ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY GROUP Department of Urban Studies and Planning Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Newsletter Spring/Summer 2004
MIT-USGS Science Impact Collaborative by Herman Karl
News and Views by Larry Susskind
The relationship between the Environmental Policy Group and the U.S. Geological Survey expanded significantly with the decision to establish a MIT-USGS Science Impact Collaborative. MIT will be one of five Partner Universities affiliated with the USGS Science Impact program (SIP), which the USGS Director, Charles Groat, announced in January 2004. This program is a focused effort to improve and expand the use of USGS science information to support decision-making at the Department of the Interior (DOI), other Federal, State, and local government organizations and by the public. This effort encompasses developing and implementing improved methods and processes to enhance linkages between science and decision-making. Carl Shapiro, senior advisor to the Director, will coordinate the SIP. Herman Karl, USGS Western Geographic Science Center chief scientist and a principal scientist in the SIP, will continue his appointment as a visiting faculty member, to co-direct the Collaborative with Prof. Larry Susskind.
News: We are sad that our colleague, Bill Shutkin, will be leaving at the end of this semester. Bill has been a wonderful contributor to both EPG and the Department over the past few years, sharpening our focus on brownfields development, involving students in the exciting work of the New Ecology Institute and bringing added prominence to MIT through his annual workshops on sustainable development in the Boston area. While Bill will be moving to Vermont to take the reigns at the Orton Foundation, we are trying to work out some affiliation between Orton and EPG on issues of sustainable community development.
The mission of the Collaborative is to (1) Engage in fieldbased efforts to test the effectiveness of joint fact finding as an approach to improving the linkages between the use of science and management and policy decisions; (2) Determine which situations are appropriate for joint fact finding and which are not, (3) Document these pilot tests through interaction with stakeholders and policy-makers at the local and national levels; (4) Encourage the education of a range
For next year, in Bill始s absence, Professor David Wirth (Visiting Professor of Law from Boston College Law School) will be teaching 11.601 in the fall and working all year with students interested in issues of global trade and the environment. Ms. Lavea Brachman, Associate Director of the Delta Institute (a not-for-profit engaged in environmental quality improvement and community economic development in the Great Lakes region), will be teaching 11.3XX
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News and Views continued from page 1
Brownfields Policy in the spring and will be available throughout the year to help students interested in the intersection of community economic development and environmental protection. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the U.S. Department of Interior have agreed to support a new USGS-MIT Science Impact Collaborative based in DUSP. Beginning in September, four interns will be supported for two years to work as staff to the Collaborative on a range of projects related to improving the way that stakeholders are involved in joint fact finding and others aspects of scienceintensive policy making. Dr. Herman Karl will remain at MIT as Co-Director of the Collaborative. At least two of the students will continue the work of this yearʼs 11.941-11.942 Research Seminar on the Uses of Joint Fact Finding in Environmental Policymaking focusing on the siting of a wind farm off the Nantucket coast. All four students will be working with USGS regional offices to document and assess efforts to engage the public in joint fact finding on a range of water and forest management, endangered species protection, and the siting of alternative energy projects in public lands. 11.941-11.942 will be offered again next year. The Environmental Technology and Public Policy Program (ETP), headed by David Laws, was recently awarded a five-year grant by the Dutch Government after a lengthy international competition. In conjunction with Delft University, ETP will be extending its long-time interest in Public Entrepreneurship Networks (i.e. publicprivate partnerships that engage elaborate networks of stakeholders and decision-makers in sustainable development activities of various kinds). Our focus will be on Rotterdam and the problem of catalyzing the formation of new stakeholder networks to guide redevelopment. A DUSP student team will travel to Holland each year to work with our colleagues at Delft University.
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ETP has also received word from our Swiss colleagues at the European Technical University that we are part of a team that has been awarded a multiyear grant from the Volvo Education and Research Foundations for work on Future Urban Transport. We will be studying the prospects of planning for sustainable mobility using a more collaborative transdisciplinary approach than has been used in the past. Teams have been assembled to study Tokyo, Mexico City, Zurich and Gothenberg (Sweden). We are still hoping to add an additional city in China. David Laws will be heading up ETPʼs involvement in this project. Finally, planning is underway for a conference in June 2005 entitled Deliberative Democracy meets Dispute Resolution. The MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program has been awarded funds to organize a two day event that will bring 10 political theorists studying deliberative democracy into conversation with ten of Americaʼs most experience public dispute mediators and a half dozen specialists in public participation practice. Professor John Forester at Cornell, Professor Judith Innes at UCBerkeley, Professor Carrie Menkel-Meadow at Georgetown Law School, and David Booher at Cal State Sacramento will be co-organizers with Larry Susskind.
