EarthTimes article

I just ran across a very provocative report assessing the response of 40 large US cities to climate change. Published a couple of months ago by the philanthropic collaborative Living Cities, the report Green Cities: How Urban Sustainability Efforts Can and Must Drive America’s Climate Change Policies gives the subjects a mixed grade: four out of five of those surveyed reported policies and initiatives directed at sustainability, but key elements are missing from their efforts, particularly with respect to underserved populations.

Here is how Ben Hecht, the CEO of Living Cities, puts it in an opening “letter” that begins the report:

“Our findings are, on the one hand, encouraging: Most cities are starting to seize the challenge and opportunity of addressing climate change. On the other hand, our findings also reveal a deeply concerning trend: Few cities are prioritizing the needs of low-income people and communities as part of their green strategies and programs.”

I really like the report’s three central recommendations:

The report’s authors find that all three could simultaneously benefit both the environment and existing city residents, but that the cities surveyed either had not prioritized those areas or had not made much progress. More progress, the authors found, had been made in requiring that new municipal buildings be green, recycling, and water conservation.

But it’s time to get past the low-hanging fruit, according to Living Cities:

“Our research found that relatively few cities’ programs are incorporating working families and poor people into their sustainability plans. For example, new transit programs like new rail lines or bike paths tend to move residents of higher-income neighborhoods to the urban core, rather than offering service to neglected neighborhoods. And few city officials we surveyed on green jobs talked about ensuring that links are made between new green-collar job opportunities and the under- and employed.

“A lack of attention to inequality is particularly unfortunate, as the ‘greening’ of cities may represent a rare opportunity to address the troubling poverty and unemployment that continue to plague neighborhoods in nearly all American cities. Also, it is precisely in low-income areas that sustainability plans can have the most dramatic impacts. The housing stock is the least energy efficient, and the job seekers have the skills and motivation to plug into the expected growth in construction and retrofit jobs. Finally, focusing on issues of equity in the coming green wave present an opportunity to use green as a lever to reform the long dysfunctional and uncoordinated workforce, housing and transportation systems that serve not just the poor but all city residents.”

The report notes that most cities’ green building codes are limited to new institutional and commercial buildings, when it is the residential sector and existing buildings that present the most need and opportunity. “The biggest and quickest cut that cities can make in carbon is from ‘greening’ current structures,” say the authors. “Mass retrofits also create new jobs” in working-class trades that pay reasonably high wages, such as construction workers, electricians, and utility line workers.

On transit-oriented development, the report notes that it can simultaneously improve both transportation and housing for struggling families, who currently spend over half their incomes on the two necessities. Moreover, say the authors, “perhaps the most significant step a city can take toward sustainability is to focus on improving access to greener forms of transportation. Vehicle traffic from cars and trucks is a massive source of greenhouse gas emissions in cities, accounting for between 20 and 50 percent of the total, depending upon the urban area.”

Some of the survey findings, summarized by the Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire, include the following:

So that’s good news and bad news, I guess. And, unfortunately, the report doesn’t even reach the suburbs, where the news would surely be worse. The per capita emissions certainly are far worse, and very few of our suburbs are effectively dealing with sprawl and driving rates. As a result, I find much of the emphasis on what cities are doing to be missing the point: environmental problems do not respect municipal boundaries that are in many cases accidents of history bearing absolutely no relationship to regions’ current economic and social patterns.

But cities and suburbs both have a job to do on sustainability, and at least many cities are trying. This report sheds light on what their next steps ought to be and on how to go about assembling the resources to implement them. It may be downloaded here.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog’s home page.

Great article in the Washington Post about Obama’s New Vision for an Urban Policy

Addressing a White House urban affairs summit on Monday, President Obama called for the “reinvention” of America’s cities and metropolitan areas and vowed to spark a public conversation to create a “new, imaginative, bold vision” for urban policy.

The speech was Obama’s first as president dedicated to urban issues, a subject he called “near and dear to my heart.”

He promised to send Cabinet members across the country this summer to engage Americans toward the creation of a national urban agenda, and he announced, for the first time in 30 years, an intensive interagency review to take a “hard look” at how federal policy impacts urban areas.

The summit was the first indication that the White House might back its newly created Office of Urban Affairs with the kind of muscle that Obama suggested during his campaign. That goal, introduced before the economic collapse, would reverse decades of federal disinterest in cities.

