City and Community Planning

Southface Institute is a leader in sustainability planning services, providing solutions that support the regenerative economy, advance resource efficiency and present opportunity for all stakeholders. Southface has a long history of community and stakeholder engagement to create plans for robust clean energy, sustainability and resiliency, land use, natural resource and community development. We are passionate about planning as a pathway to an improved quality of life, shared prosperity and thriving natural systems.

Contact Southface today to see how we can help your city or community achieve its regenerative goals.

Clean Energy Planning

Our cities and communities continue to lead the transition to clean energy. From fleet conversion and alternative transportation to energy efficiency and renewable energy, Southface will partner with you to identify, research and shape potential pathways to 100% clean energy. Southface has a proven track record of working with trusted partners to develop their 100% clean energy plans through extensive policy research, detailed energy and energy burden analysis, and robust community and stakeholder engagement.

Sustainability and Resiliency Planning

Our rapidly changing climate requires an accelerated transition to a low-carbon future. As a leader in sustainability since 1978, Southface policy, planning and practitioner expertise can help you chart a course toward your resiliency and sustainability goals.

Southface sustainability planning can assist you with the analysis of your current energy, waste, land and water policies and practices and, through community and stakeholder engagement, help you develop plans to achieve your sustainability goals.

Partnering with local governments, NGOs and communities, our resiliency planning prepares all members of a community to react, respond to and recover from natural and man-made disasters, as well as emergency situations like public health crises. Our strategies increase the adaptive capacity of communities’ most vulnerable populations to withstand societal and climate-related shocks and stressors.

Land Use and Natural Resource Planning

Creating a truly sustainable future for cities means not only identifying and preserving our remaining interconnected natural landscapes, but also actively enhancing them with proven practices and providing an even distribution of access to the benefits. One of Southface’s core competencies is interpreting and reframing land use discussions in the context of conservation and equity and identifying solutions to challenges arising within cities confronting sprawl, flooding and urban heat island effects. Proven solutions include walkability design, green infrastructure and tree canopy preservation.

Sustainable and Resilient Community Development

Southface partners with communities to apply our technical expertise in urban flooding, healthy and efficient buildings and affordable housing to develop plans and programs that meet communities’ needs. We leverage our partnerships across the nonprofit, arts, design and real estate development sectors to develop realistic, achievable and equitable outcomes. Our work includes arts-based urban flooding education and mitigation, neighborhood-based green infrastructure workforce training, and transformational planning for affordable housing and connected communities.

Community and Stakeholder Engagement

Southface has decades of experience addressing the needs of key stakeholders and building consensus through community workshops, charettes, public meetings and trainings. We seek to provide innovative and inclusive opportunities for equitable engagement in the development of ideas and solutions for our ever-evolving cities and communities.

Resources

Case Study

City of Atlanta Tiny House Feasibility Study

Tiny houses can address the changing needs of households in Atlanta, Georgia, by providing a more affordable and efficient housing stock while simultaneously making the region more competitive in attracting talent and an increasingly mobile workforce.

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Report

Atlanta Beltline, Inc. Sustainability Action Plan

Atlanta made a community-based decision in 2005 to advance the Atlanta BeltLine, originating as a Master’s thesis, in the largest, most comprehensive and most “sustainable” redevelopment project in the city’s history.

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Case Study

City of Decatur High Performance Building Standard

Making homes and businesses more efficient is a great way to cut energy consumption and reduce our impact on the environment.

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