If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed.
Cities Everywhere are Tuning Into Sustainability
For awhile now, I’ve been on a (mostly internal) kick about cities being the greenest technology available to humankind. Interestingly, of late, I’ve begun seeing a groundswell of cities who are all racing for the designation as “the greenest city in America.” I’ve heard statements from Chicago, New York, even Los Angeles (funny, I haven’t heard anything from Detroit…). Sacramento is also chiming in with paired with its newly-proposed Sustainable Master Plan.
And programs like Yahoo’s “Be a Better Planet” contest certainly add more fuel to the fire.
A Bigger Dialogue
Because I believe so strongly in cities as green technology in general and Sacramento in particular, I want to raise this topic as a wider, longer, more in-depth conversation. I’ve got a few posts worth of thoughts I’ve written out already (originally in one lengthy essay-ish post) but realized it would be a better, more enjoyable dialogue broken down into bite-size portions. I’m also curious how the dialogue shapes up with others’ contributions.
So, I offer this as a starting point…
First Cuts: What are the Signature Traits?
The way I see it, the city that’s going to win this race will need a few signature traits even before it starts just to make the first cuts. So, my first question is what are these traits?, what makes a city a contender to begin with?, what strengths are most important for a city to rise to a place of national leadership with sustainability? My initial answer is three very basic criteria: I’m hoping others will fill in the missing gaps.
1. Leadership that can both affect policy and rally community support. Without strong leadership, good plans and articulate statements go nowhere.
2. A solid and stable economy to enable the creation and maintenance of green innovation and momentum. My rationale for this is the same as our rationale for our status as a “for profit” company.
3. “Good bones”, by which I mean the city already has built into it the basic building blocks that will give it a head start towards sustainability.
Subsequent posts will address where Sacramento stands with these three criteria as well as any others that rise to the surface of the conversation. For now, it’s just about the innate strengths that will make or break the candidates trying to win this race.
Where This Is Going?
Here’s my commitment. I’ll continue to feed the dialogue with new angles, questions, issues, etc. and after the dialogue winds down (whenever that is) I’ll take the posts and comments and draw up some kind of memorialized summary that I’ll post on our site (and maybe even send over to the city). Depending on where the conversation goes, who knows what else we’ll think up to get the message out… perhaps you’ve seen what we did with our company car?…
Feel free also to post questions/issues/angles you think should be considered in the dialogue. Let’s just see where this goes.
Jason
4 responses so far ↓
1 Kempster // May 22, 2007 at 4:16 pm
This running discourse is a very good idea.
I would like to throw out something that I’m becoming more involved with, and that is the issue of sustainability in economically unsustainable areas. While community-centric designs and eco-awareness are both important, we are behooved by a system that has failed to support “the least of these” (which typically translates to poor and non-white). Therefore, I view sustainability as the holistic package of better schools, properly funded after-school programs, tech training, free transportation for low-income residents, free mental health counseling, and health clinics that are not bound by the shackles of a tired and corrupt medical system.
I’m looking forward to seeing where this all leads.
2 Jason // May 22, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Kempster, just curious, what’s the nature of your involvement?
And yes, the holistic package of sustainability is critical; diverse peoples with diverse needs have to be served by a city in order for it to be healthy. Interestingly, I read recently (wish I could remember where) that Sacramento is recognized for its diversity. Of course, that doesn’t mean its serving diverse peoples well…You and Brian seem to be speaking the same language…and you both are in good company: Charles Lockwood has an article in the June 06 issue of Urban Land about “sustainability: envisioning the future” which summarized a panel of eco-thinkers at the Fall ULI Annual Meeting and one of the main points was regarding “social sustainability” and raised issues of social equity and justice, the middle class, families and affordability, diversity, inclusiveness, education, etc. Here’s a quote from Steve Kellenberg with EDAW: “Like any sort of ecological system, diverse systems stay healthy…Systems that lose diversity tend to entroy. Cities lacking sufficient diversity are not sustainable.”
You described a failing system and gave a short, potent list of “needs.” How would you characterize all this in a word/phrase to point to as a “Signature Trait” or criteria to potentially be added to the three above.
3 Jason // May 22, 2007 at 7:39 pm
In light of my reference to the ULI article on “sustainable cities: envisioning the future”, here’s the categories they came up with.
1. Economic Sustainability
2. Social Sustainability
3. Density and Infill
4. Intangibles: city culture, history, etc.
5. The Big Best-Practices Picture: urban boundaries,
6. Leadership
Re-reading the article, it strikes me that there’s strong correlation with the three “signature strengths” I identified above.
4 Kempster // May 24, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Jason, I dig those sources you referenced. As far as my involvement, I work at the state level for the Dept of Family and Children Services and will soon be getting my masters in community org / development. Micah and I used to have long conversations of this sort on our conjoined front porches
I only have one toe in the water so to speak, but it always seems to be at the most basic levels where communities struggle to keep up. For example, in a survey of low-income parents in the midwest conducted by the Chapin Center for Children out of Univ of Chicago, researchers discovered that of all the barriers that low-income families identified as affecting their well being, transportation was listed at the top of the list.
I think a more apropros way to think of what is currently called “social sustainability” is the phrase “progressive development and sustainability”. With this in mind, the holistic approach that I mentioned (and you edified! … and referenced!!) would focus on chipping away at very established injustices that face our poorest and most disenfranchised communities, empower those communities with a real right to choose their own level of well-being, and then, and then seek way to make that new existence sustainable.
I would be curious to read other’s input who have been doing this kind of work in Sacramento.
Leave a Comment