Views: Maybe it would be a lot easier for some students if the faculty maintained a updated list of pre-prepared thesis topics to which they (the faculty) were prepared to commit time, effort and maybe even money. Students could then select from this list, be handed a manageable topic (with a relevant data set or access to the relevant data) and get to work. It seems to take some students so long to formulate a manageable question, that by the time they do, the second semester is half over, there is no time (or money) to engage in adequate data collection, and the pressure just to finish overwhelms everything else. Of course, this wouldnʼt be for everyone. For many students, the struggle to move from a topic to a researchable question and the process of “making do” with inadequate data or insufficient access to data continued on page 14
MIT-USGS Science Impact Collaborative, continued from page 1 of interested publics regarding the role of experts and stakeholders in science-intensive environmental policy- making; and (5) Train a new generation of scientists and applied social scientists in the integrated tools and techniques of using joint fact finding in science-intensive policy making. The overarching, driving hypothesis for projects undertaken by the Collaborative is: Public involvement in science-intensive policy disputes can only be meaningful or effective when and if the proper tools are used to allow stakeholders with varying degrees of scientific and technical knowledge to engage in “high quality” joint fact finding. This hypothesis will link the substance and tools (e.g., physical models) of scientific analysis with process methods such as formal consensus building in an endeavor to produce better natural resources and ecosystems management decisions that lead to stable environmental policy.
cal the controversy of placing wind farms offshore to introduce participants to joint fact-finding. Other projects might include exploring the role of adaptive management in a participatory approach to natural resources management. The range of potential projects will analyze the role of science and scientists in collaborative approaches to natural resources/ ecosystems management and environmental policy making. Through this research the Collaborative will help USGS, BLM, and DOI to encourage community-based decision making grounded in sound science and move policy-making away from conflict toward cooperation.
The Bureau of Land Management is partnering with USGS to sponsor graduate student interns to work on a variety of projects, chosen in consultation with the two bureaus that will implement the mission of the Collaborative. Richard Whitley, National Stewardship and Partnership Coordinator, is the principal BLM point of contact with the Collaborative. Among the projects that the graduate interns will work on is one helping to develop a collaborative, participatory process for permitting offshore wind energy sites and for implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act; these will be products of a USGS Directorʼs SIP Venture Capital award. Students on this project will consult with senior officials in the DOI Minerals Management Service and Office of Environmental Policy and Compliance. This project will build upon the foundation laid by students in the 11.941/11.942 graduate seminars, “The use of joint fact finding in science-intensive disputes.” Last fall the students produced a draft diagram comparing the current NEPA permitting process to how the process would look using a joint fact finding approach. Students in the spring semester seminar have developed a role-play simulation using as the hypotheti Spring 2004
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I first came to the Czech Republic when, as a graduate student, I was hired to study household perceptions of proposed air quality protection measures in by JoAnn Carmin North Bohemia. This experience had such a positive impact on my career that now I am committed to ensuring that DUSP graduate students have similar Since the fall of communism in 1989, sweeping international research and training opportunities. changes have taken place across Central At present, DUSP students are and Eastern Europe. Due to the role that active in all phases of a project environmental activism played in civil unThis experience had I am completing on community rest and mobilization in the late 1980s, the transition from communism to democracy such a positive impact response and nongovernmental was accompanied by wide-spread environ- on my career that now learning as a consequence of the Czech floods of 2002. Last mental reforms, including the development I am committed to spring students traveled with me of new environmental policies, remediation ensuring that DUSP to the Czech Republic to learn of past damage, and protection of many of the region’s natural areas. At the same time, graduate students have about the floods, train in field similar international research methods, and assist the transitions to a free-market economy and a democratic system of governance research and training with data collection. During IAP, faculty and students from the were accompanied by constitutional and adopportunities. University of Economics, Prague ministrative provisions that made it possible came to Cambridge where, in for people to form independent associations collaboration with DUSP students and faculty, they and participate in public decision-making. spent two weeks participating in a training and research program. Faculty lectured on methodology Over the past ten years, I have been studying how and flood-related topics, guided students through transformations such as these are shaping environqualitative analysis exercises, and facilitated crossmental participation and mobilization in the Czech disciplinary discussions about environmental protecRepublic. Much of my research examines responses tion and disaster response and recovery. The project, that community members and environmental orwhich is funded by the National Science Foundation, ganizations have to development proposals, toxic will continue this spring when DUSP students return spills, and natural hazards. For instance, in a study of to the Czech Republic to participate in additional democratic consolidation, I investigated why, when training seminars and data collection activities. faced with proposals to site landfills and incinerators,
Research in the Czech Republic
