Today (March 23) the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) – the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the San Francisco Bay Area – officially committed $10 million to the Bay Area Transit-Oriented Affordable Housing Fund (TOAH Fund). MTC's critical commitment to play the top-loss role in the fund has been instrumental in raising the additional capital. The fund will launch at the end of March with MTC’s $10 million matched by $40 million in foundation and private funding.

The Center for Transit-Oriented Development has released a report that examines real estate development patterns along three recently built light rail lines. The findings of Rails to Real Estate: Development Patterns along Three New Transit Lines should help local planners and others considering new transit lines to maximize the benefits of new transit investments and foster transit-oriented development.

The three transit lines are the Hiawatha Line in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region in Minnesota, the Southeast Corridor in the Denver region in Colorado, and the Blue Line in the Charlotte region in North Carolina.

The analysis considers development patterns with regard to a number of factors, including proximity to downtowns and major employment centers, the location and extent of vacant or “underutilized” property suitable for development or redevelopment, block patterns that influence “walkability,” transit connectivity…

On March 22 at 3:30pm ET, Reconnecting America will host "Supporting the Partnership for Sustainable Communities: Tools for Advocacy," the second in a series of Sustainable Communities Network webinars. Joining Reconnecting America in hosting this webinar are Smart Growth America, PolicyLink and the National Housing Conference.

Jeff Wood, New Media Director and Chief Cartographer at Reconnecting America, will discuss the Livable Communities Blogosphere strategy to organize the nationwide effort for Transportation for America and Reconnecting America at part of the Social Media for Planners, Advocates and Consultants webinar planned March 23.

Our founding fathers sparred over the federal interest in funding infrastructure. In fact, the battle over it helped jumpstart partisan rivalry in America. The Federalist Party—created by Alexander Hamilton—supported federal funding and support for “internal improvements,” which we know as infrastructure today. The Democratic Republicans—created by Thomas Jefferson—vehemently disagreed. The nation would have been vastly different, if not for the outcome of these earlier contests.

Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institute has released the final report on Policy Research Priorities for Sustainable Communities resulting from the research roundtable hosted in the fall of 2010.