Monday Mailing
Year 24 • Issue 33 04 June 2018 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
Friends of Scappoose Parks Officially Kicks Off Get Outdoors Day Oregon, June 9th The Back Pasture The Best Planning Apps Mapping America’s Aging Population Lessons from Community Leaders on Using Local Foods to Revitalize Downtowns: Summary of the 2017 Local Foods, Local Places Summit Eugene Bike Rental Program Out-Pedaling Expectations EPA Releases EnviroAtlas Ecosystem Mapping Tool Actually — I Think Stoke Will Save Us Supporting Local Efforts to Create Great Jobs through Entrepreneurship: EDA Launches 2018 Regional Innovation Strategies Program Competition Revitalizing America’s Smaller Legacy Cities - Toolkit Available
1. Friends of Scappoose Parks Officially Kicks Off As the city is deep in efforts to develop new parks, Scappoose now has its own parks improvement organization. Friends of Scappoose Parks was established this year and kicked off its first meeting on May 17.
Quote of the Week: “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” ~Confucius Oregon Fast Fact: The nation's most photographed lighthouse is the Heceta Head Lighthouse located in Lane County.
The group was started as a way to complete small park improvement projects and raise money for city parks, while gathering and passing along community input about parks and recreational opportunities in Scappoose. In its infancy, the group is currently facilitated by Garett Peterson, an AmeriCorps program participant working with the city of Scappoose. To access the full story, click here. 2. Get Outdoors Day Oregon, June 9th Get Outdoors Day Oregon is a statewide effort from the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts, working in conjunction with the National Get Outdoors Day to encourage Oregonians to explore, discover and learn about Oregon's special places. Oregon land trusts work to protect our rivers, farms, forests, wetlands and wild places. This land is not always easy to see or experience, but each acre benefits our diverse communities. On June 9th, we want you to experience these places, properties and big open spaces. Find an event, bring friends, take pictures and have fun outdoors! For more information, click here.
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3. The Back Pasture I grew up on a small farm in Veradale, Washington. My fondest memories are from the two-acre field behind our house where I fed the cows after school, made forts out of hay bales, and sat precariously on a plow for weight as my dad tilled our pasture with his old Ford tractor. My wife has heard these tales countless times. I like the stories for the nostalgia. She likes them because they put her to sleep. Whenever she’s having a bout with insomnia, she turns to me and says, “Tell me about the back pasture.” Rural philanthropist and strategist, Allen Smart, said: “Being from a rural place is something you can’t easily leave behind as an individual, and it’s not something we should we do as a nation.” My rural upbringing is something I’ll never leave behind. Yet, like more than 80% of the U.S. population today, I’ve lived most of my adult life in urban areas. Since 1940, when only half of the country’s population lived in cities, there’s been a steady rural exodus. The gap continues to widen, and urban areas seemingly do better on almost every traditional metric of success – economic growth, employment and poverty. Except for one. To access the full story, click here. 4. The Best Planning Apps Planners, like professionals in countless other industries, are under a lot of pressure to stay current with the creation and adoption of new apps for smartphones. The good news is that as more industries and businesses invest in mobile app technology, it becomes easier to scale mobile app technology into new corners of daily life. With innovation moving at such a quick pace due to all these investments, there's always more to learn about how smartphone technology can help planners explore and enhance communities. Luckily, planners who continue to stay current with the new mobile app technology will routinely pleased with what they discover. Since 2012, Jennifer Evans Cowley and colleagues have conducted an annual survey of planners to gauge the state of mobile app technology in professional and academic planning. A lot of the same apps listed in previous posts are still proving useful in 2018, but we also see new and better apps emerging, useful to a wider scope of uses and accessible to a wider base of users. The hope should be that mobile technology provides both the public and the profession with access to better information and tools to improve their communities. To access the full story, click here. 5. Mapping America’s Aging Population The U.S. population has changed substantially in the last half century, growing by nearly 63 percent. Perhaps the two most prominent demographic changes over the past 50 years relate to age. In 1968, the baby boom had just ended, and the oldest members of its cohort were only 22 years old. As baby boomers age, the nation has substantially aged as well. In 1970, the median age in the U.S. was 28.1. In 2016, it was 37.9. Demographers and geographers like myself have watched as this aging cohort transformed the U.S., from young children in the 1950s and 1960s to senior citizens today. This graying of America has left a distinctive geographical fingerprint. To access the full story, click here.
