Monday Mailing
Year 25 • Issue 04 01 October 2018
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1. Solving the Problem of Thirsty Juniper 2. Free Guide: Parks and Public Spaces for People of All Ages 3. Recorded Webinar: Rural Trails as Economic Engines, Cultural Assets, and Community Anchors 4. Free Report: Creative Placemaking and Community Safety: Synthesizing Cross-Cutting Themes 5. Oregon Connections Telecommunications Conference, October 18 and 19, 2018 - Hood River, Oregon 6. The American Dream Is Harder to Find In Some Neighborhoods 7. Food Sovereignty as A Step Toward Community Resilience 8. Essential Food Systems Reader 9. Find Preservation Funding 10. 101 Small Ways You Can Improve Your City 11. Introducing a New Podcast: "It's The Little Things" 1. Solving the Problem of Thirsty Juniper Early ranchers shared the wide-open lands of Central and Eastern Oregon with about 1 million acres of native western juniper. Today, because of a combination of factors including fire suppression, grazing practices and climate change, biologists estimate that juniper stands now cover more than 9 million acres. The thirsty trees suck up precious water resources and crowd out other plants and wildlife.
Quote of the Week: "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning” –Albert Einstein Oregon Fast Fact: The federal government owns more than 50 percent of the land in Oregon.
That’s not good. High desert ecosystems suffer greatly from the invasion. One juniper can suck up to 40 gallons of water a day, water that could be nourishing grasses, wildlife and cattle. In fact, a quarter of the region’s grasslands are considered lost to the expansion of juniper, which is relentlessly expanding at about 1.5% each year. To access the full story, click here. 2. Free Guide: Parks and Public Spaces for People of All Ages The Public parks are important places for building a sense of community and social belonging. They are spaces that belong to everyone, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, religion or income. However, the way parks are designed, maintained and programmed doesn’t always reflect the purpose and promise of such uniquely public spaces. With the publication of Creating Parks and Public Places for People of All Ages: A Step-by-Step Guide , AARP Livable Communities, 8 80 Cities and The Trust for Public Land have come together to highlight the importance of parks — and give community leaders (and park advocates from all corners) tools they can use to both create and improve green spaces and public places for people of all ages. To access the full story, click here.
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3. Recorded Webinar: Rural Trails as Economic Engines, Cultural Assets, and Community Anchors Many rural communities and small towns are rediscovering their recreational and scenic assets and are looking for ways to leverage these assets to boost economic development and community pride. This webinar will highlight great examples of rural trail projects that link people to place and reconnect the human and natural environments--providing access to nature and preserving sensitive ecosystems, while promoting local economic and cultural assets. This free 60-minute webinar is cosponsored by the Orton Family Foundation and the Citizens' Institute on Rural Design. Speakers: • Amy Camp, Owner, Cycle Forward and Board Member, American Trails. • Leah Kemp, Assistant Director, Carl Small Town Center. • Zach Schmesser, Event Director, Bicycle Coalition of Maine. To access this webinar, click here. 4. Free Report: Creative Placemaking and Community Safety: Synthesizing Cross-Cutting Themes This report synthesizes findings from four cases where stakeholders are using creative placemaking to improve community safety. It presents cross-cutting themes from these case studies to show how creative placemaking techniques can be used from the conception and design stage through construction and programming, and how they can build community safety by promoting empathy and understanding, influencing law and policy, providing career opportunities, supporting well-being, and advancing the quality of place. It also discusses implementation challenges, and presents evaluative techniques of particular relevance for stakeholders working to understand the effects of these programs. To access the full report, click here. 5. Oregon Connections Telecommunications Conference, October 18 and 19, 2018 - Hood River, Oregon The Oregon Connections Telecommunications Conference draws attendees from all regions of the country to share ideas, experiences and knowledge about telecommunications. The 2018 conference presenters and attendees will explore Digital Inclusion, the challenge of ensuring that all individuals and communities have access to affordable state of the art information and broadband communications services, and the skills, knowledge and support to use them. Topics explored will include blockchain and crypto currencies, cybersecurity, technology addiction, network deployment and public policy. For more information, click here. 6. The American Dream Is Harder to Find in Some Neighborhoods Does the neighborhood you grow up in determine how far you move up the economic ladder? A new online data tool being made public Monday finds a strong correlation between where people are raised and their chances of achieving the American dream. Harvard University economist Raj Chetty has been working with a team of researchers on this tool — the first of its kind because it marries U.S. Census Bureau data with data from the Internal Revenue Service. And the findings are changing how researchers think about economic mobility. Page 2 of 4
