Connections for Sustainability

Connections for Sustainability home
Definitions
Livability:

Livability is an indication of a community’s quality of life based on factors that include natural environments, economic prosperity, social stability and equity, educational opportunity and cultural, entertainment and recreation possibilities.

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Connections... Who & What

In the fall of 2010, the City of Greenville was awarded $1.8 million in grant funding to support a three-year planning effort. The grant was a combination of funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) as part of the interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The City's proposal was one of 42 chosen throughout the country to receive funds, and only one of 14 to receive joint funding from HUD and DOT. The grant project began in spring 2011, and has been titled Connections for Sustainability: Linking Greenville's Neighborhoods to Jobs and Open Space.

Connections for Sustainability: Linking Greenville's Neighborhoods to Jobs and Open Space will work to deliver all the benefits of a livable community - multi-modal access, affordable housing, and increase green space- to low-income residents most in need of those benefits by undertaking a comprehensive planning effort that values community input.

Connections is aimed at establishing connections between affordable housing, transportation options, economic development opportunities and open space throughout the city, but will focus on Greenville’s west side. The vision for this area is to drastically reverse the trend of decline, address blighted areas and improve the quality of life for the area’s residents. The economic development opportunities surrounding this vision would create jobs within the area and provide residents with direct connections, via improved transit service, to other major economic sectors.

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Sustainablity Updates

TOD Workshop Now Online: View the presentation and complete the survey used in the workshop. Your input will help our consultants know what type of Transportation Oriented Economic Development we want to see in Greenville.
Presentation | Survey | Map

Kick-Off Event The first public Kick-off Event was held March 1 at the West Greenville Community Center. City staff and the consultant teams would like to thank everyone who took time to be a part of the process. Seventy-five attendees represented neighborhoods from all over the City.
Latest Update

What's Next? City staff and consultants are busy working to consolidate and incorporate the public comments we gathered at the kick-off event. We have posted the presentations, housing and transportation surveys, and the transportation base map in the What's New section of this website. A great way to keep abreast of the project’s developments is to subscribe to our free electronic monthly newsletter. Or, you can check out our online newsletter archive.

Why Sustainability?

The Connections for Sustainability project seeks to address sustainability as a balance between the following three equally important goals, particularly in the west side neighborhoods where the need is greatest:

  1. Environment-Planet. Conserving natural systems and minimizing ecological impacts
  2. Equity-People. Focusing on people and communities and their needs.
  3. Economy-Prosperity/Profit. Creating a vibrant economy through the creation of wealth, prosperity, and jobs.

Affordable housing, economic development opportunities, open space and especially transportation options will be the proposed connections between the neighborhoods, the city and an improved quality of life.

Get Involved with the Connections to Sustainability project What makes our community sustainable? What makes housing affordable? These definitions and values need to be studied and debated. With help from everyone, the process and outcomes of this project will enable city and regional planners, policy-makers, developers, businesses and members of the community to sustain our community.

Click the icon above to get involved with the Connections for Sustainability Project!

quotation marks image indicating a quote follows In the past, some strong ideas have been voiced about what makes a good place for living. A good place to live in is responsive to the needs of its present occupants and it suggests that there will be future changes to come.

- Mills' Mill Redevelopment,
Clemson University College of Architecture