The Missing Metric

An Economic Development Strategy for the New Normal

Resources Provided by Peter Katz, Principal at Strategic Consulting Practice

With the multiple crises of municipal insolvency, climate change and citizen pushback against government regulation at all levels; it makes sense to consider a new “balance-sheet” approach to granting development approvals. Such an approach would screen for more compact, high-value development that pay back government’s up-front infrastructure investments on a more rapid basis. By incorporating the “missing metric” into development review, municipalities may be able to reduce and even eliminate many cumbersome and highly subjective development regulations, and at the same time make it easier to achieve more amenable, resource efficient and fiscally stable communities.

The articles listed below provide an overview of this approach.

• What the Country Needs Now, Mr. President – Apply Some Tough Love
  Peter Katz, Planning, Nov. 2012.
• The Fiscal Fix
  James Bacon, Bacon’s Rebellion- Reinventing Virginia for the 21st Century, June 2012.
• Live from CNU20: The Economic Benefits of Good Urbanism
  Henry Spethmann, SustainableCitiesCollective, May 11, 2012.
• A Prescription for Fiscal Fitness? Smart Growth and the Municipal Bottom Line
  David Goldberg, Realtors & Smart Growth – On Common Ground, Summer 2011.
• Sunburnt cities have a shot to remake themselves
  Haya El Nasser, USA Today, March 2011.
• Cities Discover Economic Benefits of Sustainable Planning, Land Use
  Andrew Shashaty, Sustainable Communities, January/February 2011.
• Sarasota’s Smart Growth Dividend
  Peter Katz, Planning, December 2010.
• Best bet for tax revenue: mixed-use downtown development
  New Urban News, September 2010.
• Mixed-Use Downtown Development Creates the Most Tax Revenue
  Zachary Shahan, Reuters, August 2, 2010.
• City leaders, looking for revenue? Go urban!
  Neil Takemoto, cooltownstudios, July 28, 2010.
• Big Box Stores Don’t Produce Big Tax Gains
  The Wall Street Journal, July 14, 2010.
• Tax revenue from downtown mixed-use outperforms big-box superstores and malls
  Kaid Benfield, Switchboard, July 14, 2010.