some communities protested, others participated in institutional processes such as environmental impact assessment hearings and town meetings, while still others did nothing. I also have chronicled the development of the Czech environmental movement and traced how innovative ideas generated by nongovernmental organizations have affected rural sustainable development initiatives. More recently, I assessed the influence of eastern expansion of the European Union on environmental policy and management throughout the region, paying particular attention to how these changes are affecting domestic environmental organizations.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY GROUP
MCP Anna Brown - Graduate of Brown University in Environmental Studies. Worked as Program Assistant at the Quaker United Nations Office. Lindsay Campbell — Graduate of Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy. Studied semester abroad at University of Cape Town. Project manager for the USDA Forest Service Living Memorials Project and Community Planning Technician for the USDA Forest Service Northeast Research Station. Xixi Chen — Graduate of Peking University in Environmental Sciences. Currently on a University Fellowship at the City University of New York. Research Assistant at City University of New York and Peking University. Abigail Emison — Graduate of Wellesley College with major in Economics and Political Sciences. Intern at the US Environmental Protection Agency and Analyst for Analysis Group, Inc. Bomee Jung — Graduate of University of Georgia, Athens, with major in Literature and Foreign Languages. Programmer for Blink.com and Founder of GreenHomeNYC. Andres Power — Graduate of Brown University with major in Environmental Sciences. Program Analyst for New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
Richard N. Andrews photo
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EPG Welcomes Our New MCP and PhD Students
Marina Psaros — Graduate of University of California Los Angeles with major in European Studies. Independent Consultant in Germany and Director of International Development for MediaAnalyzer GmbH.
Heather Seyfang — Graduate of SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Research Assistant at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and Education Program Coordinator at MITʼs Laboratory for Energy and the Environment. Tamar Shoham — Graduate of University of Texas, Austin, with major in Business. Business Analyst for Deloitte Consulting and Business Development Director for The Cecil Group. Basilia Yao — Graduate of Columbia University with major in History. Currently student at Harvard University pursuing a degree in Management and Business Administration. Public Finance Analyst for The Lehman Brothers and Economic Development Representative for Mayor James K. Hahnʼs Office.
PhD Anjali Mahendra — MCP and MST (June 04) from MIT with focus in International Development and Regional Planning. Worked as a Research Assistant for the Mexico City Project , World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and Alliance for Global Sustainability (AGS) project in Chile. Nancy Odeh — Master of Science in Environmental Change and Management from Oxford University. Joint major BS in Geography and Environmental Sciences, McGill University. Currently a Research Associate with the Stockholm Environment Institute in Boston.
Spring 2004
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Sustainable Development Planning and Practice Spring Practicum (11.947)
Sustainability in the Built Environment Series at MIT
by Darlene Gallant
Over the past six months, a group of MIT graduate students has developed and coordinated a speaker series focused on the practice of sustainability in design, engineering, planning, and development. This series, entitled “Practicing the Elusive: Integrating Sustainability into the Built Environment,” engaged pioneers in this field, asking them to describe particular projects and the challenges that they faced in completing them. Organized by students from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, the Department of Architecture, the Center for Real Estate, and the Technology and Public Policy Program, this series also helped build connections between different departments and schools within MIT, and spurred the formation of a new student group, the Sustainable Urban Development Society, that plans to organize similar talks in coming years. The speakers included:
Sustainable Development Planning and Practice, 11.947, is being co-taught by EPGʼs Bill Shutkin and Karl Seidman. It is one of the most popular of DUSPʼs new practicum requirement this spring. The intent of the class is to apply the often elusive principles of sustainable development to planning practice. The course unites the environmental planning and policy background of Shutkin and the economic development experience of Seidman to bring clarity and actionable content to the subject matter. The instructors provided a thorough overview of sustainability theory, including small business development, brownfields redevelopment, waste management, and technology transfer. Presenting two different disciplinary perspectives during the class allows The intent of the class is the students and professors to draw to apply the often elusive connections between economic and environmental planning concepts. principles of sustainable
Fields Corner section of Dorchester. Half-way through the semester, student groups conducted several planning exercises, a thorough development to planning including Two local Community Development Existing Conditions Corporations serve as the clients practice. Analyses, and worked for the student groups: the Jamaica closely with the CDC Plain Neighborhood Development partners toward developing Corporation (JPNDC) and Viet-Aid in the sustainability plans. The JPNDC group is conducting a development analysis on a series of contaminated parcels surrounding the Jackson Square MBTA station. The JPNDC team drafted goals to address sustainability through brownfields remediation, the provision of affordable and healthy housing, mobility and access to public transportation, economically viable reuse, and community education. To best serve the needs of the Vietnamese population in Fields Corner, the Viet-Aid team is pursuing a businessoriented focus on sustainable development. The group strives to enhance economic development and environmental quality in the area through the promotion of sustainable business practices and focusing on the commercial assets of the neighborhood.