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6. Lessons from Community Leaders on Using Local Foods to Revitalize Downtowns: Summary of the 2017 Local Foods, Local Places Summit The Local Foods, Local Places (LFLP) Program is a community-based economic development program that nurtures local and regional food systems, catalyzes economic growth, and improves environmental and public health outcomes by engaging with local partners to reinvest in existing neighborhoods. LFLP aims to boost economic opportunities for local farmers and businesses; improve access to healthy, local food; and improve human health and wellness by creating walkable, healthy, economically vibrant neighborhoods. In 2017, the program was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), and the Delta Regional Authority (DRA). To access the full summary, click here. 7. Eugene Bike Rental Program Out-Pedaling Expectations When the city of Eugene and Lane Transit District commissioned a 2014 study to look at demand for a bike rental program, officials predicted that each rented bicycle would make less than one daily trip on average. Instead, each of the 300 blue PeaceHealth Rides bikes that popped up around town last month have averaged about three trips per day, blowing past officials’ early expectations. More than 3,700 riders have used the rental bikes in the program’s first month, according to PeaceHealth Rides, the entity overseeing the program. The riders have taken more than 20,700 trips totaling nearly 28,000 miles. “Ridership from the beginning has been really strong,” PeaceHealth Rides General Manager Lindsey Hayward said. “In many ways, Eugene was just built for bike share. It’s been something the community has really embraced.” To access the full story, click here. 8. EnviroAtlas Ecosystem Mapping Tool The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) EnviroAtlas, a web-based interactive tool that integrates over 300 separate data layers, helps decision makers understand the implications of planning and policy decisions on our fragile ecosystems and the communities who depend on goods and services from these ecosystems. EnviroAtlas is designed for people from all levels of government, professionals, researchers, educators, non-governmental organizations, and anyone interested in considering the benefits or impacts of a decision, such as siting a new road or city park. EnviroAtlas can help people learn about ecosystems, and how they provide us with benefits such as clean air and water; opportunities for recreation; and protection from severe weather, such as hurricanes and floods. EnviroAtlas also highlights how ecosystems provide habitats for plants, fish, and wildlife as well as the materials people need to produce food, clothing, shelter, and pharmaceuticals, and provides maps on all of these topics. EnviroAtlas integrates geospatial data from a variety of sources to allow users to visualize and analyze how decisions impact ecosystems and their ability to provide goods and services. Communities are often faced with difficult decisions, such as trade-offs between transportation, residential or commercial development and maintaining local wetlands, urban greenspaces, or urban forests. EnviroAtlas helps communities better understand the potential benefits and drawbacks of their decisions by providing data, Page 3 of 6
maps, information and tools to analyze relationships between nature, health and well-being, and the economy. For more information, click here. 9. Actually — I Think Stoke Will Save Us High Country News recently published an essay by Ethan Linck, “Your Stoke Won’t Save Us,” questioning the efficacy of outdoor recreationists and the outdoor industry as advocates for conservation. In a sense, Linck is right, stoke alone won’t save us, and the most unimpeachable personal conservation ethic won’t either. Meaningful conservation is driven by action — not sentiment; not vaguely defined “environmental concern,” as measured by some researchers more than 40 years ago; not even education. It’s organizing to deliver political pressure and make change that make the difference, and by that measure, outdoor recreationists and the outdoor industry are delivering. And stoke — genuine enthusiasm derived from visceral experience — is the fuel that’s driving action. To access the full story, click here. 10. Supporting Local Efforts to Create Great Jobs through Entrepreneurship: EDA Launches 2018 Regional Innovation Strategies Program Competition Guided by the basic principle that sustainable economic development should be locally-driven, the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) works directly with communities and regions to help them build capacity for economic development based on local business conditions. EDA’s flexible suite of programs support the implementation of locally-devised economic development strategies to address a continuum of economic development challenges – from planning and technical assistance, to infrastructure construction - that make it easier for businesses to start and grow. At the heart of these businesses are some of America’s most creative and hardworking dreamers and doers: entrepreneurs! Embodying the American spirit, these intrepid individuals tirelessly push forward every day, breaking barriers with innovative technologies and services to create the high-skill, high-wage jobs that help advance the U.S. economy. EDA recognizes how influential entrepreneurship is in building resilient, regional economies, and today EDA is excited to announce that the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the 2018 Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program has been published and the competition is now open! With up to $21 million available through the 2018 RIS NOFO, this year’s program will help spur innovation capacity-building activities in regions across the nation through two separate grants: the i6 Challenge and the Seed Fund Support (SFS) Grant competitions. •
i6 Challenge ($16M): Across the country, regions and communities are helping entrepreneurs overcome challenging barriers to help build new companies and create jobs through the efforts of universities, community colleges, National Labs, state and local governments, incubators, and various other organizations. The i6 Challenge helps drive these efforts by supporting the creation and expansion of programs that increase the rate at which innovations, ideas, intellectual property, and research are translated into products, services, viable companies, and, ultimately, jobs.
