Monday Mailing
Year 23 • Issue 12 05 December 2016 1. 2.
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16 Online Tools And Resources for More Productive Planners Interior's Common-Sense Approach to Renewable Energy Development This City in Oregon Will Be Mostly Destroyed in a Future Tsunami. But There's Some Good News Trump is The New Hero in Timber Country Equity in Food Systems Webinar - December 14, 2:30-3:45 pm PST Why Protected Bike Lanes Save Lives Where Are Millennials Moving To? Susan Etlinger: We Are at a Critical Turning Point About Data Big Solar in Oregon Finds Corporate Buyer, Signaling New Competitiveness Our Parking Minimums Map - Updated West Coast Democrats Want to be Ready if The Big One Hits
1. 16 Online Tools And Resources for More Productive Planners You manage multiple projects, plans, and engagement processes. You collaborate with colleagues, partners, and stakeholders. You report to your boss, council and the public. You get a ton done when you’re at your computer, speeding away on the day’s latest planning project or engagement strategy. You do this all day, day after day. Quote of the Week: Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. -Lao Tzu Oregon Fast Fact: A 1923 state law provided for "the sterilization of all feebleminded, insane, epileptics, habitual criminals, moral degenerates and sexual perverts who are a menace to society...." Sterilization was used until 1967.
Is there a way to wring some productivity to get more done? To access the full list, click here. 2. Interior's Common-Sense Approach to Renewable Energy Development “Nice birds, Mike,” was a greeting I often heard from visitors to my government offices over the years. I took these stuffed symbols of my occasional hunting success with me from my job in Oregon to Idaho, a reminder of the amazing outdoor opportunities we have in the Northwest Those mounts, frozen on the shelf watching me type memos and meet with stakeholders, also came to signify the conflicts inherent in managing natural resources on public lands. It was my job, first for the State of Oregon and then for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), to help strike a balance between wildlife and other uses of our valuable land. To access the full story, click here.
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3. This City in Oregon Will Be Mostly Destroyed in a Future Tsunami. But There's Some Good News Each time there are large subduction zone earthquakes in the Pacific Ring of Fire, like the recent major seismic events along the coasts of Japan and New Zealand, officials in cities like Seaside, Oregon, know they very well could be the next to experience a megaquake and with it a destructive tsunami. Seaside, and every community along the coast of the Pacific Northwest, faces the very real threat from a future megaquake along the Cascadia subduction zone offshore. Such a disaster could involve a massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake, which would send a large tsunami crashing into the coast. The last such Cascadia megaquake was in January 1700 and while seismologists can’t predict exactly when the next one will strike, they have warned that the risks of such a quake happening have increased—northern portions of Oregon, for instance, have a 20 percent chance of experiencing a quake with an 8.0 magnitude or greater in the next 50 years. To access the full story, click here. 4. Trump is The New Hero in Timber Country In Riddle, a town of 1,200 people in the southwest corner of Oregon, neighborhoods end where stacks of sprinkler-soaked logs begin. The town is surrounded by four sawmills in the heart of timber country. Here in Douglas County, where about half of the land is owned by the federal government, Donald Trump won 64 percent of the county’s vote in this year’s presidential election. Trump’s victory has this community and others in the Northwest Timber Belt cheering and hoping better times are ahead. “Riddle is really a close-knit community. We have very little division here,” said Riddle’s longtime mayor, Bill Duckett. “I think the people here in town, Douglas County, Southern Oregon are happy with how things came out. I am happy with the way things went.” To access the full story, click here. 5. Equity in Food Systems Webinar - December 14, 2:30-3:45 pm PST In this webinar we’ll explore how equity shows up at Oregon Food Bank, from policies to pantries. We’ll begin with an overview of equity, review our newly launched equity lens, and share some concrete examples of how equity informs our decision making. Our presenters include: -Court Morse, Community Equity Coordinator – Oregon Food Bank -Megan Newell-Ching, Regional Network Manager – Oregon Food Bank -Nicole Forbes, Community Engagement Coordinator – Oregon Food Bank What we mean by equity: -Equity is our understanding that there are varied needs of different groups based on identity. -The principle of equity acknowledges that there are historically underserved and underrepresented populations, and for these imbalances to be corrected, all groups must be given the opportunities they need. -Equity acknowledges the power imbalance that has led to certain groups feeling the burden of oppression, and therefore at higher risk of poverty. Page 2 of 5
