Across America, regional communities are actively envisioning and investing in new patterns of sustainable growth and development that aim to promote economic competitiveness, environmental integrity and social opportunity. For the most part, these efforts are homegrown, prompted by a host of new market forces, social realities and environmental constraints.

In recent years, the federal government has stepped up its role in this process, bringing engaged leadership, yet also prompting questions about whether it should be involved in this arena. From my perspective, the answer is clear: federal leadership in fostering sustainable development is important to both the interests of the federal government and to the health of the nation.

There is a clear and compelling federal interest in promoting sustainable development as a proactive strategy to target and leverage federal investments in infrastructure, innovation and human capacity, as a protective strategy to guard the efficacy of federal assets and investments, and as a preemptive strategy to minimize the need to expend federal resources to mitigate the environmental, social and economic consequences of inefficient and unsustainable development practices.

Progress in almost every federal policy area — transportation, air quality, water resources, public health, agriculture, education, management of federal lands and military bases, housing, social welfare, workforce development — is advanced if federal investments are aligned with sound strategies for the sustainable development of the places in which investments are made.

In addition, the federal government has a direct interest in creating a more competitive economy. The nation’s economic performance is essentially determined by the health of metropolitan and regional economies. Regions that grow in ways that are fiscally sustainable, have effective infrastructure systems, and minimize social disparities perform better and contribute more to national performance.

Yet, few formal structures or mechanisms exist for creating and implementing effective regional growth strategies. American regions are ill-equipped to address the complex challenges of our national future — challenges that range from energy independence, climate change and global competition to concentrated poverty, traffic gridlock, and the housing market collapse. All of these issues are interrelated, and all of them are profoundly affected by how regions grow.

It is imperative to our national future that American regions grow better. We need to build regions that waste fewer natural resources, create more opportunity, and develop more efficient places that are economically competitive.

To achieve this, federal leadership is both necessary and effective. Federal leadership helps drive policy innovation, promulgate best practices, create networks across regions that broaden awareness and consensus, and align federal, state and local policies, plans and programs. Competitive federal planning grant programs consistently demonstrate that even small levels of funding are powerful incentives for complex regions to develop cooperative strategies that transcend political and institutional boundaries.

Of course, it is important that the federal government not only supports sustainable development, but that it does so in ways that are effective. The HUD Sustainable Communities Initiative is a thoughtful and promising approach. It promotes community-driven planning processes and community-generated solutions. It emphasizes outcomes over means, and it fosters integration of interrelated but traditionally isolated policies in areas such as land use, transportation, workforce and economic development, and infrastructure investments.

The HUD program mandates nothing, but supports regional communities striving to find solutions that achieve local aspirations, make sense to local markets, and are embraced by local political values. The HUD program is a low-cost, high-impact approach. It enables regions to move local priorities farther and faster, to take risks that would be difficult without federal support, to overcome complex structural barriers, and to create and implement new, authentic visions for sustainable places that support social, environmental and economic vitality. Moreover, the HUD program articulates principles that have helped multiple federal agencies coalesce around common objectives and align their programs and policies to be more mutually supportive.

If the federal role in this arena is diminished, regional progress will be slower and less effective and America will suffer. Certainly federal planning funds are very helpful in supporting work that is hard, if not impossible, to fund otherwise. But federal policy leadership is even more important.

Federal policy affects how regions work in dozens of ways, and regions need the federal agencies — all of them, not just HUD — to help align their investments and policies with one another and with those made at the state, regional and local levels. If the federal government is not present, regions cannot make good decisions. Their efforts are thwarted and enervated by the absence of the most influential player, and the federal funds spent in dozens of areas are not spent strategically and are often counter-productive. Engaged federal leadership in sustainable development makes sense for the federal government and it makes sense for America.

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For the first time, the federal government is investing in efforts to comprehensively plan for the development of regions. HUD’s Sustainable Communities Initiative, a partnership with EPA and DOT, supports metropolitan and multi-jurisdictional plans to integrate housing, land use, economic and workforce development, transportation, and infrastructure investments. Greater Kansas City is one of 45 regions participating in this new experiment to advance the health of America’s regions.

Planning has always been integral to American success. Great national plans, from canals to westward expansion to national parks, set the milestones of our shared history. So what would Dwight Eisenhower, the father of America’ most well-known and well-implemented plan–the interstate highway system–say about HUD’s effort to help America’s regions plan for sustainable growth and development? It’s hard to know for sure, but his rich repository of Presidential quotes sheds light on what makes this federal effort so promising.

In his 1959 State of the Union Address, Eisenhower was clear: “If progress is to be steady we must have long-term guides extending far ahead.” When it comes to American regions, we have precious few long-term guides. We have regional transportation plans, and to a lesser extent, plans for other regional systems, but these tend to be disconnected, incomplete and ill-equipped to guide American regions into an era of relentless global competition.

Yet according to the Brookings Institution, the largest 100 metropolitan areas in the country are home to about two-thirds of the U.S. population and generate 74 percent of our GDP. Coherent regional strategies are critical to national success and to leveraging federal investments in housing, transportation and human services. In metropolitan areas like Kansas City, which spans two states, nine counties and 120 cities, local plans are important, but not enough. We must also come together around common regional strategies to create the capacity to contribute to the national economy.

President Eisenhower also said, “Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” HUD’s Sustainable Communities program embraces this principle. It recognizes that change is not made in the plan itself, but in the process of planning– engaging people and communities to develop and pursue authentic, shared visions and strategies. HUD’s program emphasizes the formation of broad, multi-sector partnerships and engaging traditionally disconnected residents to regional processes.

