Monday Mailing 120219

Monday Mailing

Year 26 • Issue 13 2 December 2019 1.

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Oregon’s Millionaire’s Club Is Larger Than Ever, But The ‘Typical’ Oregonian’s Income Is Stuck In Neutral: Report (Katie McFall) Why Street Vendors Make Cities Feel Safer The Blackfeet Nation Is Opening Its Own National Park How To Grow The Wealth Of Poor Neighborhoods From The Bottom Up How Telehealth Gives A Rural School More Mental Health Services When Wheelchairs Failed Him, He Invented A New Way To Hike "Carmaggedon" Does a No-Show in Seattle. Again.

Greenland Is Not For Sale. But It Has The Rare Earth Minerals America Wants (Katie McFall) Oregon Plant May Be Removed From Endangered Species List WEBINAR – Places for People: Highlights from the National Walking Summit-Columbus

1. Oregon’s Millionaire’s Club Is Larger Than Ever, But The ‘Typical’ Oregonian’s Income Is Stuck In Neutral: Report For a lot of Oregonians, the Great Recession still lingers to a troubling extent.

Quote of the Week:

I heard a bird sing In the dark of December, A magical thing, And sweet to remember: "We are nearer to spring Than we were in September."

- Oliver Herford, "Hope,"

Oregon Fast Fact #2

Oregon has more ghost towns than any other state.

In the 10 years since the severe economic downturn officially ended, the typical Oregonian’s annual income has increased by only $2,500.

The average income of the top 0.1 percent of earners in Oregon, meanwhile, has jumped by $1.9 million. For the rest of the top 1 percent, the average increase is $193,000.

These numbers come from the Oregon Center for Public Policy’s new report, “Income of Oregon’s Ultra-Rich Sets New Record.” The report concludes that the income of the “richest 1-in-1,000 Oregon families” is at an all-time high.

The OCPP’s stated goal is “to use research and analysis to advance policies and practices that improve the economic and social opportunities of all Oregonians.”

Those in the top 1 percent of earners in Oregon pulled down $418,500 or more in 2017. Their average income that year stood at just over $1 million, the report states.

To access the full story, click here.

2. Why Street Vendors Make Cities Feel Safer

There are two ways I can walk home from the subway station in my neighborhood. At night, when I’m by myself, the choice is obvious.

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One route is almost entirely dark, with blank storefronts and empty sidewalks. The other is strung with lights, heavy with foot traffic, and scented with grilling onions.

While I was walking home the other evening, waving hi to my neighbors pressing pupusas into doughy discs on folding tables outside a church, I realized one of the most underappreciated ways street vendors contribute to our cities. In places where city leaders have made very little effort to improve the experience for those walking, biking, or riding transit, it’s the people selling goods or serving food in those same spaces who make streets vibrant, welcoming, and safe for all.

During the day, it’s easy to see how a cluster of carts topped with rainbow umbrellas or blankets layered with meticulously organized wares enlivens a plaza. But it’s only after the sun goes down that you can see how vendors fill a much-needed void in our cities. Vendors not only activate public space, they do so in the very places that have been willfully ignored by city planners in many neighborhoods—transit stops in disrepair, neglected storefronts, and barren, broken sidewalks.

To access the full story, click here.

3. The Blackfeet Nation Is Opening Its Own National Park

In 1992, Ed DesRosier wanted to offer visitors to Glacier National Park an experience that didn’t yet exist. Tourists learned about the park’s wildlife and the history of the iconic red tour buses that carried them to the park’s most breathtaking views. But the stories of the people who were connected to the landscape centuries before it became a tourist destination were not mentioned.

So DesRosier, an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana, made it happen. But before he could become one of the few Indigenous people in the country licensed to operate a tour business in a national park, he would be arrested and have to fight in court for the right to tell the stories of his people and their home.

It’s easy to imagine DesRosier, whose energy belies his 65 years, captivating tourists at the helm of one of his 10 Sun Tours buses, which have become ubiquitous on Glacier’s main roads in the summer. His official business came after many not-so-official tours; the corporate entity in charge of concessions in Glacier refused to give him a license to tell the Blackfeet stories he knew, but he gave tours anyway. DesRosier was responding to a common problem: Despite the fact that they comprise the ancestral lands of hundreds of tribes, few national parks offer visitors the sort of nuanced Indigenous view that DesRosier wanted to provide.

