HUD Sustainable Communities Updates

Last Monday, April 23, COC Associate Planner and Community Engagement Specialist Ellen Wyoming took part in a call-in conference hosted by HUD about future sustainable communities grants. We were referred to investigate the sustainable communities clearinghouse best practices – which are modeled on an external website at sustainable cities institute.

From the link below you can select the criteria for the type of project you are looking at and then read about the best practices they have for each particular type of project. It’s quite comprehensive.

http://www.sustainablecitiesinstitute.org/search;jsessionid=A2A093913A64F48532671719A121DF37?query=best+practices

On Tuesday, April 24, HUD’s Director for Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities (OSHC), Shelley Poticha, hosted a Twitter Town Hall to discuss the impact of their Sustainable Community Grants program. COC Climate Economy graduate intern Derek Dauphin covered the event. Some key responses to the inbound Tweets follow.

How do sustainable communities benefit people?

(1) They save money by using less energy and water but also by bringing home and work closer together, reducing the costs of transportation, (2) Overall quality of life is better with people spending more time with their families and less time stuck in traffic, and (3) Better health from walking and living in a less polluted place.

How can sustainable communities result in more jobs?

Sustainable Community grant recipients are looking at what growth sectors they can attract and how. Memphis’s sustainability strategies have created 3,500 jobs locally and now the program is moving to the regional level. Austin has created a number of mixed-use developments that have been very successful in attracting businesses including Apple’s new campus. Businesses look for places where talented people want to be for more than 1-2 years. This means great schools, access to nature, neighborhoods that people want to live in and that provide easy access to work – all hallmarks of sustainable communities.

More information

http://www.hud.gov/sustainability

http://www.sustainablecommunities.gov

Alternative Metrics of Well-Being to Inform Policy Making

Kudos to Ecotrust for taking on an important topic – examining one of the major public policy goals we seem to have set for society – economic growth. 

For many years, economic growth (Gross Domestic Product or GDP) has been the leading indicator of progress, and how we compare ourselves to others internationally.  Yet, many are begininng to recognize that this is, at best, a crude proxy. In fact, it seems that too much economic prosperity (wealth) has diminishing, and even negative effects on one’s overall well-being.

Ecotrust and their affiliate organization, Economics for Equity and Environment hosted a summit discussion today on The Design of Alternate Metrics of Well-being To Inform Policy Making.

The lead speaker was Juliet Michaelson was from the London-based Centre for Well-being, a program of the New Economics Foundation, or NEF. In her words, the work of NEF is to bridge research and policy-making.  They are focused on environmental sustainability, social justice, and well-being.

To jump to the end, Juliet shared that their work since 2005 has resulted in this summary Five Ways to Well-Being:

1) Connect (check out the site and their slides; much prettier)

2) Be active

3) Take notice

4) Keep learning

5) Give

Note that these are disconnected from employment, unemployment, underemployment, average annual income and other indicators or metrics we are used to seeing, using, reproducing, trending….

I feel fortunate to have been able to attend this event. Juliet and Kristen generously agreed to share the PowerPoint presentations from the event so I was able to listen wrather than take mad notes. However, some other notes before too much time passes, and to share with my office:

- Under the Mayor’s direction, the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and the Mayor’s Office is wrestling with developing they key measures and metrics by which the new Portland Plan will be evaluated over time.

- Juliet acknowledged the challenge and result of normalization on a diverse community; City staff and I agreed that one one one dialog will be essential with people of very different backgrounds to check the level of shared, cross-cultural agreement on the indicators of well-being, or lack thereof.

- Thought leader in this subject Professor Helliwell at the University of British Columbia has summed up his decades of work as follows: “Close in trumps distant. Life is more local than people realize.”  What does this imply for planning, for community? For our economic system, values and incentives?

- Reserachers at the NEF are honing in on “efficiency” relationships between the economic base of resource utilization, societal goals and human systems are a key indicator of greater well-being or happiness on individual and community scales. [Bob Wise was just emphasizing effeciency as a key challenge of our decade last staff meeting. Listen to Bob!]

-  I wrestle with how people will respond to hearing that less consumption is better. I think of Renee Lertzman’s work on the subject of connecting with the environment, and recognizing the complexities of our emotional landscape in this regard.

- Check out the Happy Planet Index for more on that model, developed by NEF in 2005.

-  Juliet also covered understanding well-being and the leading models. NEF integrates the basic two camps into a concept where well being emerges as a part of a system; and emerges when contributing systems thrive. “Flourishing” (functioning well and feeling good) is a concept that is widely used; nice term. Reseracher Martin Seligman summarizes flourishing as the state where there are: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and a sense of accomplishment.

- Juliet recapped leading findings around the causes and benefits of positive emotions.  I like the term “learned optimism” but am still skeptical (though an optimist!).

- She covered Well-Being’s “Journey to Prominence” in the UK in a nice historical recap.  Incubated from cities and caught national attention that is culminated in in Prime Minister David Cameron’s administration’s Foresight Project commissioning the work that resulted in the Five Ways of Well-Being.  When PM Cameron launched the effort in November, 2010, he said “We’ve got to recognize officially, that economic growth is a means to an end.”  Interesting.

- Check out Mappiness, a research project at the London School of Economics.

Since it is late, just one closing thought.  I am amused to recall our own Declaration of Independence which is based on the need to defend our right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Lots to think about.

Thanks, Ecotrust. 

