RARE Monday Mailing Year 27 | Issue 26 15 March 2021
1. Food Hub Takes Root at Former Sears in Astoria 2. Radically Rural: Tech Education Rebuilding Rural Economies from Within 3. Committing to Inclusive Growth: Lessons for Metro Areas from the Inclusive Economic Development Lab 4. American Rescue Plan: $1.9 Trillion – That’s a Big Number! (Alison Smith) 5. Cascade Snowpack More Vulnerable to Climate Change Than Inland Neighbors, Study Suggests (Katie McFall) 6. Inclusionary Zoning: Portland’s Wile E. Coyote Moment Has Arrived 7. Why It’s Wrong to Look at Work-Life Balance as an Achievement 8. The New Stimulus Package Allocates Over $28 Billion for Restaurants. Oregon Has a Lot to Do With That. 9. One Year Later, How Rural Oregon Schools are Handling COVID-19 10. RESOURCE: Through the Roof: What Communities Can Do About the High Cost of Rental Housing in America
Quote of the Week: “If you don’t see a clear path for what you want, sometimes you have to make it for yourself.” - Mindy Kaling
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Oregon Fast Fact Oregon’s state rock is the Thunder-egg. Primarily found in areas of ancient volcanic flows and ash deposits, these rocks are said to have been thrown by thunder spirits living in the mountains. Learn more.
Food Hub Takes Root at Former Sears in Astoria The Daily Astorian In the 1930s, wholesale grocer Mason, Ehrman & Co. built a distribution hub in a concrete building between Marine Drive and what was then an active railroad spur running along the Columbia River waterfront. The building later became a storage center and then a Sears Hometown franchise until closing a year ago. Now advocates are laying the roots of the Astoria Food Hub, a nexus for producers and consumers they hope to open in the fall. Jared Gardner, the owner of Nehalem River Ranch and a central partner in the project, provides the grass-fed beef for Fort George Brewery’s burgers, along with pastured pork. When the brewery runs out of meat, Gardner has to drive to cold storage he rents in Portland to retrieve more. RARE AmeriCorps Program Monday Mailing | Page 1 of 6
“There’s a lack of infrastructure on the North Coast, which is what I’m trying to solve,” he said. Read the full story.
2. Radically Rural: Tech Education Rebuilding Rural Economies from Within
Daily Yonder There are two beliefs entrepreneurship expert Jim Correll will cite immediately if asked. The first is that there should be a maker space in every rural community in the U.S. The second, he says, is that “Entrepreneurship is the best hope we’ve got, not only for small community economic survival and prosperity but I think worldwide.” In the rural city of Independence, Kansas, population of around 9,000, Correll is the director of the Fab Lab at Independence Community College (ICC). One of about 500 such programs chartered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Fab Lab ICC was the first of its kind in Kansas back in 2014. The Fab Lab initiative is a global program that isn’t limited to but can be particularly impactful in rural regions. It combines access to tools and knowledge around technology and digital fabrication, with training in developing an entrepreneurial mindset. Read the full story.
3. Committing to Inclusive Growth: Lessons for Metro Areas from the Inclusive Economic Development Lab The Brookings Institute Nashville is the leading economic success story of the new South, held up by most other mid-sized U.S. metro areas as an aspirational example of what successful economic development looks like. Beginning in the late 1990s, the city pulled ahead of a pack of sprawling southern cities, fueled by its specialization in professional and health care services. Newly-acquired professional sports teams and a growing music scene gave the city the varnish of big-city success. Growth skyrocketed, churning out jobs and turning the city into a magnet for skilled workers. Forbes recently ranked it as the top metro area–by far–for creating highwage professional services jobs. Unemployment is below the national average for every racial group. Today, cranes dot the downtown, old neighborhoods are quickly being redeveloped with high-end housing and retail, and Nashville hot chicken and country music are the province of hipsters around the country. But that’s only one side of the story. Read the full story.
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4. American Rescue Plan: $1.9 Trillion – That’s a Big Number! League of Oregon Cities Perhaps the best and simplest way to start this article is, “local governments won.” The latest COVID-19 funding is unprecedented, not just because of the level, but also the direct distribution of funds to cities and counties. That’s never happened. Investing in education and grass roots advocacy can work! A big reason for this victory is the effort of the National League of Cities (NLC), which has been relentless and nimble. At every step of the way, the NLC’s focus on representing cities was laser sharp and always on the lookout for ‘what’s next.” Despite falling short throughout last summer and fall to get direct payments to cities, the NLC’s efforts paid off this week in a big way: securing $130 billion in federal support for every city, town, village, and county across the country with the final passage of the American Recovery Plan (ARP), signed by President Biden on Thursday. Read the full story.
5. Cascade Snowpack More Vulnerable to Climate Change Than Inland Neighbors, Study Suggests Oregon Public Broadcasting New research suggests mountain snowpack in the Cascades is among the most vulnerable in the U.S. to the effects of climate change. Researchers with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego say warming will likely hit coastal mountain ranges like the Cascades much harder than their northern inland neighbors. “What’s happening in the Cascades is even a small amount of warming has this huge impact on the amount of time that the temperature’s really cool enough to have snow on the ground,” climate scientist and lead author Amato Evan said. Each winter, snow covers our mountains in a thick white blanket. That snow melts as the weather heats up until eventually, at some point during the spring or summer, the mountains are virtually bare — save for the glaciers that clad several peaks in ranges like the Cascades. That day will get earlier and earlier on average as the planet warms. Read the full story.
