Brookings, S.D. (KELO AM) - What makes a community or campus walkable? Find out at the upcoming Plain Green Conference. Walkable community expert and author Jeff Speck serves as the lunch keynote speaker and an environmental track speaker the afternoon of Sept. 12. This year's conference will be held at the new Hilton Garden Inn Downtown in Sioux Falls. To learn more about the daylong event, visit the Plain Green Conference website. Speck is a city planner and urban designer who advocates for smart growth and sustainable design. He serves as a contributing editor to Metropolis Magazine and is on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council's Sustainability and Efficiency Task Force. His latest book is, "Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America One Step at a Time." "Everybody seems to want to make their communities more walkable and bikeable, but there is an art to doing it quickly and affordably," said Speck, who will be making his first trip to South Dakota as part of the conference. Speck will address how cities and towns in the Dakotas and neighboring states can become more welcoming to pedestrians and cyclists, in short order and at a reasonable cost. His 'General Theory of Walkability' addresses how communities can attract street life by providing a walk that is simultaneously useful, safe, comfortable and interesting. He will then share national and global best practices in transforming communities to achieve the goal of walkability. Speck, who lives in Washington, D.C, said his talk will educate attendees on what it takes to spur a rebirth of walking and biking in the U.S. "This is not rocket science, but studying how drivers, cyclists and pedestrians respond to the built environment produces some counterintuitive conclusions," Speck said. "Today's young people are much more interested than previous generations in shedding the car-dependent lifestyle. When I was young, one in 12 19-year-olds opted out of getting a driver's license. Now that number is one in four. Young people want to know how to transform their communities to provide the lifestyle that they desire, and how to act politically toward this end."