The Blackfeet want to fix this problem, and others, in a dramatic way. The tribe is working toward that goal through myriad avenues, including a plan to become one of the few tribes in the country to open its own national park, a way to assert the tribe’s place in the region’s history, protect its natural resources and provide new economic opportunities to its members, mostly in Browning, home to approximately 1,000 people and the largest community on the Blackfeet Reservation.

To access the full story, click here.

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4. How To Grow The Wealth Of Poor Neighborhoods From The Bottom Up

Revitalizing distressed communities is one of the biggest and most intractable problems in America today. Whereas concentrated poverty has long been a problem in urban centers and parts of the rural South, today it has spread into the suburbs and across many more parts of the country. Regional inequality has deepened and the middle class has declined.

In a new report titled “Towards a New System of Community Wealth,” researchers Ross Baird, Bruce Katz (currently my colleague at Drexel University in Philadelphia, where I hold the yearlong Philadelphia Fellowship), Jihae Lee, and Daniel Palmer lay out a potential solution. They define community wealth as “a broad-based effort to build equity for low-income residents,” which could unlock “hundreds of billions in market and civic capital” to revitalized struggling places across America.

The report—a collaboration of Drexel University’s Nowak Metro Finance Lab, the investment platform Blueprint Local, and L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Accelerator for America—notes that concentrated distress did not just happen, but is the result of a long history of class and racial division, and policies both underfunded and ill-advised.

As a result, today, black entrepreneurs are much less likely than white entrepreneurs to receive venture financing or small business loans, and when they do, the amount ends up being lower.

Black-owned businesses average much less revenue than their white counterparts—$58,000 versus $546,000. This is not just bad for distressed communities; it hurts the whole economy.

Baird, Katz, and their co-authors cite another study that found the U.S. economy would have 1 million additional businesses and 9.5 million more jobs if minority entrepreneurs started enterprises at a rate similar to white entrepreneurs.

To access the full story, click here.

5. How Telehealth Gives A Rural School More Mental Health Services

In rural areas, access to mental health services can be limited, sometimes even more so for teens and children. And the need for these services is growing, so one Midwestern school is using technology to help bridge this gap.

Two hours south of Indianapolis is Orleans, a farming and manufacturing town, population 2,000. The highway into town passes the junior-senior high school, which sits on a large lawn.

Inside, a row of basketballs lines the top shelf in Principal Chris Stevens’ office.

They’re a symbol of rural Indiana, where schools — and basketball — are often the heart of community life. Many young people in these communities, and across the state, share something else: a struggle with mental illness.

To tackle this growing problem, Orleans leaders are involved in a pilot project to help students.

In the corner of Stevens’ office is a mobile stand with an iPad and speaker; students can use it to talk with therapists at IU Health via a two-way video chat.

“It’s been overwhelming as far as the amount of people … who either support it or have come forward and saying, ‘I want to be on this list,'” Stevens says.

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School guidance counselor Kristin Bye says students tend to struggle with depression and anxiety. Others are dealing with traumatic childhood experiences.

To access the full story, click here.

6. When Wheelchairs Failed Him, He Invented A New Way To Hike

Five people move in tandem down a trail as it gets steeper and narrower than the bright orange metal frame connecting them.

This trail, popular with Bend, Oregon, families, is a testing ground for inventor Geoff Babb, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.

One miscalculation about how to navigate the tight squeeze of boulders, and he could topple over the edge toward an ice-cold river below. But, that’s not what worries Babb, who hasn’t walked since a stroke 14 years ago.

“I don’t feel scared on the trail. I trust these guys to figure it out, how to get through those narrow spots without tipping me over,” he said.

As the team lifts him over rocks, Babb focuses on how certain components are working. He’s invested countless hours in this prototype for a new style of an all-terrain wheelchair.

Look at the river, the serviceberry, the color. The sun is out. There’s no way we could get back here with a regular wheelchair,” he said.

Babb is recovering from two strokes with the help of his wife, Yvonne, family, and many friends.

“My stroke affected my whole body. It’s called quadriparesis, or weakness in all four limbs,” he explained.