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ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY GROUP
Jonathan Rose – Rose is President of Jonathan Rose Companies LLC, a network of community and land use planning and development firms that collaborate with cities, towns and not-for-profits to plan and develop environmentally responsible projects by creating vibrant, diverse cultural centers with a balance of jobs, housing, open land and mass transit. His projects range from low income housing for homeless people with AIDS, seniors and first time home buyers, to state-of-the-art academic buildings, performing arts centers and libraries. Roseʼs community development activities include serving as Chair of the Board of the Greyston Foundation, an innovative entrepreneurial community development organization that has been revitalizing Yonkers, New York. He also serves on the Board of the Enterprise Foundation. His talk, sponsored and hosted by the Center for Real Estate, discussed the principles on which his firm is based, and described several of the projects they have recently developed or are currently developing throughout the country. Melinda Multoun – Multoun and her redevelopment partner, Lisa Steele, created the innovative “team
approach to design, development, and construction” philosophy and produced in concept a 25-year incremental redevelopment project for the Burlington Waterfront. Her role as redeveloper of the Main Street Landing project includes supporting the arts and local culture, providing incubator space for startup local businesses, nurturing social responsibility, and educating people about environmental and social conscience. The project includes 113,000 square feet, encompassing the renovation of the historic Union Station, which will accommodate rail passengers, the CornerStone and Wing Buildings, and a 100car underground garage. An additional structure is under construction, with a 2-screen cinema, black box performance theater, restaurant, solarium, retail and office space, viewing and pedestrian terraces, and public linkages to the Waterfront. Multounʼs sustainable agenda focuses on ecological integrity, economic security, individual empowerment, and social well-being. Her talk, sponsored and hosted by the Center for Real Estate, discussed how these values have played out in the Main Street Landing project. In fact, Multoun feels that a shift in their development strategy to reflect their personal values led to the project obtaining approvals after their initial, more traditional proposal was rejected. Michael Singer –Singer has been involved in a variety of landscape and outdoor environment and infrastructure projects in the United States and Europe. His recent work has been recognized as a solution to joining large-scale public works projects to aesthetic concerns and the communities that are served by this infrastructure. In 1994, construction was completed on his design for a sculptural floodwall and walkway that serves as a model riverine reclamation project for the Grand River East Bank in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Singer was also been selected with Behnisch & Partner to design and fabricate interior gardens for the IBN, a Dutch Environmental Research Center. Completed in 1998, the gardens serve as biofilters for the facilityʼs air Spring 2004
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Sustainability in the Built Environment Series
Introducing EPGʼs New Colleagues
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and water recovery. The Canal Corridor Association and Chicago Parks Department also selected Singer to design a new urban park on the Chicago River that interprets the history and impacts of canals on the city, as well as reclaims wildlife habitat and restores the wetland ecosystem. With support from the Rockefeller Foundation, Singer partnered with the environmental group, River Watch, to lead a multidisciplinary team to create the master plan for Troja Island Basin in Prague, Czech Republic. Singer has also worked on several co-generation power facilities, incorporating sustainable building principles, aesthetic design, and land use planning. His talk, sponsored and hosted by the Department of Architecture, focused on how his work has evolved from contemplation of beaver habitats to large scale public works and development projects. Rodolpho Ramina – Ramina is a 2003/2004 Loeb Fellow at the Graduate School of Design (GSD) at Harvard University. He is also a private consultant and the research director of Fundacao Angelo Creta, an environmental NGO in Parana State. Prior to this work, Ramina served as technical director for the Curitiba (Brazil) City Industrial Development Company, working to build the industrial sector as the city experienced rapid growth in the 1980s. During recent years, Rodolpho has been particularly interested in the environmental and human impact of large public works projects and has strived to mitigate their negative ramifications. As a Loeb Fellow, he is exploring the technical, design, and procedural innovations needed to support sustainable communities within a regional context. His talk, sponsored and hosted by the Center for Real Estate and the MIT Graduate Student Council, focused on issues of scale as a framework for understanding appropriate interventions in a given context, and was illustrated with work he has done on a building, city, state, and regional level.