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6. Inclusionary Zoning: Portland’s Wile E. Coyote Moment Has Arrived City Commentary In December 2016, Portland’s City Council enacted a strong inclusionary housing requirement. Henceforth, all new apartment buildings in Portland would have to set-aside a portion of their units for low- and moderate income housing. Unlike other cities that either made compliance voluntary, or largely (or entirely) offset the cost of the added units with density bonuses or subsidies (or other quid pro quo), the Portland ordinance applied to nearly all apartment buildings larger than 20 units. The new requirement didn’t kick in until February 2017, and there was a land rush of developers who filed under the old rules. That produced a temporary flood of new apartment buildings, that have, over the past four years, mostly been built. Investment markets work with lags for a variety of reasons. It takes time to plan, obtain permission for, and actually build new housing, and multi-family housing takes longer than single family housing. As a result, there’s a multi-year pipeline. When there are housing shortages, as there were in the early days of the recovery from the Great Recession, supply can’t expand as rapidly as demand, and rents get bid up. The reverse is also true; a glut of building in good times produces new apartment supply that holds down rents, at least for a while. That effect has concealed the negative consequences of Portland’s inclusionary zoning policy. Read the full story.
7. Why It’s Wrong to Look at Work-Life Balance as an Achievement BBC Few topics have been so endlessly analysed, glorified and dissected as work-life balance. The quest to attain this somewhat nebulous state has dominated discourse around careers for years – especially for working parents. The concept is often presented as something to achieve, or a goal to reach. And once you’ve reached it, congratulations: you’ve made it; you’re a successful human being of the 21st Century. But the problem is that we often tell ourselves: “’I’m going to put in eight hours’ worth of work, and then I’m going to put in eight hours’ worth of me time, which will include my family, my hobbies, my workout, my everything’,” says Anat Lechner, clinical associate professor of management at New York University. “I don’t think it’s such a simple formula.” And, according to new findings, it may not be. Some researchers are now encouraging us to stop thinking about work-life balance as an achievement that you either hit or don’t. Instead, they suggest it may be more of a lifelong process – a continuous, never-ending exercise that requires vigilance, self-awareness and timely tweaks. Read the full story.
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8. The New Stimulus Package Allocates Over $28 Billion for Restaurants. Oregon Has a Lot to Do With That. Eater PDX On Thursday, March 11, President Joe Biden signed into law a new stimulus package with significant help for the nation’s restaurant industry. The American Rescue Plan has allocated $28.6 billion in relief grants for food businesses, including restaurants, food carts, and bars. Of that funding, $5 billion has specifically been set aside for food businesses whose annual gross receipts were below $500,000, and grants will not exceed $10 million for restaurant groups and $5 million for individual businesses. The first 21 days of the period that these grants are distributed, businesses owned by veterans, women, and marginalized groups will be prioritized. This restaurant relief package is a version of the Restaurants Act, a bill drafted and brought to congress by Portland’s own Rep. Earl Blumenauer. That bill — a $120 billion grant program — eventually was tacked on to the second version of the Heroes Act, which never passed the Senate. This restaurant relief package was salvaged from the remains of the restaurant act, added to the American Rescue Plan in a more limited form. Read the full story.
9. One Year Later, How Rural Oregon Schools Are Handling COVID-19 Capital Press A year after COVID-19 hit, rural schools across Oregon are gradually reopening. Rural school officials say the biggest challenges this year have been patchy internet access, wildfires, a shortage of substitute teachers and logistically difficult state-issued reopening requirements. But most officials say they're thankful they've been able to reopen. Peter Rudy, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Education, said every school has to submit its own operational blueprint that gives "great detail about how they will be operating." More than a dozen rural school administrators across Oregon told the Capital Press it's been challenging to meet reopening requirements, especially a rule which requires schools to establish a minimum 35 square feet of room per person for classroom capacity. Read the full story.
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10. RESOURCE – Through the Roof: What Communities Can Do About the High Cost of Rental Housing in America Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Faced with a housing crisis that has grown even more urgent under the stress of the COVID pandemic, local U.S. governments need to adopt comprehensive and balanced housing strategies to ensure everyone can access a stable and affordable place to live, according to a new Policy Focus Report from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Building on years of research and collaboration with public sector leaders, the authors lay out a multipronged framework for local communities to attack the housing crisis in Through the Roof: What Communities Can Do About the High Cost of Rental Housing in America. Housing policy debates are often split between advocates of deregulation and those who worry about the dangers of an unfettered market. Authors Ingrid Gould Ellen and Mark A. Willis of New York University and Jeffrey Lubell of Abt Associates bridge this gap. They recommend tailored approaches to meet the unique conditions of every community, with a focus on the rental market, where millions of households face unsustainable cost burdens. Access the publication.
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