The Kansas City region’ vision fosters vibrant, green and connected centers and corridors that support reinvestment in existing places and sensible expansion into new areas. This framework emerged from an extensive visioning process that began with assembling the common goals of dozens of local comprehensive plans and ultimately engaged some 80,000 residents. HUD is now enabling our region to pursue the vision we created for ourselves.

Eisenhower understood the limits of the federal role, remarking that “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.” HUD recognizes that regional planning cannot be done from the beltway. Instead of prescribing how plans must be developed, HUD supports solutions that are home grown. In Kansas City, HUD supports some 60 public and private partners working to implement our shared vision.

Implementation is central to the HUD program. As Eisenhower observed, “Unless we progress, we regress.” The HUD program does not emphasize planning for its own sake, but planning that moves regions toward action. In Kansas City, HUD is investing in efforts to create and adopt policies and tools to enable developers, local governments and consumers to make decisions that foster a more sustainable region.

Our region has strong physical, economic and civic assets, built on the plans of the past. But as Eisenhower said, “The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good.” HUD is helping us craft and commit to new ideas–new transportation, housing and employment options, with a particular focus on equitable access to opportunity. These ideas respect what is right with our region and enhance our ability to thrive in a new era characterized by an increasingly complex demographic profile, higher energy and building costs, daunting environmental challenges, and constrained public resources. We can’t simply care about our future, we must act on it, or as Eisenhower said, “As our heart summons our strength, our wisdom must direct it.”

Sixty years later, it is hard to surmise how President Eisenhower would view regional planning for sustainable regions. It seems, however, that HUD has embraced his practical and progressive approach to leadership and that its approach to this new planning initiative holds great promise for empowering American regions to live up to their full potential.

It is true that Ike also said, “All generalizations are inaccurate, including this one.” But when it comes to planning for sustainable regions, I like Ike.

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Regional and neighborhood efforts are typically viewed as opposite challenges. Regional initiatives focus on large-scale systems, while local initiatives are targeted, place-based and personal. Are these two distinct realities? Or two sides of the same coin?

After the federal recovery act passed, Kansas City-area Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II proposed creating a Green Impact Zone to intensify the impact of federal funds. The idea was quickly embraced, and efforts are now underway to bring a highly coordinated set of investments to a single, low-income neighborhood of 150 blocks and 8,500 people in the heart of Kansas City. It’s an area that has endured decades of disinvestment but it has assets including well-organized neighborhood organizations and proximity to universities and tourist districts.

Unexpectedly, Rep. Cleaver asked the Mid-America Regional Council--the metropolitan planning organization–to take the lead in coordinating dozens of neighborhood, city and community agencies to implement the Green Impact Zone. He turned to MARC because of our experience in supporting collaborative efforts, our work in relevant areas such as energy and transportation, and our ability to mobilize quickly and manage federal grants effectively.

Why did we say yes? True, it’s unusual for a region-serving agency to take on an initiative that focuses on one neighborhood. While we’ve historically sought to support disadvantaged communities in such areas as aging, early education and public transit, we more typically focus on building inclusive and equitable regional systems. We said yes to the Green Impact Zone because we believe it can advance four principles that highlight the inter-connectedness of regional progress and healthy local places:

Great regions begin with great places. Our region is no stronger than our weakest neighborhoods. To meet regional goals we must pay particular attention to stabilizing and reinvesting in places in need. For example, our region is working to focus more new growth into activity centers and along corridors in urban and suburban locations. Achieving this goal depends on fostering market demand within the existing urban fabric. Regional growth plans often try to discourage decentralized growth–yet, the more important challenge is to make existing places more attractive as places to invest and live.

Our goal for the Green Impact Zone is to a build a new model of urban transformation using sustainability as an organizing principle. We believe that a stable, green community near major activity centers is highly marketable, and that the strategies we deploy here can be replicated throughout our region to add momentum to the market for urban reinvestment.

Great places depend on regional capacity. The Green Impact Zone is not something we are doing to a community. Rather, it’s an effort to bring new resources and partners to help zone neighborhoods achieve their own vision.

For instance, the zone has fostered a new regional planning, financing and programming partnership to increase the capacity of local agencies to produce affordable housing. Likewise, the zone strategy includes regional transit connections to strengthen residents’ access to regional opportunities, as well as workforce development programs that connect zone residents to expanding sectors of the regional labor market.

Great places must be fully integrated into regional economic and social systems. We see the Green Impact Zone as an opportunity to align regional and local initiatives and investments.

Great regions begin with green places. Great regions are green, and like character, green begins at home. The Green Impact Zone is pursuing a robust, well-coordinated plan to transform the community through green investments in every home. This includes restoring and weatherizing, producing energy-efficient infill housing, deploying a smart grid, and promoting entrepreneurs and workforce in green industries.

Our biggest challenge isn’t to reach every home–it is to reach every home dweller. Green solutions are only effective if people understand and use them. The Green Impact Zone includes creating new communications, education, outreach and financing mechanisms that will extend green solutions to people and homes throughout our region.

Great regions require great relationships. Regional progress depends on building a network of strong working relationships among a diverse set of actors. Most regional agencies are adept at this. But many, ours included, find it is easier to engage traditional groups or those with broader functional interests–such as public agencies and business groups–than those with fewer resources or more localized interests.

The Green Impact Zone presents an opportunity to strengthen our working partnership with the leaders of disadvantaged communities, particularly minorities, who have historically been less involved in regional decision making and whose leadership is essential to regional progress. In fact, an important element of the zone initiative is a neighborhood leadership program to build the capacity of community stakeholders to lead local initiatives and engage in regional affairs.

Great regions and great neighborhoods are, in fact, two sides of the same coin–the perspective from each side is different but neither makes sense without the other.

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