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Peter Lowitt - Peter Lowitt is a leading practitioner of eco-industrial development in North America. As Director of the Devens Enterprise Commission, Lowitt launched an initiative to develop green buildings and a by-products exchange network at Devens, a 4,400-acre former military base and Superfund site. As Director of Planning and Economic development for the town of Londonderry, New Hampshire during the 1990s, Lowitt developed the Stoneyfield Londonderry Eco-Industrial Park in conjunction with private sector partner and initiated the Sustainable Londonderry program. Lowitt currently serves as president of the American Planning Association Massachusetts Chapter, a founding board member of the Eco- Industrial Development Council, and editorial board member of the Canadian Eco- Industrial Network. His talk, sponsored and hosted by the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment and the Technology and Policy Program, focused on his work at Devens and how they are establishing the infrastructure and institutions for supporting eco-industrial development. Together, these speakers have provided an image of the practice of sustainability in the built environment, framing how the design, engineering, development, and planning professions can shift to transform how our buildings and communities function. The series organizers included Jeff Levy, Heather Clark, Javier Arbona, Julie Paquette, and Will Bradshaw. It was supported by the Department of Architecture, the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), the DUSP Student Council, the Environmental Policy Group, the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment, the Technology and Public Policy Program, New Ecology, Inc., the MIT Graduate Student Council, the Center for Real Estate, the Harvard Real Estate Club, and the Students for Global Sustainability.
Professor David Wirth (Visiting Professor of Law from Boston College Law School) will be teaching 11.601 in the fall and working all year with students interested in issues of global trade and the environment. Ms. Lavea Brachman, Associate Director of the Delta Institute (a not-for-profit engaged in environmental quality improvement and community economic development in the Great Lakes region), will be teaching 11.3XX Brownfields Policy in the spring and will be available throughout the year to help students interested in the intersection of community economic development and environmental protection.
Lavea Brachman Lavea Brachman has worked on brownfields reuse, community development and land use issues for the last fifteen years. Currently, she is the Director of the Ohio office of the Delta Institute, a Chicago-based non-profit organization that works on a wide range of brownfields and sustainable development projects and policies in the Great Lakes region. She also serves as faculty with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy developing and teaching brownfields courses for Community Development Corporations, where she will be a Visiting Fellow for 2004-5. Ms. Brachman is the Governor appointee to the Clean Ohio Council, a statutory body charged with developing brownfields funding policies and selecting brownfields projects statewide to receive state funds. Previously, Ms. Brachman was a partner with a Cambridge, Massachusetts brownfields consulting firm and served as senior staff in the U.S. Department of Energyʼs (DOE) Office of Environmental Management in Washington, D.C. working on community involvement and reuse issues related to decommissioned DOE facilities. She also practiced environmental law with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Beveridge and Diamond, P.C. Ms. Brachman holds a law degree from The University of Chicago Law School and a Master in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College. She is married and has two children.
David A. Wirth David A. Wirth is Professor of Law at Boston College Law School in Newton, Massachusetts, where he teaches primarily in the field of public international law, with a specialty in international environmental law. Prior to entering academia, Professor Wirth was Senior Attorney and Co-Director of the International Program at the Washington, D.C. office of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit public interest law firm specializing in environmental issues. Professor Wirth has also been Attorney-Adviser for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., where he had principal responsibility for all international environmental issues. Professor Wirth is a 1981 graduate of the Yale Law School and served as law clerk to Judge William H. Timbers of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York for a year thereafter. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in chemistry from, respectively, Princeton and Harvard Universities. Spring 2004
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MCP Thesis Presentations
EPG Lunch Speaker Series
Tam Doan
March 2nd Professor Tatsu Suzuki and Kenshi Baba (Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, Tokyo, Japan)
April 27th - May 4th
A Note of Thanks
As I prepare to leave my post in EPG to head for the greener pastures of Vermont, where I’ll be running The Orton Family Foundation, I wanted to express my sincerest thanks to the DUSP faculty, staff and students. This is a remarkably talented and dedicated community that wears its values on its sleeve. In its own modest way, and because of these values, DUSP is educating a new generation of planners, scholars, and researchers who, I’m confident, will be the change agents who build more livable, more just, and more environmentally sound cities and regions. My five years in the department have been among the most rewarding of my career and I leave a better and wiser person because of them. A special thanks to Larry Susskind, Bish Sanyal, and Larry Vale for being so supportive of my and my New Ecology colleagues’ work and helping establish a very productive and mutually beneficial relationship between DUSP and NEI. The jointly sponsored annual Regional Sustainable Development Forums, internships, and professional development workshops contributed greatly to the intellectual and professional life of both institutions. At Orton, whose mission is to promote sustainable community development by engaging citizens in land use planning, I hope to continue my association with DUSP, if in a slightly different posture. I’ll be meeting with Larry V., Larry S., and others over the next few months to determine what this partnership might look like. Meanwhile, the DUSP-NEI relationship will continue, with internship opportunities and events. I wish all of you the best of luck in your lives and careers, at DUSP and beyond. Please keep in touch and, again, my thanks.