-Equity seeks to understand these groups and meet their specific needs, wherever they are, to ensure access, opportunity, and advancement for all. To register for this webinar, click here. 6. Why Protected Bike Lanes Save Lives Several weeks ago, painted lines and flexible plastic lane dividers began materializing on Maryland Avenue, one of the major north-south arteries that connect downtown Baltimore to the residential neighborhoods above the city. The resulting 2.6-mile route is called a cycle track, one of the city’s first examples of fully protected bike infrastructure. This new two-lane bike highway eliminated a lane of automobile traffic and 15 parking spaces, to the disgruntlement of many motorists who used the rowhouse-lined thoroughfare as a means of bolting downtown. But it’s a been something of a godsend to bikers, especially those (like me) weary of juking through traffic on a narrow, busintensive city streets. “For some people, it’s completely changed their whole commute,” says Liz Cornish, executive director of the Baltimore City cycling advocacy organization Bikemore, which has been pushing the city and state to built the cycle track for four years. It’s designed, she says, to be the spine of a network of lanes running east-to-west; like the Maryland Avenue track, these will also be buffered from traffic. This kind of dedicated bike infrastructure is a new thing for Baltimore, which boasts but a handful of marked bike lanes and plenty of useless sharrow-posted streets, and Cornish is convinced that it’s the best way to convince skeptical Baltimoreans to embrace cycling at rates similar to bike-friendlier burgs. (The most recent Census data shows that only .7 percent of the city’s residents commute via bike.) “As cities look to increase the number of people riding bikes, they’re finding that better-designed facilities are the ones that really work,” Cornish says. To access the full story, click here. 7. Where Are Millennials Moving To? Millennials form the largest generation in the US, numbering more than 75 million nationwide. As this young, mobile group enters the workforce and forms new households, their decisions have a significant impact on the cities they choose to live in. Today, we look at Census data from 2005-2015, to understand where young Americans are moving to and choosing to settle down. Surprisingly, metropolitan areas on the interior saw the biggest increases in millennial population. Among 50 large metropolitan areas, Charlotte, Houston, and Austin saw the most growth. 7 out of the top 10 large metros for millennial population growth were located away from the coasts. The biggest declines, however, happened in the Midwest and South – Detroit, Miami, and Phoenix, for example. These movements appear to be correlated with income growth in these cities. Homeownership, on the other hand, appears to be driven by a combination of wage growth and affordable housing. Some of the smallest decreases in the homeownership rate were seen in Oklahoma City, Omaha, Seattle, and Pittsburgh. The biggest decreases occurred in metropolitan areas that had poor wage growth (Atlanta, Las Vegas, Indianapolis) or were unaffordable (Tampa and Washington DC). To access the full story, click here.
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8. Susan Etlinger: We Are at a Critical Turning Point About Data Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming and in big waves. But the way it functions, analyzes, and makes decisions without human input is already affecting the lives of billions of people. We all need to understand the basic benefits and dangers of the technology to make sure AI become an useful tool. That was the main topic of last week’s keynote by Susan Etlinger at the Smart City Congress in Barcelona. Etlinger is an industry analyst at the thinktank, Altimeter Group, where she focuses on data strategy, analytics and ethical data use. What worries Etlinger is the way that we use different AI technologies, especially who controls the information, how it is collected and shared, and the opacity of most algorithms currently used to make decisions. To access the full story, click here. 9. Big Solar in Oregon Finds Corporate Buyer, Signaling New Competitiveness The biggest solar power buy in Oregon history didn’t involve a utility. As we reported in our current cover story, the power from Avangrid’s Gala Solar project, a 56megawatt array under construction on the outskirts of Prineville, was contracted to “a Fortune 500 C&I company,” according to a presentation Avangrid gave to the Edison Electric Institute Financial Conference earlier this month. Avangrid (NYSE: AGR) declined to disclose further details about the purchaser, but one thing is certain: The power purchase agreement demonstrates a new competitiveness for solar in Oregon. David Brown of Obsidian Renewables called the Avangrid deal “the best news right now” in the Oregon solar industry, and fellow solar developer Bill Eddie, of OneEnergy Renewables, noted that “we hadn’t had that here before.” To access the full story, click here. 10. Our Parking Minimums Map - Updated Parking minimums are a problem across the continent for many reasons. They require developers to construct specified amounts of car storage every time they build a home or a business. Parking minimums require small business owners to worry about locating and paying for parking spots on top of the myriad other concerns and expenses they have. The proliferation of parking minimums over the last several decades has resulted in the demolition of beautiful historic buildings and the ruin of productive commercial districts—giving us communities filled with empty asphalt instead of homes and businesses. Worst of all, parking minimums deprive our cities of wealth by filling them with spaces that doesn't contribute much in taxes and could be more productive as businesses or homes. We started our #BlackFridayParking event four years ago to highlight this problem and encourage cities to change their parking policies. To access the full story, click here.
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11. West Coast Democrats Want to be Ready if The Big One Hits Thirty-two House Democrats want backing from President Barack Obama to spend another $16 million on a system that would give early warnings to the public when an earthquake hits. In a letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget, the lawmakers said that such a system would help the West Coast “be prepared for a catastrophic earthquake.” “We know it is ‘when’ and not ‘if’ – they have the potential to be the costliest disasters the United States has ever faced,” the letter said. To access the full story, click here.
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