South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association

Economic development - the Association is an integral partner in the South Suburban economic growth initiative, a multidisciplinary effort to stabilize and strengthen the South suburbs and foster equitable, inclusive economic growth of business and households. The Association partners with cook county, the chicago southland economic development corporation, the southland development authority, chicago metropolitan agency for planning and other business and civic organizations working to ensure the region and its people are able to meet its full economic potential. The Association provides planning and economic development technical assistance to municipalities, supporting efforts to address infrastructure, land use, blight, property tax reform, and other issues that affect land use and economic recovery. The Association prioritizes development initiatives which focus on rebuilding communities and economies around transit, intermodal facilities and manufacturing, while committing to preserve and improve the natural environment. In addition, the Association facilitated the applications and marketing, and continues to provide technical support, for the following enterprise zones: cal-sag, calumet region, lincoln & 394, and will/cook i-57 zones, as well as numerous opportunity zones within the southland. These designated zones were established to stimulate economic growth and neighborhood revitalization in economically depressed areas.

Ispan - in cooperation with cook county government, the Association works with partners and local municipalities to advance health objectives for the region's residents, and supports initiatives that contribute to their health and welfare. The Association has a complete streets and bikeway plan and is focused on increasing multi-modal transportation investments and access that contribute to the health and mobility of residents and visitors. The Association, through its assistance to communities in the development of complete streets policies, is uniquely positioned and plays an integral role in the advancement of physical activity access in the South suburbs, and accelerated investment in wayfinding signage that connects destinations within the South suburbs fosters improved bike/pedestrian connections and use. Through this work, the Association has focused on increasing multimodal transportation options, implementing wayfinding signs that support pedestrian/bicycling activities and connect destinations, and integrating public health factors into project scoring processes in order to address health disparities at the community and regional level.

Transportation - the Association supports South suburban/regional transportation planning and programming activities related to highway, freight, transit and non-motorized transportation facilities and projects. Association staff provides technical assistance in obtaining and administering federal and state transportation funds; research and report preparation and agency coordination efforts; and supports implementation of the member communities' complete streets and long-range transportation planning activities and other regional transportation projects, studies and programs. The Association acts as a regional liaison in planning and programming of federal surface transportation program funds, local and state highway, transit and bicycle planning programs and assists in the creation and coordination of "corridor planning councils" throughout the South Suburban region. The Association is also project manager of an Illinois department of transportation's statewide planning and research initiative for the calumet triangle/torrence avenue corridor within the city of calumet city, the village of lansing, and the village of South holland.

Housing collaborative - the Association, in collaboratin with area municipalities, works to address regional housing issus to ensure that limited resources are spent most strateically, advancing the housing, economic, and transit oriented goals of communities by addressing issues such as property maintenance, land banking, and the forclosure crisis. South Suburban atlas geographic information systems (gis) consortium - the primary objective of the South Suburban atlas gis consortium is to provide efficent, innovative, and quality gis services to the South Suburban region at an affordable price. Watershed planning - the Association advises and coordinates activities of the designated watershed planning council for the little calumet river watershed. The primary objective is to manage stormwater, flood plans and green infrastructure activities.