Newsroom

Aug 8, 2011

Some regions are known as centers of finance. Others are associated with manufacturing. In metro Washington government has long been our special industry. The news of the past week however makes you wonder if that will (or should) change in the future. The region’s unemployment rate ticked upward half a point to 6.2 percent. And while past federal spending helped create area government and contracting jobs the recent debt deal is exclusively focused on cuts.

Aug 2, 2011

Congress has approved and the President has signed a new budget agreement that will raise the nation’s debt ceiling and reduce government spending. Now that the deal is done there’s a lot of discussion about how it will impact the U.S. economy and people. As the home of the federal government and with Uncle Sam as our primary employer it’s a pretty safe bet that metro Washington will be among the areas most affected. And it begs the question: What can we do to position ourselves to adapt and ​

Jul 22, 2011

Often times these Global Fridays post can sound a bit cynical. We know how it may come across: “Look at all the cool things Europe and Asia are doing! Come on America get your act together!” The point is to push to make things better here not to be a negative Nancy.

Jul 20, 2011

National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB) members discussed and supported a plan to apply for funding under the third round of the federal Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program this October.

Jul 20, 2011

The updated long-range plan reflects changes requested by the Commonwealth of Virginia to remove the I-95/395 High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) and High Occupancy/Toll (HOT) lanes project that had been proposed for inside the Capital Beltway and to add an I-66 project outside the Beltway.

Jul 18, 2011

The latest unemployment figures were not at all positive – job creation was far below the level necessary to start getting a significant number of Americans back to work and the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent its highest level this year.

Jul 15, 2011

We have a feeling that you may find yourself waiting in a very long line today or sometime this weekend (there’s some major movie thing going on) so today’s Global Fridays features a number of goings-on out in the world related to Region Forward to help you pass the time. Enjoy!

Jul 14, 2011

The overall number of area children in foster care has declined according to the COG 2010 Foster Care Annual Report . However, while the majority of foster children are either reunited with family or adopted, a growing number of children are aging out of the region’s foster care system without finding permanent homes.

Jul 14, 2011

Preservation is one of the best ways to increase the supply of affordable transit-oriented housing in a super high-price market like metro Washington. Purchasing housing in key areas prior to prices skyrocketing allows affordable housing to remain as such but this requires a proactive approach. This was the focus of a panel discussion at the recent kickoff meeting of the Region Forward Coalition and a subsequent post here on The Yardstick .

Jul 12, 2011

Kaid Benfield has a great piece over at his blog on NRDC today about the importance of “place” in sustainability. Benfield notes that when planning for how to make places sustainable there are three levels – in descending order of scale – that need to be considered: 1) the entire metro region 2) the jurisdiction – be it city county or town and 3) the neighborhood.