It used to be that people born in the 1940s or '50s were virtually guaranteed to achieve the American dream of earning more than your parents did, Chetty says. But that's not the case anymore. To access the full story, click here. 7. Food Sovereignty as A Step Toward Community Resilience When we want to support local agriculture we think first to plant a garden or organize a farmers market. But rarely do we take the next logical step, which is to use local law to protect that sustainable agriculture system that we’re trying to build. When we don’t take that step, agribusiness corporations step into the vacuum that’s created to monopolize food access. As our farming practices return to decentralized production, so too must the decision-making about that food. La Via Campesina, an international peasant and indigenous farmers movement, coined the term “Food Sovereignty” in 1996 which they defined as the “right of peoples to define their own food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries systems, in contrast to having food largely subject to market forces.” Unlike the food security movement, aimed at ensuring that people have enough to eat, food sovereignty focuses on the question of who controls local food and agriculture policy. Who holds the power to determine those policies? Who sets goals and designs policy? Politicians? Corporations? Or the people directly affected by such policies? To access the full story, click here. 8. Essential Food Systems Reader The Growing Food Connections Essential Food Systems Reader is a collection of published resources that explore local and regional level public policy challenges and opportunities related to the following issues: • •
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Community food production: efforts to grow, raise and harvest crops, raise animals, fish, hunt or forage food for human consumption in urban, suburban and rural areas Community food security: the state in which all members of a community have sufficient and adequate access to healthy, affordable and culturally acceptable food, particularly under-served residents in urban, suburban and rural areas Community food connections: the challenges and opportunities of simultaneously improving community food production viability and food security for under-served residents.
The Essential Food Systems Reader includes carefully selected professional reports and articles, books, peer-reviewed journal articles and other resources such as fact sheets, briefing papers and white papers from the American Planning Association, the American Farmland Trust, and other national membership organizations, federal agencies and non-profit organizations. Unlike traditional food systems bibliographies, the Essential Food Systems Reader focuses on resources related to public policy, and the role of the local or regional government in improving community food production and community food security. Collectively, the Essential Food Systems Reader provides a foundation of knowledge on these topics – a starting place for communities wishing to tackle these important issues. To access the Essential Food Systems Reader, click here. 9. Find Preservation Funding Last year, the National Trust for Historic Preservation awarded over $1 million in grant funding to 196 projects nationwide. Funding from the National Trust is awarded to nonprofit organizations and
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public agencies, and the majority of our funding is awarded for planning and education projects through our National Trust Preservation Funds grant program. A grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation can be just the boost a project needs to ensure its success. NTHP grants are primarily for planning preservation projects, though some special programs focus on preservation planning in particular fields or geographic regions, or allow for the funding of physical preservation work. Grant applications are due at various times of the year, depending on the program. For more information, click here. 10. 101 Small Ways You Can Improve Your City Sometimes the smallest things we can do for our neighborhoods can have the biggest impact. At Curbed, we know the power of a vegetable garden planted in a vacant lot or a library installed on a sidewalk. For Micro Week, we want to share 101 urban interventions and ideas that show how even the tiniest changes can make our cities better places. To access the full list, click here. 11. Introducing a New Podcast: "It's The Little Things" Want to better your community but don’t know where to start? Enter It’s the Little Things: a brand new, weekly Strong Towns podcast that gives you the wisdom and encouragement you need to take the small yet powerful actions that can make your city or town stronger. It’s the Little Things will feature Strong Towns Community Builder Jacob Moses in conversation with various guests who have taken action in their own places and in their own ways. In the inaugural episode, Jacob sits down with former six-year Denton, Texas city councilperson Kevin Roden. It’s your chance to learn the essential information you need to run for city council— including how to run a successful campaign and get people behind your ideas—from a veteran who knows. If you care about your community, you’ve likely had this thought: “If I were on the city council, I would change this ordinance or advocate for that policy to better my community.” Perhaps you were motivated by a change you saw around you in the built environment, and you thought, “wait a minute; who made that decision? And how can I influence future decisions like it?” To access the "It's The Little Things" podcast series, click here.
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