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Monday Mailing

Year 23 • Issue 26 03 April 2017 1. Mapping the Economic Future of Dallas 2. How U.S. Bike Planning Has Changed, State by State 3. Kauffman Foundation: How Local and State Governments Can Rev Up Business Creation 4. 2017 Oregon Heritage Conference 5. How Punk Changed Cities – And Vice Versa 6. To Jumpstart Broadband Buildout, Let Consumers Decide Who Gets FCC Subsidies.

7. Oregon Outdoor Recreation Initiative 8. Transportation Seminar: Urbanism Next - How Technology is Changing Our City.

9. These Neighbors Got Together to Buy Vacant Buildings. Now They’re Renting to Bakers and Brewers 10. How To Get By-Right Zoning Right 11. Niche Market Development for Western Juniper 1. Mapping the Economic Future of Dallas As part of the Rural Economic Vitality Roadmap process, community members in Dallas, Oregon, have created action teams, including Community Marketing, Small Business, and Property Development, to hammer out 90-day action plans to build on recent community successes.

Quote of the Week: "Almost always the creative, dedicated minority has made the world better." ~Martin Luther King Jr. Oregon Fast Fact: Multnomah Falls is a 620 foot waterfall in two stages that is the second tallest waterfall in the United States. It is located in the Columbia Gorge along the Columbia River.

RDI’s Rural Economic Vitality Roadmap program is a three-part process, which began in September in Dallas with a series of focus groups. Since then, community members have participated in town hall meetings, given feedback via surveys and interviews, and formed teams to move to action to help map the economic future of Dallas.

Multiple local and regional disc golf teams call Dallas’s disc course home, and the Community Marketing Team is working to bring a signature disc golf tournament to its premier course.

To access the full story, click here.

2. How U.S. Bike Planning Has Changed, State by State In 2012, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) set the lofty goal of tripling the rates of statewide transit use, walking and biking. Much of that shift will come from planning and infrastructure changes implemented by city DOTs. But the state DOT plays an important role too. MassDOT is in the process of updating its Statewide Bicycle Transportation Plan for the first time since 2008.

Advocates see it as an important opportunity for the state to institutionalize a shift in priorities from long-distance, intra-city bicycle tourism to bicycling as transportation.

“We did great stuff 10 to 15 years ago [with rural routes]. It worked. …

We would ride from town to town. Then you got into the towns and it

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was a nightmare,” says Richard Fries, executive director of the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition (MassBike).

The 2008 bike plan focused primarily on completing the Bay State Greenway, a 788-mile network of rail trails, on-road bike lanes and signed bike routes throughout the state. But now, Fries says the update will help the plan “adjust to state and local policy that did not exist back when we were doing tourism route To access the full story, click here.

3. Kauffman Foundation: How Local and State Governments Can Rev Up Business Creation "Guidelines for Local and State Governments to Promote Entrepreneurship," reports that, even though many cities and states have been promoting entrepreneurship for at least two decades, the rate of new business formation is declining. New businesses comprised about 8 percent of all U.S. businesses in 2011, down from about 15 percent in the late 1970s. Further, recent groups of startups are creating fewer jobs. Instead, state and local governments should implement strategies that focus on entrepreneurs as individuals who learn by doing and interacting with others. While books and courses may inform continuous learning, there is no substitute for advice from local business owners as entrepreneurs navigate the complicated decisions they face at each stage of their businesses' development, the paper reports. The paper recommends that state and local governments adopt several strategies to refocus their entrepreneurship support efforts, including: • • • • • • • • • •

Facilitate catalytic events that bring entrepreneurs together to learn and connect.

Reinvent existing public venture funds in ways that distribute multiple small investments and involve local entrepreneurs in award selection.

Reorganize existing incubators along a holistic format that integrates incubated firms, other local startups and experienced local entrepreneurs.

Identify and celebrate successful local entrepreneurs.

Reexamine professional and occupational licensing with an eye toward lowering barriers for startups.

Simplify tax codes and payment systems.

Rethink non-compete agreements.

Streamline zoning and approval processes.

Welcome immigrants, who have been nearly twice as likely as native-born Americans to start businesses.

Track the progress of whatever strategies are implemented.

While this may conflict with the goals of politicians seeking quick results, the paper emphasizes that all of the recommended strategies require a long-term outlook in order to work.

To access the full report, click here.

4. 2017 Oregon Heritage Conference The Oregon Heritage Summit, April 26-27, is coming together to be a great event! We hope you will join us in Newberg, at the Chehalem Cultural Center, to explore funding for heritage work in Oregon.

The first day will be a look at the big picture of funding for heritage. The goals of the day are to strengthen the network of people and organizations doing heritage work, consider broad solutions for funding, and provide input on tools the Oregon Heritage Commission can develop to help increase funding for heritage.

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Donna Harris of Heritage Consulting, Inc will kick off the morning with a presentation of her national research on ways heritage projects are funded. Then we will hear from granting organizations about how heritage projects fit within their programs. You’ll get a chance to talk with some of them. Next, we will dive deeper in to some models in case studies from around the state. We will wrap up the work part of the day with a discussion of possible solutions for Oregon, facilitated

by Gwen Carr of Oregon Black Pioneers.

