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<br />The "new" in the New Urbanism is really just a new appreciation for more sustainable <br />approaches to planning and development recognized by prescient leaders of earlier <br />generations. Developer J.C. Nichols, a founding member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), <br />was one of them. Wayne Nichols, grandson of J.C. Nichols, says that the goal of his <br />grandfather and his peers in planning "was to create beautiful communities-not subdivisions, <br />not shopping centers-but long-term, integrated planned communities. They saw themselves <br />as building human environments. <br /> <br />Today, Nichols' strategies are used by those of us in town planning who recognize that place- <br />making is the new frontline of economic development. When combined with the New <br />Urbanism, the Community Builders' approach creates opportunities for real estate value <br />capture. Critical to sustaining all business, value capture is fundamental to economic <br />development. <br /> <br />In the context of town planning and development, value capture recognizes that with each <br />infrastructure investment some marginal improvement or marginal decline occurs in the value <br />of the surrounding land. A second form of value capture recognizes that planning and <br />implementing development under the same vision and set of rules over multiple parcels <br />creates adjacency predictability and thus increasing value. This additional value created in <br />terms of property tax revenue and sales tax revenue can then be captured through an <br />expanded Tax Increment Financing District (TIF), empowerment zone, chapter 380, or other <br />vehicles to provide sustainable funding streams for capitalizing and maintaining the needed <br />infrastructure for Greater Downtown La Porte. <br /> <br />The utilization of an enhanced, well funded infrastructure system for Greater Downtown will <br />provide the basis for linking the key opportunities and destinations. In this context, it is critical <br />that the street network for Greater Downtown makes it convenient and inviting for people to <br />walk from destination to destination. The power of linking the Main Street Gateway, Five- <br />Points, Sylvan Beach and the emerging retail at SH 146 and Fairmont will provide economic <br />and market leveraging necessary to create increases in tax base to energize value capture for <br />infrastructure. <br /> <br />Forward La Porte Economic Development Strategic Plan I 2009-2013 <br />