 For more information, contact Kristen Sheeran, PhD at www.e3netowork.org

COC Associate Ellen Wyoming’s Graduation Speech 2011

As we welcome new COC Associate Ellen Wyoming, we are pleased to share the transcript of the speech she gave at the Portland State University College of Urban and Public Affairs graduation this past June.  Ellen was nominated by her peers and selected by the College to give the one student speech at graduation. Quite and honor. And, quite a speech!  Read on…

“Please take a moment and think of someone that you care about very deeply.  Perhaps you’re thinking of your spouse or partner, a child, friend or grandparent.  Think of them and allow yourself to experience fully what you feel going through your heart, your gut, and your mind when you are in the moment with this person.

How far would you go to keep them safe and secure?  Now let’s think of those who do not have someone to keep their important people safe and secure.

We, the graduates of the College of Urban and Public Affairs, have within our toolkits a great variety of skills and abilities. Each of us chose to come here because we were interested in something greater than ourselves.  Our schools of Government, Community and Public Health, and Urban and Regional Planning are filled with dedicated people who have ideals that walk hand in hand with their hearts.

We have an amazing capacity and we are privileged to be here, to have been well-educated, and to understand the ways in which our unique skills and abilities may be best applied.  It is in using these skills of ours in a way that aligns with our values and what we care for most that will make the difference.  I’m not talking about service with a smile.  I’m talking about using the tools we were born with, those we have cultivated, and using them with mindful intention to do the right thing and to fight for the causes, people, and places that we believe in.  To fight for what others should have but do not have the power to fight for themselves.  Whether we are quiet and diligent or loud and cause a ruckus we have the capacity to do so much and we have a responsibility to do it well for those of us that do not yet have the ability to do so for themselves.

A few years ago when I was a guide in the Grand Canyon I met a woman who at the time was nearing 70 and just had to experience a 2-week white-water raft trip though some of the biggest white water in North America. Despite her slight five-foot frame I looked up to her, and when she spoke, I listened.

She told me something that resonated with me that I want to share with you today, she said that she hoped for me to find that place in my life sooner than later where my passion and talent meet.  Since meeting her I have begun to better understand that if we’re tuned in and listening to ourselves, the values that drive us lead the way to finding that place where indeed our passions and talents meet.

With this, I implore each of you to consider how your talents and passions meet as we leave here today and how you will use those to better your own lives and the lives of those in your communities.

I think about this as a driving force for how we can connect our passions with the tools that we have honed here.

With our raw natural talents and the skills we have cultivated we leave this place to be change-makers, community creators, and people builders. So let’s look to one another and wish each other well as we proudly step from here as masters of our crafts, idealists in our hearts, and passionate activists in our daily lives.”

Congratulations, Ellen!

Patrick Condon on 7 Rules for Sustainable Communities Today at Metro

Thanks, Jim Zehren, for this great synopsis:

Patrick Condon, professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in Vancouver, British Columbia, spoke today at an open-to-the-public brown bag event at Metro on the subject of achieving reductions in greenhouse gases (GHG) through particular approaches to urban form.  Condon’s presentation was based on his recently published book, Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities:  Design Strategies for the Post-Carbon World (Island Press 2010) www.islandpress.org.

Condon prefaced his review of the seven rules described in his book with some overarching points.  He stated his conclusion that we can achieve GHG reductions of at least 50 percent through changes in land use patterns alone.   He then said that at the heart of the inability of North American metro areas to achieve GHG solutions through urban form is the “silos” problem.  By that he meant the phenomenon of many specialized stakeholders and others who affect the development and redevelopment of our urban areas failing to see the big picture and to take collaborative actions in ways that achieve the common good.  He also said he believes that fractal geometry is a good model for understanding the form of successful cities and urban regions. 

Condon spent the most time discussing the first rule articulated in his book, which is:  “Restore the streetcar city.”  Regarding this rule, he was quick to emphasize that it is not necessarily the use of the streetcar per se that we need to restore, but rather the land use-transportation connection that existed in our cities during the pre-automobile streetcar era.  He referred to Portland as a good example of a streetcar city prior to World War II.  And though he lauded the City of Portland for beginning to rebuild its streetcar system, he lamented that Portland’s streetcars move at such a slow speed.

Condon explained that the remaining six of his seven rules are essentially extensions of the first rule.  Those remaining rules address, respectively, the need for:  an interconnected street system; services, transit and schools located within a five-minute walk; jobs close to affordable housing; a diversity of housing types; a linked system of natural areas and parks; and lighter, greener, cheaper and smarter infrastructure.

Condon concluded by stating that there is an urban form that can be successful in achieving our GHG goals, if we restore that urban form as we build and rebuild our cities and suburbs.  He noted that it took North American metro areas about 50 years to deviate from that workable urban form, and we now have about 50 years to restore it.

In response to questions, Condon agreed that the on-going lack of activity in the real estate sector in the US economy poses a real problem for achieving our GHG goals if redeveloping our cities is a primary solution.  He also commented that his seven rules do not address the need for local food security, which he believes is important.  He agreed that getting transportation planners and traffic engineers to do their work consistent with achievement of our adopted GHG goals remains a major impediment, and stated that they must change their approach within this decade if we are going to achieve our GHG goals within the 50-year timeframe we are facing. 

Condon also agreed that finding a way to convince the education community to reconfigure schools and school sites to help achieve GHG goals also is a difficult challenge, particularly given the political and governance aspects involved.  Finally, he repeated his own question from earlier in his remarks regarding what Sandy Boulevard in northeast Portland would look like as a “streetcar city” element in the city today if the eastbound MAX from downtown Portland had been routed along Sandy rather than along I-84 and had been a faster version of Portland’s streetcar rather than light rail.

For more, see the book!