After nearly two years of talking about MoveSmart.org, it's finally a reality. Our alpha site is now live! We've got a new logo, a new theme, new color scheme, a new content management system (Drupal), and the Guides system is up and running!

As you can see, there's still a great deal of work to be done. The Neighborhood Finder system is not yet live and so far there are just a handful of guides. But, thanks to a grant from the Field Foundation, you can expect to see an initial version of the Neighborhood Finder system live in early July. Along the way, we'll regularly be adding features, Guides, blog posts, and a few things we're keeping secret for now.

If you'd like to be notified of when new features are added, please join the site using the link above. We'll let you know periodically about new features - expect less than one e-mail per month.

In this alpha launch, we're excited to include materials from the Neighbors Project, the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, the National Center on Poverty Law, and the Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance. We've got a huge backlog of materials to import to the site, so watch over the coming weeks as the Guides section quickly expands.

We would also love to know what you think of the new site - tell us on the Feedback page.

A very special thanks goes to Rebecca White and the Chicago Technology Cooperative. Their support for MoveSmart.org has been enormous and this alpha launch is only possible because of them.

Finally - to celebrate the launch of MoveSmart.org, almost half of the very large team of folks behind this site got together on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at the home of Lynda and Jerry Massa, who generously donate food, drink, and space. Also thanks go to Moosehead Beer, which donated some frosty beverages for the occassion.