Monday Mailing - May 4, 2020

Monday Mailing

Year 26 • Issue 34 04 May 2020 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

Dozens of Ways You Can Help NW Communities During the Coronavirus Pandemic (Katie McFall) Disaster Preparation in the Middle of a Disaster Racial Equity in Planning Organizations Coronavirus Has Shown Us a World Without Traffic. Can We Sustain It? Hunting and Fishing Provide Food Security in the Time of COVID-19 Coronavirus Takes a Heavy Economic Toll on Rural Hospitals COVID-19 and Rural Broadband: Progress, Problems and a Long Way to Go The Art of the Census How to Discover the History of Your Neighborhood, Without Leaving Home Oregon Wave Energy Project Enters Critical Permitting Phase (Katie McFall) PODCAST: The Only Grocer in Town (Emily Bradley)

1. Dozens of Ways You Can Help NW Communities During the

Quote of the Week:

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger.

Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

- Yoda

Oregon Fast Fact

The longest-running showing of the original Star Wars: A New Hope was for 76 weeks at the Westgate Theater in Portland, Oregon.

Coronavirus Pandemic

The coronavirus outbreak has upended daily life with drastic shifts in the last month: restaurants and schools are closed, unemployment claims continue to increase, and many people are staying home to prevent further spread of the virus.

But as we try our best to adjust to this new normal, there are still safe ways to help the people around us in trying times. Here’s how you can lend a hand to a neighbor in need.

To access the full story, click here.

2. Disaster Preparation in the Middle of a Disaster

Since we are living it, we are taking a moment today to look at resilience and recovery. No matter the current situation, historic places and collections will play a critical role in recovery.

In 2018, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and The World Bank jointly published the position paper, Culture in City Reconstruction and Recovery. The proposed CURE Framework emphasizes the need to integrate people-centered and place-based strategies and policies with culture as the foundation in order to achieve sustainable change.

“From cultural heritage to cultural and creative industries, from sustainable tourism to cultural institutions, culture enables and drives Page 1 of 5

the social, environmental, and economic dimensions of sustainable development. It is a crucial factor for social cohesion and poverty alleviation and supports issues such as education, urban development and gender equality to enable the full achievement of development outcomes. It has become clear that culture can no longer be a dividend of development, but is rather a prerequisite to its achievement” (pg 17).

To access the full story, click here.

3. Racial Equity in Planning Organizations

Planners in the United States have played central roles in carrying out urban agendas that reproduce racial inequity. Segregation, disinvestment, and siting toxic facilities in communities of color are objectionable legacies and yet common planning outcomes. Scholars have thus developed conceptual frameworks linking equity to planning practice, and some planning practitioners explicitly attempt to pre-empt adverse consequences. For example, 80% of longrange transportation plans of the 50 largest U.S. cities mention equity. Ninety percent of small and large U.S. cities’ climate adaptation plans also mention equity. Planners’ apparent embrace of equity reflects the field’s tendency to approach the concept as a goal the profession can advance through its plans within and across cities. Yet plans may give the topic of equity superficial treatment. Nor does equity necessarily invoke racial equity; groups that enjoy social and economic privilege may adopt conceptualizations of equity that fail to address racial injustice. Indeed, in their appraisal of the state of equity planning today, Zapata and Bates urge planners to address racial segregation more directly: “Topics that matter to communities of color should matter to planning,” they note.

To access the full story, click here.

4. Coronavirus Has Shown Us a World Without Traffic. Can We Sustain It?

here are few silver linings to the COVID-19 pandemic, but free-flowing traffic is certainly one of them. For the essential workers who still must commute each day, driving to work has suddenly become much easier. The same applies to the trucks delivering our surging e-commerce orders.

Removing so many cars from the roads has even led to cleaner air, clearer views, and more room for outdoor recreation, even in major cities.

Yet, stay-at-home orders are far from an ideal way to eliminate traffic. If the choice is between brutal congestion or full employment, we’ll take full employment every time. Nor were governments prepared for the loss in gas tax revenue, which leaves their transportation budgets in tatters.

Now, with many states considering lifting their stay-at-home orders, the question is whether the country can resume economic activity without bringing back the worst effects of our driving.

To access the full story, click here.

5. Hunting and Fishing Provide Food Security in the Time of COVID-19

Like millions of Americans, Paul Kemper lost his job in early April. Unlike many of his fellow citizens, though, he was not overly worried about food, even as canned goods raced from the shelves and flour became as precious as white gold. Kemper, 26, of Bozeman, Montana, is a Page 2 of 5

hunter, and the “four deer and half an elk” that pack his meat freezer provide peace of mind after his sudden loss of income.