The rest of the day is for fun and inspiration!

Learn about three exceptional, student-led research projects funded through the Oregon Heritage Fellowship Program. Our emerging scholars will be presenting on Northern Paiute resistance to imprisonment at the Yakima Reservation, historic preservation of Oregon’s statewide fish hatcheries, and archaeological digs at the Newell Creek and Buffalo Lake Sites in Silvies Valley. This groundbreaking session will be moderated by Eliza E. Canty-Jones, editor of the Oregon Historical Quarterly.

Then stretch your legs in downtown Newberg. You’ll experience the historic places, flavors and shopping of this sweet example of our Oregon Main Street Network communities.

Cap off the evening as we celebrate the winners of this year’s Oregon Heritage Excellence Awards.

We will recognize individuals, projects, historic cemeteries, businesses and organizations for outstanding efforts on behalf of Oregon heritage. Special guests include Bertony Faustin, proprietor of Abbey Creek Vineyards, who will share his experience documenting the stories of a growing community of fellow minority winemakers across the state.

That’s not all. The morning of day two will be filled with workshops getting back to the basics of fundraising. We will address board development for fundraising, membership, annual appeal, crowdsourced funding, story-telling and more.

Registration will open March 20, for information on lodging, parking and registration visit OregonHeritage.org and follow the link on the home page. For more information contact Kuri Gill at kuri.gill@oregon.gov or 503-986-0685.

5. How Punk Changed Cities – And Vice Versa From its earliest beginnings, punk as a youth cult was viewed as a social nuisance in cities – irritating but tolerated. But the battle lines were truly drawn in what became a focal point for the nascent hardcore scene: early 1980s Los Angeles.

“LA was a sketchy place then,” recalled Dave Markey, whose 1982 documentary The Slog Movie captured the LA punk scene in all its raw, ragged glory. Speaking in a 2011 interview, Markey, who was a teenager at the time, added: “You wouldn’t walk down certain streets. But it was also like a playground for us.”

A mass cleanup was also under way in preparation for the 1984 Olympics, and the burgeoning, unsightly punk subculture was seen as a civic issue. “We’re trying to sanitise the area,” a police captain from the LAPD’s Olympic planning committee told the Los Angeles Times in the runup to the Games. At first, the police were focused on transients and other street-dwellers, whom they wanted to remove from the public eye. But the city’s punks quickly landed on their radar.

To access the full story, click here.

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6. To Jumpstart Broadband Buildout, Let Consumers Decide Who Gets FCC Subsidies.

Universal Service funding that is supposed to spur broadband development in rural America is padding the bottom line for incumbents who provide lousy service. To change the system overnight at no extra cost, let the subsidy follow consumer choice instead.

“The government used to be able to coordinate complex solutions to problems like atomic weaponry and lunar exploration. But today, after 40 years of indefinite creep, the government mainly just provides insurance; our solutions to big problems are Medicare, Social Security, and a dizzying array of other transfer payment programs.” Peter Thiel, Zero to One Peter Thiel is right.

Among the dizzying array of transfer payment programs are the Federal Communications Commission’s Universal Service programs. In particular, there is the rural and high cost program, now named the Connect America Fund (CAF).

Each year, the FCC directs the collection of approximately 18% of companies’ revenues from interstate and international telephone services and redistributes $4.5 billion of the funds to telephone companies offering mostly slow and limited internet access in rural areas. Rather than promote the best that technology has to offer, Connect America Fund is a form of insurance – insurance for incumbent telephone companies against competition.

To access the full story, click here.

7. Oregon Outdoor Recreation Initiative For Oregonians, a strong connection to our great outdoors is in our DNA and is part of our identity.

From hikers to anglers, mountain bikers to hunters, loggers to biologists, ranchers to miners, to outfitters, guides, mountain lodge operators, and outdoor equipment producers, many of us rely on Oregon’s bountiful natural resources for our livelihoods and recreation.

Oregon’s bountiful natural resources are cornerstone to our legacy, our identity, and our economy.

As an industry, outdoor recreation has the potential to significantly impact the well-being of Oregon’s economy, its communities, its residents, and its natural resources. Developing a shared vision with a common agenda for how we focus our efforts to improve the outdoor recreation economy will ensure that our impacts are positive and inclusive of all.

This is the impetus for the Oregon Outdoor Recreation Initiative, a statewide effort to bring together businesses, agencies, land managers, conservation groups, and recreational user groups around the goal of expanding access to outdoor recreation and increasing the economic impact and sustainability of Oregon’s outdoor recreation industry.

Through a coordinated and collaborative effort, we will: build capacity and synergy to expand outdoor recreation opportunities for residents and visitors, create sustainable economic vitality for Oregon’s communities, and make Oregon a world-class outdoor recreation destination for all.

For more information, click here.

8. Transportation Seminar: Urbanism Next - How Technology is Changing Our City.

Advances in technology such as the advent of autonomous vehicles (AV’s), the rise of E-commerce, and the proliferation of the sharing economy are having profound effects not only on how we live, move, and spend our time in cities, but also increasingly on urban form and development itself.