The meeting convened dozens of policy experts, along with mayors, county officials, governors and a half-dozen agency heads to discuss how the federal government can help build competitive, sustainable and inclusive urban areas.

Obama noted that he has lived almost all his life in cities, including studying in Los Angeles, New York and Cambridge, Mass., and founding his political career in Chicago.
But he said that he defined “urban” as not just inner cities, but also their surrounding suburbs, asserting that there is no longer a divide between the two.

“Even as we’ve seen many of our central cities continuing to grow in recent years, we’ve seen their suburbs and exurbs grow roughly twice as fast,” said Obama. “It’s not just our cities that are hotbeds of innovation anymore, it’s our growing metropolitan areas.”

He said he would send members of his Cabinet and the Office of Urban Affairs to look at innovations in cities around the country to elevate as best practices.

Obama noted Denver, for its plans to build a public transit system to handle the city’s anticipated growth; Philadelphia, for its urban agriculture; and Kansas City, which has weatherized homes and built a ecologically minded transit system in one low-income neighborhood.

The president also said he has directed the Office of Management and Budget, the Domestic Policy Council, the National Economic Council, and the Office of Urban Affairs to review federal policies impacting urban areas, in terms of infrastructure, transportation, housing, energy, sustainable development and education.

Obama acknowledged that the economic crisis has caused four out of five American cities to cut services, and 48 states to face the prospects of budget deficits in the coming fiscal year. But he said the federal government must do more than just help cities weather the current economic storm — it must figure out ways to “rebuild them on a newer, firmer, stronger foundation.”

He also presented a comprehensive effort to build sustainable communities, led by the secretaries of the Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Transportation, and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

“For too long, federal policy has actually encouraged sprawl and congestion and pollution, rather than quality public transportation and smart, sustainable development,” said Obama.

He said that developing housing, transportation and energy-efficiency should “go hand in hand.”

Kevin is a participating faculty member this week for a Form-Based Codes Institute 301 Session in Lansing, MI.

This course covers a checklist for evaluating the effectiveness of a Form-Based Code, an in-depth look at the advantages, disadvantages, and mechanics of mandatory, parallel and floating-zone forms of FBCs; how to structure the coding process, including what must happen before and after the code is drafted; what to keep and what to discard from an existing conventional code; the legal aspects of adopting a FBC i.e. its consistency with the comprehensive plan, adoption mechanics and insulating against potential challenges; and post-adoption implementation. For more information and registration, please check this link: Form Based-Code Institute

“This year in Denver saw another successful and mind-expanding Congress. For those who weren’t able to attend, I hope you put it on your short-list of conferences to attend in the future. From my vantage point as just an attendee, it’s still the most intellectually interesting conference in the world of planning and development.

The Congress this year once again had a series of sessions on form-based codes. I was pleased to have our Blue Springs Downtown Development Code (http://www.bluespringsgov.com/index.aspx?nid=211) featured in the session discussing the Driehaus Form-Based Codes awards. We had an interesting exchange on the merit of using Building Types in our codes, with a variety of practitioners chiming in with their experiences. While nothing was settled, I personally enjoy this type of discussion of best practices, and look forward to the critique of various methods.

Following that session, Scott Polikov of Gateway Planning Group & myself led a very interactive session called ‘Form-based coding for results: what’s working, what’s not.’ It was a lively session, not just for the topic but also because we changed up the format, presenting our pieces in the newly-popular pecha kucha format (http://www.pecha-kucha.org/), and then having extensive time for Q&A. One colleague who I respect a great deal told me it was one of the best sessions of the Congress, as much as anything b/c we had so much time for direct discussion w/ the audience. Always good to hear.

On Friday night, our XNU group held a reception and discussion at LoDo’s Bar & Grill with Brent Toderian, the Planning Director of Vancouver, BC. Brent is a fairly young guy for his position, but very bright and an engaging speaker. He challenged us on a number of levels, both professionally and within the CNU itself to not make excuses. He shared many elements of the Vancouver experience, and what he thinks the relevance is of it to American cities. If you ever have a chance to see Brent speak, I highly recommend it. I especially enjoyed his attitude of ‘we don’t lie in fear of the attorneys telling us what not to do – we do it, and let it sort itself out later.’ It’s rare to hear a Planning Director, even in Canada, have such bravado.”

-Kevin Klinkenberg