hope you and your organization will consider joining us. Sponsorships are now available by clicking here, or using the Sponsorship tab on the navigation bar above.

If you would like more information on the 2013 Summit after reviewing the sponsorship brochure here > or if you would like to discuss custom sponsorship opportunities, please do not hesitate to contact us at 225-267-6300.

 

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2012 Summit Videos to Air on LPB2

We are excited to announce that selected sessions from the 2012 Smart Growth Summit will be featured on LPB-2′s Newsmakers series in the upcoming weeks (Channel 122 on Cox Cable or 27-2 over the air). Below is a brief schedule, but you can also check out the LPB website for more details as they become available.

February 2, 2013
5:30-6:00 pm – Are We Leading Change? featuring Robert J. Grow, regional visioning expert and leader of the Envision Utah process
6:00-7:00 pm – Cincinnati: Redeveloping Our City’s Core Using Innovative Financing Practices featuring Stephen G. Leeper, president & CEO of Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC)

February 9, 2013
5:30-6:30 pm – Can You Tell Me How to Get to Complete Street(s) featuring Tara M. Tolford with the Merritt C. Becker Jr. UNO Transportation Institute, New Orleans City Councilmember Kristin Gisleson Palmer, Jennifer E. Ruley with the Louisiana Public Health Institute and advisor to the City of New Orleans, and Lacy Strohschein with Center for Planning Excellence

February 16, 2013
5:30-6:00 pm – The Value of Planning featuring Mitchell J. Silver, chief planning and economic development officer for the City of Raleigh’s Planning Department and, president of the American Planning Association

The 2012 videos will also be available on our website shortly after they air along with speaker presentations. Videos from the 2011 Smart Growth Summit can currently be found on CPEX’s Vimeo channel.

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Dates Set for 2013 Summit!

Is it that time of year already? We have locked in our dates for the 8th annual Louisiana Smart Growth Summit! Mark Your calendars for:

November 18 – 20, 2013

Manship Theatre at the Shaw Center for the Arts
Downtown Baton Rouge

Additional details to follow, along with presentations from the 2012 summit!

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It’s Summit Time!

The day has finally arrived! The 2012 Smart Growth Summit kicks off Monday night with a keynote event featuring East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Melvin “Kip” Holden, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu and Mitchell J. Silver, the chief planning and economic development officer for Raleigh, North Carolina and president of the American Planning Association. Tuesday and Wednesday are both packed full of great sessions and speakers, which can all be found our our schedule page. Also, don’t miss the Tuesday evening awards reception for the Great Places in Louisiana Awards Program, co-hosted by CPEX, AARP, and The Lieutenant Governor’s Office.

Check our Location and Accommodations page for useful information and links on hotels, parking, and amenities, and we’ll see you at the Manship Theatre!

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Summit Featured in 225

Baton Rouge’s 225 Magazine published an article this month featuring an interview with Smart Growth Summit organizers Jennifer Stenhouse and Phillip LaFargue of CPEX, along with comments from summit speaker Robin Rather of Collective Strength in Austin, TX. The story also features a great breakdown of key speakers, categorized by some of the interests attendees may bring. It is a great refresher as we ramp up for the event later this month.

Read the article here>

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Summit Rescheduled for November

Thanks to the flexibility of our speakers and the hard work of our staff, CPEX has been able to reschedule the 2012 Smart Growth Summit for November 26-28, the Monday through Wednesday immediately following the Thanksgiving holidays.

The majority of our speakers have agreed to reschedule, and we are still working to confirm the details of the schedule. As updates occur, we will post them on the website, but in the meantime, you can still view the current schedule and speaker bios for an idea of how the “Smart Growth Summit 2.0″ will go.

Thank you to all of our sponsors, speakers and registrants for your patience during this time. We hope everyone managed to stay safe and sound through Hurricane Isaac and that power and normalcy is restored as soon as possible!

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Isaac Update #2

PLEASE DISREGARD ISAAC UPDATE #1.

The Smart Growth Summit has been cancelled and will be rescheduled in its entirety.

Center for Planning Excellence announced this morning that the 7th Louisiana Smart Growth Summit has been cancelled due to the threat caused by Tropical Storm Isaac. The entire event, which was to begin with a reception and keynote address this evening and continue with panel discussions on Tuesday and Wednesday will be rescheduled. As soon as details regarding new dates for the summit are confirmed, CPEX will send out notifications and information will be posted on the summit website at summit.cpex.org.  Registrants with any questions can email summit@cpex.org.

This cancellation/reschedule includes the Members Reception for CPEX membership planned for this evening at 5 p.m. We will be in touch with our members to reschedule.

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Out in the West Texas Town of El Paso

The City of El Paso, Texas, which will be featured in a session at the summit, has used planning, bus transportation, and transit-oriented development (TOD) to build great neighborhoods around historic corridors, transforming the city into a model of 21st-century success. In fact, they were recognized last year as the most Outstanding Public Transportation System by the APTA. Smart Growth America recently created a video to highlight this success story, which can be found here. Victor Dover with Dover, Kohl & Partners will join us to talk about El Paso’s comprehensive planning process that led to their TOD plan, while Mathew McElroy with the City of El Paso and Jay Banasiak with Sun Metro will discuss how they’ve been a part of this system and city’s transformation.

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Bike Easy on All Things Local

Check out this month’s podcast from UNOTI and  All Things Local NOLA  for a discussion of biking in New Orleans and the impacts of quality infrastructure on health, safety, the economy, and quality of life. Dr. John Renne is joined by Peter Bennett, Vivek Shah, and James Wilson of Bike Easy (Bike Easy will be featured at the 2012 Smart Growth Summit) to discuss implementing a Bikeshare program and the city’s new map for cyclists.

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Neighborland Featured on NPR

Neighborland’s Candy Chang

To kick off their new Cities Project, NPR chose to focus on the New Orleans-based Neighborland platform, a social media tool for sharing your ideas for your neighborhood. Users of this tool can add their own ideas or push a button that says they agree with someone else’s idea. Using this tool, citizens can advocate for their neighborhoods in an untraditional way. Candy Chang, one of the tool’s creators, sees it as “a tool for those who don’t have the loudest voice or the time to show up at City Hall.” Popular ideas for New Orleans include a streetcar downtown and grocery stores. Neighborland grew out of one of Candy Chang’s public art street projects. Neighborland’s Alan Williams was featured at last year’s Smart Growth Summit and will be returning this year for an update. You can read or listen to the story here.

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