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Seed Fund Support (SFS) Grant Competition ($5M): The availability of funding for early-stage companies is an essential element of a healthy innovation-based regional ecosystem. Taking an idea or innovation from concept to market often requires capital, but in many regions across the country, innovators and entrepreneurs struggle to find that capital. SFS grants provide funding for technical Page 4 of 6
assistance and operational costs that support the planning, formation, launch, or scale of clusterbased seed funds that will invest their capital in innovation-based startups with a potential for high growth. To date, the RIS program has invested in 140 projects, totaling $57 million in federal funding across 42 states and Puerto Rico, supporting the creation of hundreds of new businesses, thousands of new jobs, and millions in new venture funding. These projects are led by collaborative historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), regional economic development organizations, forward thinking community colleges, leading non-profit business incubators and accelerators, unique rural, venture development organizations, and many other innovative organizations working hard to support entrepreneurship growth across their communities and industries. Prospective applicants are encouraged to refer to the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFO) on grants.gov for more details on both the i6 Challenge and Seed Fund Support grants, including eligibility, matching-fund requirements, application and submission deadlines, and other information. Funding for both programs is available to all communities regardless of level of distress. EDA’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship leads the RIS program to spur innovation capacitybuilding activities in regions across the nation. Please stay tuned to the OIE RIS webpage for specific details on the forthcoming informational webinar for this year’s RIS competition. 11. Revitalizing America’s Smaller Legacy Cities - Toolkit Available Smaller legacy cities - older industrial communities with about 30,000 to 200,000 residents – are undergoing significant transformations as they adapt to twenty-first century economic realities. Revitalizing America’s Smaller Legacy Cities, a report from Greater Ohio Policy Center and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, documents the unique challenges and opportunities facing these communities as they seek to revitalize and thrive. The toolkit is organized around the eight strategies for small legacy city revitalization identified in the report Revitalizing America’s Smaller Legacy Cities. Within each strategy, resources are broken down into three types: Tools: Guides for implementation, including how-to guides, checklists, etc. Programs: Replicable initiatives, typically illustrated with examples. Background information: Resources, including white papers and websites, which further explain the strategy, programs, or tools. The toolkit is intended to help bridge the gap between high-level strategies and on-the-ground tactics by compiling resources that can help guide practitioners in making change in their own communities. The toolkit links: Build Civic Capacity Committed local leadership is crucial for shepherding smaller legacy cities through the process of revitalization. Encourage A Shared Vision The magnitude of the challenges facing smaller legacy cities means that no sector can successfully address them alone. Expand Opportunities for Low-Income Workers Efforts to revitalize smaller legacy cities cannot be successful if they focus on high income residents alone. Build on an Authentic Sense of Place Quality places help to attract and retain talent, an important component of economic development. Focus Regional Efforts on a Strong Downtown The strength of a region depends on the strength of its central city. Page 5 of 6
Engage in Community and Strategic Planning In a small city where resources are scarce, competing visions for the future cannot all be implemented successfully. Stabilize Distressed Neighborhoods Strong cities require neighborhoods of choice for all residents. Strategically Leverage State Policies States have an important role to play in local revitalization efforts.
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