Monday Mailing
Year 24 • Issue 34 11 June 2018
1. Community Revitalization Assistance 2. People-Driven Design: Planning for the Urban Future of Autonomous Vehicles 3. Is LEED Tough Enough for the Climate-Change Era? 4. Hayward Field: A Cautionary Tale 5. The Places in the U.S. Where Disaster Strikes Again and Again 6. What Starbucks Anti-Bias Training Day Was Like, According to Employees 7. Webinar: SNAP E&T and WIOA -- Partnering to Raise Skills and Employment; Principals from Minnesota and Oregon to Present, June 21 @ 10am 8. National Endowment for the Arts’ Creative Placemaking Grants Program 9. That Natural Gas Power Plant with No Carbon Emissions or Air Pollution? It Works. 10. An Economic Defense of Old Buildings 11. In Rural Health, Location Matters 1. Community Revitalization Assistance EPA has a new Community Revitalization website that links to resources from across the agency that can help communities strengthen their local economy in an environmentally sound way. To access the Community Revitalization website, click here.
Quote of the Week: "Almost always the creative, dedicated minority has made the world better." ~Martin Luther King Jr. Oregon Fast Fact: At 11,239 feet Mount Hood stands as the tallest peak in Oregon. Mount Hood is a dormant volcano.
2. People-Driven Design: Planning for the Urban Future of Autonomous Vehicles By the early 2020s, a significant number of cars with self-driving capabilities could be on North America’s freeways and city streets. Fast-forward to 2030 and 95 percent of U.S. passenger miles traveled could be served by autonomous vehicles (AVs) owned by companies providing transportation as a service (TaaS), according to the RethinkX research report Rethinking Transportation 2020–2030: The Disruption of Transportation and the Collapse of the ICE Vehicle and Oil Industries. This adoption of driverless cars will be life-altering for people from all walks of life—from those who currently cannot afford to own a car to millions of frazzled daily commuters. Just as a century ago, when the arrival of the personal automobile fundamentally changed our society, the advent of AVs as our main mode of transportation will trigger another shift in people’s lives. To ensure that the changes will enhance the urban experience, cities and their private sector partners need to start planning for this new world. To access the full story, click here. 3. Is LEED Tough Enough for the Climate-Change Era? In the late 1980s, revolution was afoot in the world of architecture. It started when a soft-spoken Kansas City architect named Bob Berkebile Page 1 of 4
tried to convince the American Institute of Architects to do more to save the planet. In the spring of 1989, he petitioned the AIA to establish a committee to study and promote ways that the profession could become more eco-friendly. “The board of directors turned me down,” said Berkebile, now 81. In the Reagan era, the environmental movement had a Birkenstock-and-granola image that the men in charge at the AIA were apparently not prepared to adopt. However, Berkebile was backed by up-and-coming architects from around the country. According to him, they basically took over the AIA convention in May 1989: “We overruled them.” The resolution the AIA board had declined to endorse, “CPR: Critical Planet Rescue,” passed unanimously. To access the full story, click here. 4. Hayward Field: A Cautionary Tale Hayward Field and its East Grandstand are the embodiment of track and field’s genesis as a sport. At their unvarnished essence they represent the magic that catapulted running from a pastime to a passion for athletes and fans alike. That this should happen without explanation or public process speaks to the greater issue of demolition of public resources without public input. The absence of opportunity for stakeholders to weigh in on the significance and ultimate elimination of irreplaceable cultural resources in their community is a contradiction to the legacy of public support for Hayward Field and its relationship with the worldwide track and field community. How can we, as Oregonians, protect our heritage and our place within national and international history? We need to be preservation proactive! Local landmark designation or listing on the National Register of Historic Places affords the public the legal right and opportunity for involvement before a demolition happens. It is also a step towards ensuring transparency in any planning process that involves disposing of historic resources. To access the full story, click here. 5. The Places in the U.S. Where Disaster Strikes Again and Again In the last 16 years, parts of Louisiana have been struck by six hurricanes. Areas near San Diego were devastated by three particularly vicious wildfire seasons. And a town in eastern Kentucky has been pummeled by at least nine storms severe enough to warrant federal assistance. These places are part of a small fraction of the United States that has sustained most of the damage from major natural disasters, forming a pattern of destruction concentrated in specific areas. About 90 percent of the total losses across the United States occurred in ZIP codes that contain less than 20 percent of the national population, according to an analysis of data from the Small Business Administration. To access the full story, click here. 6. What Starbucks Anti-Bias Training Day Was Like, According to Employees On Tuesday afternoon, over 175,000 Starbucks employees nationwide were asked to do just that— wrestle with the issue over who is made to feel welcome in this country. The coffee giant closed 8,000 stores in an unprecedented shutdown to hold a mandatory four-hour racial-bias training Page 2 of 4
session. It was scheduled in response to a racial-profiling incident in Philadelphia when a white store manager called the police on two black customers who simply wanted to wait for their friend to arrive before ordering. It was a public relations nightmare for a brand that proudly calls itself The Third Place, that safe space next to home and work where everyone belongs. When the doors closed on Tuesday, employees settled into small self-guided sessions anchored by a curriculum that Starbucks has since posted in full on its website. Folks broke out into one-on-one or small group conversations in which they were prompted with open-ended conversation starters: • • •
When did you first become aware of your racial identity? How do you choose to alter your communication style to avoid playing into stereotypes? Describe moments you’ve found yourself treating someone differently because of their race or dress or sexual orientation.
