The Department of Housing and Urban Development's recently created Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities is working to help make every American community more sustainable and to support the “government’s vision for a healthier built environment”.

The Office’s Sustainable Communities Initiative sees sustainability as a direct route to economic recovery – cities that are working to invest in transit and have focused on place-making have weathered the downturn most successfully according to Office Director Shelley Poticha.  Some of the Office’s new goals include creating more housing near jobs, influencing land use decisions that will decrease transportation costs, reducing energy consumption in the residential sector (which will lead to new green jobs and economic growth) and encouraging more sophisticated regional planning that will lead to reform land use on the local, city and state levels.  

The department’s initiatives call for unprecedented collaboration amongst federal agencies including the DOT and the EPA in order to assist communities in becoming more livable and sustainable, to be achieved through a number of grant programs that will enable and equip communities with the tools to create new strategies.  

Read an interview with Director Shelley Poticha on land use policy and HUD’s role in transforming the built environment.