Note:  This is the first in a three-part Policy Updates series on  Metropolitan Chicago’s Freight Cluster:  A Drill-Down Report on Infrastructure, Innovation, and Workforce: Metropolitan Chicago's Freight Cluster Part 1, Infrastructure Metropolitan Chicago's Freight Cluser Part 2, Innovation Metropolitan Chicago's Freight Cluster Part 3, Workforce Between... Read More

Advocates and U.S. congressional leaders have been working to reauthorize the federal Farm Bill for over a year. Many of its policies and programs support local farmers, preserve agricultural lands, and ensure access to healthy and fresh foods.  Following weeks of bipartisan efforts, the U.S. Senate in a 64 to 35 vote passed the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012 (S. 3240) ,... Read More

On July 6, 2012, President Obama signed into law Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21 st Century (MAP-21), a two-year transportation reauthorization bill.  In a previous Policy Update , CMAP reviewed the major programmatic and policy changes in MAP-21 compared to the last comprehensive transportation reauthorization bill, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation... Read More

GO TO 2040 calls for strategically organizing the region around its existing and emerging clusters of specialization to better compete in the national and international marketplace. The plan directs CMAP, with the support of its partners, to perform “drill-down” analyses into specific industry clusters, including freight, advanced manufacturing, and biotech/biomed.  CMAP has... Read More

To plan for and ultimately preserve a connected network of open space, GO TO 2040 recommends that the region use a “green infrastructure” approach to land conservation, and CMAP has been working with Chicago Wilderness, a regional alliance of organizations involved in conservation, to do just that. Chicago Wilderness developed the “ Green Infrastructure Vision ” planning project in 2004... Read More