Even though stroke is the leading cause of serious disability in the nation, he found existing allterrain wheelchairs didn’t suit his needs — some are too frail, others require upper body strength, and motorized options aren’t allowed on many trails.

To access the full story, click here.

7. "Carmaggedon" Does a No-Show in Seattle. Again.

The most favored mythology of traffic reporters and highway departments is the notion of traffic diversion: If you restrict road capacity in any one location, then it will spill over to adjacent streets and create gridlock. It is invariably used as an argument against any plans to slow car movement or repurpose capacity for transit, cyclists or people walking.

Time and again, however, when road capacity is reduced, either by design or accident, the predicted gridlock fails to materialize. One recent instance of this was just in the past month.

When New York closed 14th Street to most car traffic, speeds on parallel streets 13th and 15th were unaffected, according to traffic monitoring firm Inrix.

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Crying Carmaggedon, again The latest case study comes from Seattle. Earlier this year, the city opened a new $3 billion tunnel under downtown Seattle, to replace the road capacity lost by the demolition of the city’s aging eyesore, the Alaskan Way viaduct. Since it opened, the new SR 99 tunnel has been free to vehicles, but starting last Saturday, the state department of transportation started collecting tolls (electronically). What was free last Friday, now costs afternoon peak hour travelers between $2.25 (if they have a transponder) and $4.25 if they use the pay by mail option). Even so, the toll revenues will ultimately cover only about 10 percent of the cost of constructing the tunnel.

To access the full story, click here.

8. Greenland Is Not For Sale. But It Has The Rare Earth Minerals America Wants

The southern Greenland town of Narsaq is just a speck of place. About 1,200 people live in colorful A-frame houses along a fjord, and it's a good hour's boat ride from the nearest community. While it may be remote, Narsaq has strategic importance.

The craggy hills surrounding the town are estimated to hold about a quarter of the world's rare earth minerals. With names such as cerium and lanthanum, rare earths contain key ingredients used in many of today's technologies — from smartphones to MRI machines, as well as electric cars and military jets.

A bumpy ride up the hills delivers you to the Kvanefjeld project, one of two major rare earth mineral deposits in Greenland. The rocky plateau at the base offers majestic views of this corner of the vast Arctic island. It is empty and silent out here; the mine is not yet up and running.

Across the plateau there are large piles of dull, gray rocks. When you shine an ultraviolet light on them, they explode with vivid pink and orange hues, revealing the rare earths inside the rocks.

To access the full story, click here.

9. Oregon Plant May Be Removed From Endangered Species List

For the better part of a century, scientists thought Bradshaw’s lomatium, a small yellow flower with dill-like leaves, was extinct. But now, after 31 years on the endangered species list, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is ready to declare it a recovered species that no longer needs special protection.

Getting the plant to this point took a lot of work.

“It’s a big accomplishment, and the progress that we’ve made is really dependent on partnerships with other groups, nonprofits and organizations,” said Tom Brumelow, a government botanist. “This doesn’t mean the species doesn’t need management. It means we’re transitioning it back to other forms of management and conservation.”

In a press release Monday, Tierra Curry, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the species’ recovery “another success for America’s most effective conservation law,” referring to the Endangered Species Act. Page 5 of 6

“We did an in-depth assessment to evaluate the viability of the species,” said USFWS botanist Tom Brumelow. “We looked at the size, number, and distribution of the populations that are out here, and looked at the connectivity between them and the level of protection that land has.”

To access the full story, click here.

10. WEBINAR – Places for People: Highlights from the National Walking Summit-

Columbus (Monday, December 11, 2019 11am PST)

Wish you could have been at the National Walking Summit-Columbus? America Walks has you covered. We will close out 2019 with examples from our National Walking Summit-Columbus program. Explore how Columbus is creating places for people to walk, move, and travel sans the automobile. This webinar is intended for those just starting out on the walking path as well as those interested in learning more about the topic.

Attendees of this webinar will be able to: • • •

Give examples of how agencies and organizations are promoting walking and walkability in Columbus and the state of Ohio.

Describe specific projects and countermeasures being implemented in Columbus and the state of Ohio to increase walkability.

Discuss ways walking advocates should be engaging with topics related to this work.

To register for the webinar, click here.

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