— Bill Shutkin
“Organizing for Occupational Health, An Analysis of Social Capital Utilization in Vietnamese Nail Salon Networks”
Peter Ericson
“Conservation on the edge: Landscape scale conservation efforts at Coloradoʼs urban rural interface.” Summary: Landscape scale conservation has emerged as one of the leading frameworks for pursuing ambitious conservation outcomes that incorporate the natural and cultural environments. This thesis applies this framework to three case studies in Colorado, looking specifically at how these efforts are faring in the face of steady urban growth pressures in all areas of the state.
Darlene Gallant
“Brownfields Redevelopment in Rural Massachusetts: Understanding the Obstacles & Identifying Opportunities for Success”
“Social Decision Making Process for Introduction of Energy Technologies: Case Study Approach” The talk was about the development of renewable energy sources in Japan with references to recent cases across the country.
March 30th Professor Gregory Norris “New Earth: A Global Resource for Locally Building a Better World” The New Earth Fund is a global source of seed funding for local initiatives and community-driven development.
April 6th Dr. John Francis of Planetwalk “Geography of an Obligation” Introduced his new organization PLANETLINES, an organization whose mission is to create and disseminate an environmental, peace, and community service curriculum
Steven R. Lenard
“The Role of Scientists in Collaborative Decision-Making Processes”
Amelia Ravin
“Local Action for the Global Environment: Municipal Government Participation in a Voluntary Climate Protection Program” Summary: A six community case study about local climate action in New England and Eastern Canada.
Bill Shutkin and guest speaker John Francis 10
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY GROUP
Spring 2004 11
BUILDING CONSENSUS ON AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN MEXICO CITY by Tina Rosan EPG doctoral students Dong-Young Kim, Anjali Mahendra, and Tina Rosan have been working for MITʼs Mexico City Project on a Conflict Assessment in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA). The Conflict Assessment, lead by Larry Susskind and Drs. Luisa and Mario Molina, is designed to identify political and institutional barriers to more effective metropolitan coordination on issues of air quality management. The MIT team is working in collaboration with the Mexican Secretary of the Environment, the Federal District Department of Environment, and the State of Mexicoʼs Secretary of Ecology to initiate the Conflict Assessment process. A team of Mexican researchers has been assembled who will conduct a series of 80-100 confidential interviews this summer with key Mexican officials concerned with air pollution policy in the MCMA. The goal of the Conflict Assessment is to see whether it might be possible to bring together all the relevant stakeholders and decision makers to build consensus on how best to address the impediments to cooperation on air quality management. The results of the interviews will be compiled into a report that maps the range of stakeholder views on the adequacy of existing institutional arrangements to deal with environmental, transportation, and land-use management in the MCMA. Based on the findings of the Conflict Assessment, the team of MIT researchers, working in conjunction Mexican officials, will determine whether or not a more extensive consensus building process should be initiated in the MCMA.