“It was surprisingly productive and I thought the information was carefully prepared and thoughtfully distributed,” says Erin Martysz, a white barista at an Escondido, CA store. “Overall I think everyone benefitted.” To access the full story, click here. 7. Webinar: SNAP E&T and WIOA -- Partnering to Raise Skills and Employment; Principals from Minnesota and Oregon to Present, June 21 @ 10am SNAP Employment and Training Programs (SNAP E&T) and State and local workforce agencies share a common goal of enabling low-income individuals to gain skills necessary to qualify for jobs leading to self-sufficiency. Guidance issued by Food and Nutrition Service in March 2016 encouraged SNAP and workforce agencies to collaborate on shared strategies that connect SNAP recipients — particularly able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) — to provide employment and training services through American Job Centers (also known as one-stop centers). This webinar will highlight how States can use SNAP E&T funds strategically, along with Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) resources, to expand the types of services E&T participants receive to more comprehensively meet their needs and improve outcomes. Representatives from Work systems in Portland, Oregon and the State of Minnesota will share how their SNAP E&T program and workforce systems are working together, including through thirdparty partnership models. This webinar will be on June 21, 2018 and held from 10:00 a.m to 11:30 a.m. PDT/1:00 p.m to 2:30 p.m. EDT. Speakers: • •
Julie Strawn, Principal Associate, Social & Economic Policy, Abt Associates Work Systems, Portland, Oregon State of Minnesota Department of Human Services, Saint Paul, Minnesota
To register for this webinar, click here. 8. National Endowment for the Arts’ Creative Placemaking Grants Program National Endowment for the Arts grants support projects that integrate arts, culture, and design activities into efforts that strengthen communities by advancing local economic, physical, and/or social outcomes. Successful Our Town projects ultimately lay the groundwork for systemic changes Page 3 of 4
that sustain the integration of arts, culture, and design into strategies for strengthening communities. Deadline is July 30, 2018. For more information about this funding opportunity, click here. 9. That Natural Gas Power Plant with No Carbon Emissions or Air Pollution? It Works. Back in April of 2016, I wrote about an exciting new technology for which construction was just getting underway: the Net Power natural gas power plant. It promised to capture its own carbon dioxide emissions, not in a separate, expensive, power-intensive process like conventional carboncapture facilities, but as part of the combustion cycle. The company claimed that the technology will ultimately enable it to produce power at prices cheaper than conventional fossil fuel power plants — with carbon capture built in. Net Power had just started work on a small, 50 MW power plant in La Porte, Texas, meant to demonstrate that the technology can work. As of last year, the plant completed construction. And as of this week, it has achieved “first fire” and is running a battery of tests meant to ensure that everything is working up to snuff. If all goes well — lead designer and chemical engineer Rodney Allam recently told Nature , “we’re still smiling” — the plant will begin generating electricity in earnest later this year. The company plans to build another 300 MW plant for sometime in 2020. To access the full story, click here. 10. An Economic Defense of Old Buildings Jane Jacobs, a woman akin to the patron saint of urban planners, first argued 50 years ago that healthy neighborhoods need old buildings. Aging, creaky, faded, "charming" buildings. Retired couples and young families need the cheap rent they promise. Small businesses need the cramped offices they contain. Streets need the diversity created not just when different people coexist, but when buildings of varying vintage do, too. "Cities need old buildings so badly," Jacobs wrote in her classic "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," "it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.” Ever since, this idea -- based on the intuition of a woman who was surveying her own New York Greenwich Village neighborhood -- has been received wisdom among planners and urban theorists. But what happens when we look at the data? To access the full story, click here. 11. In Rural Health, Location Matters When it comes to your health, place matters. If you live in a rural county, the bottom-line truth is that you’re less apt to be healthy than if you lived in a more urban one. A couple of recent reports shed some light on both the issues and potential solutions. According to the 2018 County Health Rankings, published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in partnership with the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, rural counties continue to lag behind more urbanized ones in factors that play a critical role in a community’s overall health. These include child poverty, low-birthweight babies and teen birth rate. To access the full story, click here. Page 4 of 4