“Even when I was working, my grocery bills were low,” he said on the phone in mid-April. “I hadn’t bought red meat in three years. Now, at a time when I’m trying to figure out the next step and what’s coming, I can rest assured that my basic needs are met in terms of food.”

To access the full story, click here.

6. Coronavirus Takes a Heavy Economic Toll on Rural Hospitals

When the virus that causes COVID-19 began to spread in the Western U.S. in March, medical centers started preparing. Hospitals cleared elective surgery schedules, stocked up on supplies and retrofitted facilities to care for patients with the novel coronavirus.

But in preparing for the immediate crisis, rural hospitals worsened an ongoing one: They were running out of money, fast. Soon, they started cutting pay and laying off workers. On the rural coast of southern Oregon, almost 200 workers from the local health-care district were laid off, furloughed or had hours cut in early April. In Clarkston, Washington, 80 employees are at least temporarily out of work as the local hospital faces budget shortfalls driven by COVID-19. So far, more than 200 hospital systems in the United States have reduced staff.

To access the full story, click here.

7. COVID-19 and Rural Broadband: Progress, Problems and a Long Way to Go

Gather a handful of policy experts together in a video chat room to talk about the state of rural broadband and you’ll cover a lot of ground. Last week’s second livestream conversation cohosted by the Daily Yonder and the Rural Assembly was chock full of information about policy proposals and funding programs that exist to help rural communities stay connected.

Reflecting on the current challenges imposed by Covid-19, the online panel once again offered both sobering perspectives and notes of progress, from Indian Country to Capitol Hill and many places in between. For every deep dive on policy specifics, the conversation also brought forward familiar appeals to fundamental principles. “[The internet] has to be free and open and available to everyone, everywhere, every time,” said Loris Taylor, CEO of Native Public Media, which licenses 59 radio stations and three television stations in tribal communities across the country. “I think Covid-19 is definitely pointing at that.”

To access the full story, click here.

Page 3 of 5

8. The Art of the Census

A pair of museum exhibits showcase work inspired by the decennial counts of the U.S. Census Bureau. And, like the census itself, the shows are going online.

In a way, the U.S. Census Bureau picked a good year to go digital. Since 1790, when the federal government first started collecting national demographic data, the 2020 decennial count is the first where people can fill out their census questionnaire online.

With field offices closed and in-person canvassing stalled by coronavirus fears, the census data collection deadline has been delayed until October, and the bureau is working overtime to reach people without internet access — or a nearby open library — with mailers and phone calls.

Meanwhile, community organizations are trying to rebuild trust among those deterred by the Trump administration’s unsuccessful attempt to add a question about citizenship on the form.

Though 53.7% of the country has responded so far, large swaths of the uncounted remain. With deep economic uncertainty on the horizon, the stakes are especially high: Census counts help allocate political representation and $1.5 trillion in economic power; the numbers are used to justify funding things, or defunding them.

To access the full story, click here.

9. How to Discover the History of Your Neighborhood, Without Leaving Home

Even during social distancing, you can time-travel back. Here's how I explored the history of my own street.

A friend of mine once told me life is short, but it is wide. I’ve been thinking about that lately, less in terms of life, but in terms of space. Most of us aren’t going anywhere these days. Our circles are smaller, our paths closer to home. Space is short. But there’s a different way to go wide when you can’t go far, and that’s to go back.

Like any sort of travel, I find time travel works best when you start with a destination but are open to getting lost and rerouted along the way. You could begin anywhere, really, but the easiest place to begin is right where you are. And so, why not start at home?

To access the full story, click here.

10. Oregon Wave Energy Project Enters Critical Permitting Phase

An innovative wave-energy project proposed for Oregon has entered a key stretch as it seeks the environmental approvals needed to move forward.

Oregon State University’s PacWave testing array would be located about 2 miles offshore. An underwater cable would connect the array to the electrical grid just north of Waldport on the state’s central coast.

Page 4 of 5

The project is designed to help facilitate the development of technology that generates electricity using the movement of waves. The idea is to create a space for wave energy developers to test their designs in real-world conditions without having to go through individual environmental permitting processes, which take significant time and money.

To access the full story, click here.

11. PODCAST: The Only Grocer in Town

Hundreds of people in Rich Square, N.C. are relying on Frank Timberlake's grocery store for their food during the pandemic. WSJ's Valerie Bauerlein explains how this independent grocer has confronted the coronavirus and kept his doors open.

To listen to the full story, click here.

Page 5 of 5