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ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY GROUP
Simulation game on Ground-Level Ozone sparks interest from around the world! The simulation game of negotiated-rule making on ground-level Ozone was so successful at the Air Pollution Workshop in Mexico City last year, that several requests have been made from outside campuses for simulation materials. All simulation materials are posted on the Mexico City Project website- (http://eaps.mit.edu/megacities/simulation_ game/index.html ) The first request was from John Lee, a teacher at Norfolk County Agricultural High School in Walpole, MA. John teaches in the Environmental Technology Department, and used the ozone simulation game exercise in his air pollution management session in November 2003. Professor Marina Alberti, EPG alumnae, in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at University of Washington used this simulation game exercise in her Environmental Planning course in November, 2003. She said the game was quite successful and a great experience for her students to learn about the use of scientific information in complex decisions. At almost the same time in Mexico, regional development and planning Professor, Verduzco Basilio, and Mexico City Project colleague, conducted the exercise in his graduate class at University of Guadalajara. While he suggested that an appendix on parties and their background would help people who are not familiar with the issue, he thought the game nicely addressed the debate of the usefulness
Simulation Game continued from page 12
EU Enlargement and the Environment: Institutional Change and Environmental Policy in Central and Eastern Europe
of science in decision-making. One month later, an interesting organization from the European Union approached the Mexico City Project. The European Studentsʼ Forum, Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de lʼEurope (AEGEE), requested simulation game materials with the intent to develop studentʼs communication and negotiation skills. Most recently in April of this year and for the first time, the simulation game was requested by a governmental organization in US. The Texas State Department Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Region 6 , will use this simulation game for the El Paso-Juarez region this summer. The simulation game will be conducted in Spanish with Spanish version materials. One member of the Commission distributed this simulation game to their colleagues working on air quality management in the region. So far, five requests have been made from outside, including Europe. This was possible due to the Mexico City Projectʼs emergence into the global Urban Air pollution field via the internet. In response to further demand of simulation materials, Luisa Molina, the project manager, decided to make CD-ROM for the game materials including teaching manuals that were sent to the Texas State Department. From now on, the CDs will be distributed to any requests for free use. It is very exciting to see people from around the world try this exercise, learn something about how urban air pollution should be managed and how scientific assessment should be dealt with in the negotiation process. We are most pleased that this game continues to spread through a global network of friends and colleagues.
Professors JoAnn Carmin (DUSP) and Stacy D. VanDeveer (University of New Hampshire) co-edited a volume entitled, EU Enlargement and the Environment: Institutional Change and Environmental Policy in Central and Eastern Europe (Routledge). This book, which will be available in late spring, focuses attention on key environmental and institutional changes associated with eastern expansion of the European Union, assessing and challenging prevailing views about the outcomes and processes of this historic development. Looking at four central themes -- capacity changes and limitations, the EUʼs mixed messages and conflicting priorities, non-state actor roles and developments, and the exchange of ideas and information – the volume shows that enlargement will change the EU, not just make it bigger, and that EU officials and programs are improving aspects of environmental policy in CEE countries even as they are making others less sustainable.
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News and Views
The New Inter-university Transboundary Water Policy Group
continued from page 2
sources (and having to change their research question in mid-stream) is enormously instructive. The students who chose to take a question from my proposed list (at any point in their MCP career) could tailor their course selection to the question and would certainly know who their faculty advisor would be. While some members of the faculty feel it is imperative that students go through the whole process -- from formulating a question to publishing a final result, others believe that for some students it would make more sense to invest heavily in the analysis of data or findings and to forgo the agony of problem formulation and data collection. What do you think? Every time we finish another round of admission to the MCP program, it becomes increasingly clear that the existence of Program Groups is getting in the way of attracting some of the strongest applicants to the Department. Having forced students to identify a Program Group to which they want to apply (and having organized admissions to ensure a minimum number of students are accepted into each group), we then spend the Open House for new admits explaining why group boundaries are actually meaningless and students are free to roam. So, which is it? I can make an administrative argument that admission via Program Groups is important because it guarantees a sufficient number of students to allow for continuity in the number, range and depth of courses we offer each year. I can also make a case that DUSP appeals to different markets through its Program Groups. There is a whole separate world of undergraduate environmental studies majors (and fledgling environmental professionals) who will come to DUSP to study in EPG, but who would never think of applying to an MCP Program in a Department of Urban Studies and Planning. So, Program Groups are an important marketing tool. But, what about the fact that the group boundaries really are meaningless once students arrive at MIT? We say that to allow students to pursue course selections that overlap two or even three groups. 14
