Develop Your Green Streets, Green Jobs, Green Towns (G3) Vision
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What is a G3 Vision?
The Green Streets, Green Jobs, Green Towns (G3) Initiative was designed to build a successful collaborative peer-to-peer support network of communities and stakeholders interested in green streets and related green infrastructure approaches that help achieve the “people, planet, profit” triple bottom line in any size community. The G3 Vision advocates and supports the concept that every community can develop a "Green Vision" that aligns with the needs of its residents and businesses.
The G3 Vision is focused on:
- Increasing the capacity (i.e., knowledge, skills and abilities) of towns and communities to ensure they are successful at achieving their "green" goals,
- Providing towns and communities with the tools and resources necessary to adopt green street and other green infrastructure practices, and
- Increasing the installation of green street components and other green infrastructure practices in towns and communities across the nation.
How to Develop Your G3 Vision
Visioning
Visioning is developing a plan, goal or vision for the future and is the cornerstone for project success. Visioning is the process of bringing together all members of a community - decision-makers, planners, business owners, residents - to focus on what an ideal community would look like within a specified timeframe (e.g., 5-, 10-, 15-years). Visioning empowers a community to move beyond the probable future scenarios because it takes into account the community members perspectives, wants and needs. An effective visionioning process can lead to the desired future of a healthy environment, strong economy, and high quality of life.
To solidify the visioning process, communities should develop a "Vision Statement" with one or more alternative "futures" proposed. These "futures" should represent variations on a theme aimed at achieving community resliency, sustainable solutions for the environment, economic health, and social well-being. Once a vision is created and agreed upon, the community can work towards realizing its goals by clearly communicating the vision and utilizing an integrated planning approach.
Why Create a Vision Statement?
"A Vision is the overall picture of the character of the community sometime in the future. A Vision Statement is a formal description of that vision. It illustrates with words and images what a community hopes to realize through community participation, action planning and implementation. The Vision Statement is the starting point for action." -Building Our Future: A Guide to Community Visioning (PDF)(276 pp, 1.32 MB, About PDF) Exit
A vision is not a mission statement, nor is it a strategic plan - the map to where we want to go. A vision is akin to the North Star, a never-ending piece of work that we commit to achieve. A vision is the actual destination.
Visioning Tools
- Charettes
- A charrette is a collaborative meeting in which stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds gather together to develop a shared vision for the future.
- The National Civic League provides technical assistance for Visioning/Strategic Planning Exit
- CommunityViz Exit
Visioning References
The following links exit the site Exit
You will need Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA’s About PDF page to learn more.
- Building Our Future: A Guide to Community Visioning (PDF)(276 pp, 1 MB)
- Town of Bladensburg, Maryland, Green Streets and Green Jobs Charrette and Design Guidebook (PDF)(37 pp, 23.3 MB)
- The Community Visioning and Strategic Planning Handbook (PDF) (62 pp, 842 K)
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A Handbook For Planning and Conducting Charrettes for High-Performance Projects (PDF) (116 pp, 2 MB)