By Rebecca Casey. We occasionally ask ourselves if GrowSmart is the right name. Initially borrowed from the Smart Growth movement, some question whether it’s stale, while others are not yet familiar with it. I follow many thought leaders including Strong Towns, New Urbanism, Institute for Local Self Reliance and others. On top of that, my summer…
By David Webster. There are many reasons for renovating older buildings. For me, seeing buildings as a major contributor to the character of a place is a reason to renovate rather than replace. They represent the history of a community; why and how a community evolved, what the economic drivers were, what the people in…
By Ethan Boxer-Macomber As advocates of Smart Growth, we are all encouraged and delighted by the current national trend toward redirection of resources to traditional city and town centers abandoned and neglected over 60 years of urban flight and suburban proliferation. This reinvestment trend is readily apparent in Maine cities such as Bangor, Lewiston, Portland…
“I don’t ask you your age, don’t ask mine.” Earlier this year GrowSmart Maine asked members, colleagues and total strangers to take a survey. We wanted to know which issues matter to them, how they thought we should address them and, oh yeah, how they thought we were doing. As our staff and board members…
By Nancy Smith, Executive Director, GrowSmart Maine I traveled to Biddeford on Saturday July 1 to enjoy the open house at Joseph Webster Glass, a hot glass studio, and to revisit places I came to know as we prepared for our 2015 Summit in this city. What a fabulous experience! Joe Webster has created his…
Don’t miss this great opportunity to discover tools you can use in your community to become more resilient, efficient and informed in the face of a changing climate using consumer-friendly tactics gleaned from our recent trip to Denmark. Registration closes Friday for Community Solutions to a Changing Climate: The GrowSmart Maine Annual Meeting, October 20th…