These new technologies are changing the ease of transport, the role of transit, and the places we Page 4 of 6

spend our time. These changes will have profound effects on cities including large shifts in land use, changes in street design, a potential reduction on the need for parking, a shift on where we choose to live, and challenges for urban density, the extent of sprawl, and the vitality of urban areas.

While there has been a focused effort of research on the technological aspects of autonomous vehicles and systems themselves, there has been a shortage of systematic exploration on their secondary effects on city development, form, and design, with implications for sustainability, resiliency, equity, cost, and general livability.

SCI’s Urbanism Next initiative focuses on the ramifications of changes in technology on the design and planning of our cities. This presentation will provide an overview to the initiative, research that has been done, and future objectives.

Nico Larco is an associate professor of architecture at the University of Oregon and is a co-founder and co-director of the Sustainable Cities Initiative, a nationally and internationally awarded, multidisciplinary organization that focuses on sustainability issues as they relate to the built environment. Professor Larco’s research focus is on sustainable urban design, active transportation, street design, and how urban design affects the sustainability of buildings. He recently developed the Sustainable Urban Design Framework that identifies sustainability goals and organizes urban design elements and approaches based on these goals and a project’s scale. He is currently working on a book on the subject with Routledge that is due out in early 2017.

Faculty are invited to join Nico following the seminar for a discussion on the possibility of collaborating on this initiative. The discussion will take place in the same room and will likely start at 1:15 PM. If you'd like to attend, click here to add the seminar and discussion to your Google calendar.

Seminar Speaker: Nico Larco, University of Oregon Event Date: Friday, April 7, 2017, 12:00pm to 1:00pm PDT Where: Room 204 of the Distance Learning Center Wing of the Urban Center at PSU. Follow this link on the day of the seminar to stream it live.

If you are live streaming and want to ask a question, send an email to psuseminar@yahoo.com during the broadcast.

9. These Neighbors Got Together to Buy Vacant Buildings. Now They’re Renting to Bakers and Brewers The intersection of Central and Lowry Avenues in northeast Minneapolis is bustling. On the northwest corner is a trifecta of local businesses: A bike shop, a cooperative brewery, and a bakery, in buildings with eye-catching exteriors of rough-hewn wood and silvery porcelain bricks. The neighborhood grocery co-op is one block up the street.

This commercial stretch didn’t always look like this. In 2011, where these three businesses sit, there were two vacant buildings. The empty space was not uncommon along Central Avenue, a long corridor that was created to be the Main Street of the neighborhood, but that had suffered from decades of disinvestment. While a few businesses dotted the avenue, many other storefronts were neglected.

“A lot of people looked at it as too big to tackle,” explains Leslie Watson, who lives nearby.

In 2011, a group of dedicated neighbors came together to change that. In November of that year, five of them, including Watson, became the founding board of the Northeast Investment Page 5 of 6

Cooperative, a first-of-its-kind in the U.S. cooperative engaged in buying and developing real estate.

NEIC created a structure where any Minnesota resident could join the co-op for $1,000, and invest more through the purchase of different classes of nonvoting stock. The group began spreading the word to prospective members, and started looking for a building to buy.

To access the full story, click here.

10. How To Get By-Right Zoning Right By-Right Zoning seen as a critical strategy to help solve the affordable housing crisis, offering a streamlined approval process for developers. However, By-Right Zoning also acts as a better way to regulate walkable neighborhoods in the face of critically flawed conventional zoning policies.

By-Right Zoning is getting a lot of buzz these days as a needed tool to help solve the affordable housing crisis many communities are facing. For those unfamiliar, a zoning code is considered “ByRight” if the approvals process is streamlined so that projects that comply with the zoning standards receive their approval without a discretionary review process.

Housing advocates and developers rightfully claim that discretionary review processes are contributing to housing crises across the country by increasing the cost and delivery rate of housing, and often directly preventing needed housing from getting built. President Obama, Governor Brown of California and the State of Massachusetts have joined the “By-Right Zoning” bandwagon, and here at Opticos, we’re on board, too.

To access the full story, click here.

11. Niche Market Development for Western Juniper Juniper’s severe impact on grasslands and high desert watersheds is a growing concern for land managers and ecologists, but decades of collaboration to study the ecological impacts and build a niche market for the wood shows promise for the environment and local economy.

In the late 1800s, pioneers that arrived to settle in central and eastern Oregon, southeast Washington, northern California, and southwest Idaho saw a very different landscape than the one we know today. Rolling grasslands and sagebrush steppe provided adequate breeding habitat and forage for wildlife species like mule deer and sage grouse. Only the occasional Western Juniper tree was visible on the ridgelines.

Following this time, a period of overgrazing of domestic livestock compounded by federal fire suppression policies allowed the tree to thrive. Western Juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) is a natural survivor and is well adapted to the high desert. Wildfire is its only natural predator, and without a regular fire cycle to clear out new seedlings, its presence has increased exponentially over the past 150-180 years from its historic recorded range of 1 million acres to nearly 9 million acres today.

To access the full story, click here.

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