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Monday Mailing

Year 20 • Issue 31 28 April 2014 1. Food Systems Event Series 2. Places in the Making: MIT Report Highlights the ‘Virtuous Cycle of Placemaking’ 3. Murdock Charitable Trust Grant Programs 4. Brainerd Foundation Grant Programs 5. National Spotlight: Alleyways Become Pathways to Urban Revitalization 6. Free Webinar: Asset Mapping & Data Collection Before a Crisis 7. Airbnb Touts Economic Impact, Cultural Fit, Ahead of Portland Land-Use Hearing 8. Eerie Photos Of Abandoned Shopping Malls Show The Changing Face Of Suburbia 9. How L.A. Designed Simple Kits That Let You 'Make-Your-Own' Park 10. Google Street View Now Lets You Travel Back In Time 11. NIFTI Guide to Metrics and Evaluation for Farm Incubator Projects 1. Food Systems Event Series Strengthening Community, Building Capacity Where: Portland State University, ASRC, room 660 (1800 SW 6th Ave.)

Quote of the Week: “If we are to succeed in saving the planet, the battle will be won or lost at the local level.” ~Governor Tom McCall Oregon Fast Fact: The Darlingtonia Wayside is Oregon's only rare plant sanctuary.

Hear from advocates, practitioners, researchers and critics as we discuss how food systems related strategies contribute to the health of communities. This four-session series of food systems conversations will explore the effectiveness of common food systems strategies in increasing food security, the role of community involvement in designing solutions, and new fields of research and action that build community capacity and respond to community identified needs. Hosted by the PSU Institute for Sustainable Solutions and the Social Sustainability Colloquium For more information about this series, click here.

2. Places in the Making: MIT Report Highlights the ‘Virtuous Cycle of Placemaking’ Today marks an important occasion in the evolution of the Placemaking movement. When the foundational work for what we call Placemaking today was taking place, back in the 1960s, pioneers like Holly Whyte and Jane Jacobs were on the outside of the castle walls, shouting to be heard.

“Expert” urban planners were razing finely-grained neighborhoods and building lifeless housing developments and parking lots, tangled up in endless gray ribbons of expressway. Streets and squares known as places for commerce and social interaction were being sacrificed, left and right, on the altar of “efficiency,” and our cities, decades later, are still struggling to recover.

Today, though, Placemaking is being recognized, through the release of a groundbreaking new white paper, by no less than the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the world’s foremost educational institution for urban planning and design. The paper, Places in the Making, casts aside the idea of the monolithic expert, and argues clearly and cohesively for the importance of Placemaking Page 1 of 4

as a vital part of community-building, rather than a fuzzy “extra.” It is a project, launched at the inaugural meeting of the Placemaking Leadership Council this past spring and made possible through the generous support of Southwest Airlines, in which we’ve been thrilled to be involved, and are even more excited to share with you today.

3. Murdock Charitable Trust Grant Programs The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust's mission is to enrich the quality of life in the Pacific Northwest (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington) by supporting nonprofit organizations that seek to strengthen the region's educational and cultural base in creative and sustainable ways. The priorities of the Trust's General Grants program include educational programs offered in both formal and informal settings; performing and visual arts projects that enrich the cultural environment of the region; and preventive health and human services programs, with a focus on youth. General Scientific Research Grants and Focused Program Grants in Science are also provided. With the exception of the Focused Program Grants in Science, which has specific deadlines, letters of inquiry may be submitted at any time. Visit the Trust's website for details on each of the grant programs.

Visit the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust Website for more information 4. Brainerd Foundation Grant Programs The Brainerd Foundation's mission is to protect the environmental quality of the Pacific Northwest (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and the Yukon Territory) and to build broad citizen support for environmental protection. The Foundation accepts applications from nonprofit organizations in the targeted states/provinces through the following five programs: The Conservation Policy Program is aimed at achieving policy gains at the state or provincial level that ensure the protection of the region's air, land, and water. The Conservation Capacity Program supports efforts to improve the ability of the environmental community to address communications, bolster legal strategies, and strengthen overall organizational capacity. The Place-Based Conservation Program encourages protection efforts in specific critical landscapes in the region. The Opportunity Fund provides grants to organizations with a timely opportunity to impact a conservation policy debate in the Pacific Northwest. The Grassroots Fund supports small organizations confronting critical challenges on the ground in their communities. Letters of inquiry may be submitted at any time.

Visit the Brainerd Foundation Website for detailed information on each of the Foundation’s grantmaking programs.

5. National Spotlight: Alleyways Become Pathways to Urban Revitalization Under the Evans Avenue Bridge and a stone's throw from the railroad tracks, this is an absolutely forgotten urban place, complete with the requisite tires, mattresses and beer bottles amidst the waisthigh tumbleweeds.

Most of Denver's 4,000 alleys have been paved, and there are plans to pave the remaining 150 unimproved alleys by 2016. But the alleys are home to tens of thousands of dumpsters, which in turn attract illegal dumping, which in turn means plenty of scavenging.