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY GROUP
So, should we continue to push the existence of separate groups in all our marketing materials? What does that suggest to the world about planning as a field? Given how little students in the Program Groups have in common, what shall we say it is that distinguishes a planner from some other kind of professional? In EPG, it is clear that environmental planning as a specialization requires at least three semesters of full time study. What there is to learn about planning is taught in the environmental context. So, students in EPG learn about the role of government and regulatory strategies, intergovernmental relations, the management of common pool resources, public-private partnerships and strategies for harnessing private interests for public ends, methods of involving stakeholders in public decision-making and the mobilization of civil society, approaches to ensuring a balance between science and politics in policy-making, techniques of information and project management, the tools of negotiation and conflict management, and the tools of benefit-cost analysis and risk management. I would argue that these are all central to professional planning practice today, regardless of the specialization. Students in EPG also learn a lot about uniquely environmental planning contexts. This helps them get a first job. It builds their confidence. It also responds to a particular set of values that tend to distinguish EPGers (including a commitment to sustainability, a desire to protect unique natural resources, a hope that building and neighborhood design can be supportive rather than detrimental to human health, a concern that patterns of development be less wasteful of energy, etc.). Iʼm OK with the duality of our commitment to maintaining Program Groups on the one hand while we encourage students to break whatever boundaries seem detrimental to their learning. Are you? Larry Susskind
Started by students in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning in the winter of 2004, the groupʼs participants now include graduate students from a variety of departments and schools at MIT, Tufts and Harvard, as well as a research fellow, a local consultant and a representative from a local utility. Faculty and researchers from the Boston area, and from as far away as Australia, have become involved in the groupʼs discussions and taken an interest in its direction. The group is hosted by the Program on Negotiation (http://pon.harvard.edu) at the Harvard Law School, where it also holds its meetings. During itʼs first semester, the group met to discuss readings every two weeks during March and April. Each meeting the discussions were led by a pair of participants. The selected discussion themes included: • • • •
Institutions for international water management International water policy and security Human rights issues and transboundary water policy Strategies for negotiating water policy in situations of power asymmetries
The group succeeded in meeting participantsʼ goal of creating a comfortable forum to discuss issues and ideas related to transboundary water policy. Discussions were punctuated by recurring conversation threads, such as specifying what “transboundary” means, sovereignty considerations, and questions about the utility of the analytical approaches discussed. Through the readings and discussions, participants developed a baseline of common knowledge and terminology. Gaps and weaknesses in the literature were identified, and opportunities for research discussed. As a result of the diversity of disciplines represented and strong student interest, the conversations were both thoughtful and relevant. The Transboundary Water Policy Group rounded out an auspicious initial semester with a guest speaker. Ms. Lisa Jorgenson presented to the group on Financing Water. The talk took a historical look at the water projects major donors have invested in over the past 10 years and provided an introduction to the information systems used in this process by major banks and bi-lateral country assistance programs. Ms. Jorgenson also shared with students her experiences working as a consultant on water policy with the World Bank and the GEF. The Transboundary Water Policy Group is currently in the process of becoming a student chapter of the American Water Resources Association (http://www.awra.org), and intends to be able to extend the benefits of this affiliation to participants in the Fall. The group is also in the planning process of hosting a panel at a Boston area conference on transboundary water policy issues in Spring 2005. The groupʼs next meeting will be in September, 2004 to share participantsʼ summer research on transboundary water policy issues. For additional information, please contact Catherine Ashcraft, PhD student, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT at catcraft@mit.edu.
Spring 2004 15
We congratulate two EPG first year MCP’s . . . Anne Herbst and Carli Paine, have been selected as Rappaport Public Policy Fellows. Fellows will work directly with officials from state and local public agencies in the Greater Boston area this summer on policy research and management projects. This prestigious fellowship is awarded annually to no more than 12 students in graduate-level programs at Boston University, Harvard University, MIT, and Suffolk University.
To Contact Our Faculty Lawrence Susskind Ford Professor of Urban Studies and Planning EPG Head susskind@mit.edu JoAnn Carmin Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy jcarmin@mit.edu Herman Karl Visiting Lecturer hkarl@mit.edu David Laws Research Scientist, Lecturer dlaws@mit.edu Judith Layzer Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy jlayzer@mit.edu William Shutkin Lecturer, Environmental Policy shutkin@mit.edu Anne Whiston Spirn Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning spirn@mit.edu Terry Szold Adjunct Associate Professor of Land Use Planning tsszold@mit.edu
Designed and assembled by Lyssia Lamb-MacDonald
Lyssia Lamb-MacDonald EPG Administrator lyssia@mit.edu Visit our website at web.mit.edu/dusp/epg/
Environmental Policy Group � Department of Urban Studies and Planning � MIT 77 Massachsetts Ave., 9-312 Cambridge, MA 02193 Fax 617.253.7402 Phone 617.253.1509