Livability Solutions is a coalition of professionals who can help you put your planning priorities into action. The partnership was initiated by 10 leading nonprofit organizations with deep experience in sustainable development. Our common purpose is to work with communities on transportation, land use, Placemaking, environmental issues, and public involvement, with the goal of achieving livability, smart growth, and sustainability.

We came together with the explicit purpose of consolidating and coordinating our individual initiatives and tools, enabling easier access for anyone who wishes to achieve a more livable and sustainable community or region. Each partner contributes extensive expertise in the full spectrum of strategies for creating better places to live. When you contact us, we will help you determine which individual or team from our coalition has the best capabilities to meet your needs.

Our partners all meet the following criteria:

  • Broad experience in helping communities identify and develop projects that support their livability, sustainability, and smart growth goals.
  • On-the-ground experience leading technical assistance and capacity building at the local and regional levels.
  • A commitment to sharing tools and techniques, and to providing the “best-fit” tool for communities and practitioners.
  • The ability, technical expertise, and connections to work with government and the transportation industry (several members of the core team have insider state DOT and industry experience).
  • A demonstrated ability to bridge the gap between government and communities, as well as the transportation industry.

We want to work with you to identify, understand, and implement the best strategies to fulfill your community’s sustainability and livability objectives. For more on the capacity building we offer, see What We Do.


Who We Are

The member organizations and key individuals at Livability Solutions are:

  • Project for Public Spaces (PPS) works with communities, public agencies, state DOT’s and transit agencies to foster healthy and sustainable places.
  • Surface Transportation Policy Partnership (STPP) is a diverse, nationwide coalition working to ensure safer communities and smarter transportation choices that enhance the economy, improve public health, promote social equity, and protect the environment.
  • Reconnecting America (RA) helps transit agencies and MPO’s play an effective role in support of equitable transit-oriented development.
  • Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) conducts data and mapping analysis, illustrating intersections between transportation, land use and climate change.
  • The National Center for Biking & Walking is now a resident program at PPS.  NCBW has been making neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions more bicycle-friendly and walkable since 1977.
  • The Walkable and Livable Communities Institute works to create healthy, connected communities that support active living and that advance opportunities for all people through walkable streets, livable cities and better built environments.
  • The Local Government Commission assists local governments in establishing and nurturing the key elements of livable communities.
  • The National Charrette Institute helps people build community capacity for collaboration to create healthy community plans.
  • The Congress for New Urbanism promotes walkable, mixed-use neighborhood development, sustainable communities and healthier living conditions.
  • Newport City Renaissance Corporation is a private, non-profit, non-governmental organization; its reason for existence is to serve as a catalyst for transforming Newport’s community and economic development.
  • The Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) at North Carolina State University conducts innovative programs of research, education, and technology transfer that seek to mitigate the impacts of surface transportation on the environment.

Key individuals representing these organizations who came together as resources to creating livable, sustainable communities are:

Scott Bernstein, President and Co-Founder Scott leads CNT’s work to understand and better disclose the economic value of resource use in urban communities, and helps craft strategies to capture the value of this efficiency productively and locally.
Dan Burden, co-founder and executive director of WALC, is an internationally recognized authority on livable and sustainable communities, healthy streets, traffic calming, and bicycle and pedestrian programs.
Catherine Cox Blair, AICP LEED AP, is Program Director with Reconnecting America and works with local governments, metropolitan planning organizations, transit agencies, housing authorities, developers, community advocates and other partners across the country to provide a range of tools to strengthen their role in creating successful transit-oriented development (TOD).
Paul Dreher is an architect and city planner. In addition to being chair of the NCRC Design Committee his work includes facilitating community based land-use, regulatory tool training and master planning. He serves in an advisory capacity to NCRC on all smart growth planning, placemaking rural livability initiatives.
Jackie Grimshaw joined CNT in 1992. Now serving as Vice President, she has developed CNT’s capacity to engage in public policy advocacy, transportation research, public participation tool development, GIS mapping, and community economic development.
Leigh Lane of CTE is a Senior Research Associate and has 24 years of experience in transportation planning, project development, research, education and policy development.  Ms. Lane is nationally recognized in CSS, CIA and EJ as evidenced by numerous appointments to related national committees and panels as well as speaks at conferences and meetings around the country on these topics.
Bill Lennertz is Executive Director of the National Charrette Institute and is a leading NCI charrette facilitator and educator.  As a registered architect, a master urban designer, and a charter member of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Bill has led numerous successful charrette teams and passes this knowledge and experience to his students.
Phil Myrick, a Senior Vice President at PPS, is a certified planner whose expertise encompasses public space planning, downtown revitalization, transportation and land use planning, livable street design, and facilitation.
John Norquist is President and CEO of CNU. His work promoting New Urbanism as an alternative to sprawl and an antidote to its social and environmental problems draws on his experience as a former mayor of Milwaukee and prominent participant in national discussions on urban design and school reform.
Gary Toth, PPS’s Senior Director of Transportation Initiatives, has more than 30 years of project management experience.  Mr. Toth possesses a wide ranging network of relationships resulting from participation in many national transportation committees, projects, as well as speaking engagements around the country.
Paul Zykofsy manages LGC’s land use, transportation, community design and health programs, and has been Director of the Commission’s Center for Livable Communities since 1995.  Mr. Zykofsky is a frequent presenter at local, regional and national conferences on a wide range of topics related to land use, transportation and community design.