But change is afoot. Last fall, the Rialto Cafe organized Brewer's Alley, a beer-tasting event, in the alley behind the restaurant. Several plans are in the works to activate downtown alleys off of the pedestrian 16th Street Mall.

To access the full story, click here.

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6. Free Webinar: Asset Mapping & Data Collection Before a Crisis Join IEDC for this webinar May 28th, 2014 from 2:30 to 4:00 PM EST. Within minutes a disaster can turn an entire neighborhood, district, and city unrecognizable. Asset mapping and data collection before a crisis can speed up immediate, short, and long-term recovery efforts. With knowledge of the infrastructure, businesses, and community and industry assets, first responders can make quick, informed decisions to secure the area and provide the resources needed by impacted businesses.

Using an accepted understanding of what existed prior to the disaster, developers can create short and long-term strategies. Attend this webinar to explore strategies for asset mapping and data collection to prepare your community for when disaster strikes.

For more information about this free webinar, click here.

7. Airbnb Touts Economic Impact, Cultural Fit, Ahead of Portland Land-Use Hearing Airbnb plans to issue a study Tuesday touting the economic impact of its short-term rentals in Portland, just ahead of a potentially contentious hearing on prospective changes to the city’s land-use rules that would legitimize such rentals.

The San Francisco company and other short-term rental services, such as VRBO, are operating outside of city zoning rules at the moment because they turn residential homes into vacation rentals.

Airbnb doesn’t collect lodging taxes, either, the way traditional hotels do.

But the city is considering changes to its land-use rules, and Airbnb is negotiating with Portland over a plan for the company to automatically collect an 11.5 percent tax on rentals. That’s a combination of the city’s 6 percent lodging tax and a 5.5. percent Multnomah County tax.

To access the full story, click here.

8.

Eerie Photos Of Abandoned Shopping Malls Show The Changing Face Of Suburbia In his new book Black Friday, photographer Seph Lawless documents how the shifting economy has brought about the demise of these old symbols of American commercialism.

When the sprawling Randall Park Mall opened near Cleveland in 1976, it was briefly the largest mall in the world, and developers touted it as a symbol of the good life in suburbia. The small town where it was located added two shopping bags to its municipal seal in homage. This year, after decades of decline, it’s being torn down.

Photographer Seph Lawless documented the abandoned mall, along with another nearby shopping center also scheduled for demolition, in a new book called Black Friday.

The photos were the last ever taken of the mall. “I was chased out of the Randall Mall by police and demolition workers as they were beginning the demolition process,” Lawless says.

To access the full story, click here.

9. How L.A. Designed Simple Kits That Let You 'Make-Your-Own' Park In Los Angeles, just 16 percent of the city’s acreage is dedicated to park land, placing it at 34 out of 50 cities ranked in the Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore. So earlier this year, the city's Department of Transportation launched a program to address two common complaints: Los Angeles’s dearth of public green space and the seemingly glacial pace of issuing permits to experiment with new forms of

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public space use. The initiative, dubbed "People St," seeks to fast-track applications from community groups to convert streets into public spaces for one year, with pre-approved design options.

Prior to the launch of People St, transforming a metered L.A. parking spot into a pop-up park, as happens during events like Parking Day, would require multiple city department approvals, laden with paperwork. Now, People St provides a streamlined framework for approvals of three kinds of projects – a parklet, a plaza, and bike parking. Any group that requests one is sent a kit including instructions and incredibly detailed technical specs, as well as choices for plaza colors and patterns, and approved vendors for chairs and tables.

To access the full story, click here.

10. Google Street View Now Lets You Travel Back In Time Up until now, anyone hoping to time travel in Google Street View was more or less left at the mercy of the odd, serendipitous glitch. But starting today, Google is rolling out a new Street View feature that lets you travel back in time virtually anywhere.

Apparently, Google's been quietly hoarding old Street View snapshots since the carefree days of 2007, affording it a huge cache of data to draw from. Now, anytime you see a little clock icon in the upper left corner (like in the example below) you'll be able to click through and see how that location has evolved over the years—at least as seen through the eyes of Google's army of photo-collecting cars.

To access the full story, click here.

11. NIFTI Guide to Metrics and Evaluation for Farm Incubator Projects The NIFTI Guide to Metrics and Evaluation for Farm Incubator Projects provides the staff of land-based beginning farmer training programs with the knowledge, tools, and resources to create rigorous evaluation protocols for their organizations. With suggestions, guidelines, and over 65 pages of appendices including sample surveys, class evaluations, and more, compiled with the help of dozens of farm incubators throughout North America – including NIFTI project partners, The Agriculture Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) and the Intervale Center, as well as the University of Vermont New Farmer Project – all experts in the field of beginning farmer training.

This guide will help you tell the world about the amazing and impactful work you do supporting new and beginning farmers.

This toolkit is a supplement to our other guides, The Farm Incubator Toolkit and the Farm Incubator Case Studies. Download the NIFTI Guide to Metrics and Evaluation for Farm Incubator Projects and complete your NIFTI toolkit today!

The National Incubator Farm Training Initiative (NIFTI) is a project of the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, which has been training the next generation of farmers in Massachusetts since 1998.

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