Urban Community Partnership

As I mentioned in my last post I am part of a grassroots organization looking to bring Urban3 and Strong Towns to Sonoma County to evaluate the development potential around the SMART train station areas, and to help our local decision makers and community at large, understand the financial implications of various development scenarios. We are calling ourselves the Urban Community Partnership and are in the process of forming a non-profit organization that will advocate for mixed-use, walkable financially-resilient developments. We recently wrote an op-ed that was published in the local paper, the Press Democrat. You can read the op-ed here.

The City of Santa Rosa has undertaken a first step in this process and has hired Urban3 to analyze Railroad Square, which has a SMART train station, and downtown. We plan on launching a fundraising campaign to be able to start the larger county-wide project soon. Stay tuned.