Puts forward a new vision of America’s future: lifts up the challenges that the nation must address to succeed and highlights continued racial gaps and disparities, reviews current and future demographic shifts, and suggests initial steps toward building an equity-driven growth model based on the innovative work being done in communities across the country.

The PolicyLink Equity Guide to Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grants is designed to help applicants structure equity focused activities into their grant applications. This guide—an update of the inaugural guide released in Summer 2010 in preparation for the first round of grants—provides information on how regions can incorporate social equity into their applications for the second round of funding for sustainable communities grants, announced in early August of 2011. It was written for local governments, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), nonprofits, foundations, and educational institutions who are interested in developing competitive grant applications.