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Monday Mailing

Year 23 • Issue 37 26 June 2017 1. Rural America is Stranded in The Dial-Up Age 2. Portland’s Newest And Smallest Street is Also Carfree 3. Oregon Looks to Help Logging Industry With Country's Tallest Wooden High-Rise 4. Report: Metrics for Planning Healthy Communities 5. Oregon May Strip Portland of Its NIMBY Powers 6. Report: Engaging Small Businesses in Disaster Preparedness 7. Oregon Highway Funding Bill Thrown Into Peril as Deadline Loom 8. AARP Community Challenge 9. Guide: Equitable, Community-Driven Climate Preparedness Planning 10. Report: Attracting Infill Development in Distressed Communities: 30 Strategies 11. The Party Analogy 1. Rural America Is Stranded in the Dial-Up Age CALEDONIA, Mo.—Jeanne Wilson Johnson raises sheep and angora goats, and to sell the wool and mohair online she drives 4 miles to the parking lot of Roy’s gas station, the closest spot for decent internet access.

Quote of the Week: “Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground.

Let their spirit ignite a fire within you, to leave this world better than when you found it. ~Wilfred Peterson Oregon Fast Fact: The Oregon Trail is the longest of the overland routes used in the westward expansion of the United States.

At her 420-acre farm, Ms. Johnson pays $170 a month for a satellite internet service too slow to upload photos, much less conduct business.

As in many rural communities, broadband here lags behind in both speed and available connections. Federal data shows only a fraction of Washington County’s 25,000 residents, including Ms. Johnson, have internet service fast enough to stream videos or access the cloud, activities that residents 80 miles away in St. Louis take for granted.

To access the full story, click here.

2. Portland’s Newest And Smallest Street is Also Carfree To improve circulation of vehicle traffic through a very fast-growing part of the central city, the Portland Bureau of Transportation decided to expand the road network. With two new lanes, people can now travel on a new road between NE 3rd Avenue and Couch Street.

Typically we’d be skeptical — possibly outraged — if PBOT added new lane-miles in the urban core; but in this case it’s fine because the new street is carfree. It’s the most efficient and humane way to utilize this important space adjacent to three new buildings that tower over the east end of the Burnside Bridge and have a combined 300 residential units and over 100,000 square feet of office and retail space.

To access the full story, click here.

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3. Oregon Looks to Help Logging Industry With Country's Tallest Wooden High-Rise Portland, Ore., is planning to construct the nation's tallest all-wood high-rise building in an effort to boost the state's logging industry.

Framework, a 12-story, 145-foot-tall building received building permits this month that allow the high rise to exceed the current U.S. cap of 85 feet for an all-wood building.

Portland-based Lever Architecture designed the structure and was awarded a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in September 2015 in the Tall Wood Building Prize Competition. The USDA challenge was intended "to showcase the safe application, practicality and sustainability" of a mass lumber structure whose "ultimate goal is to support employment opportunities in rural communities, maintain the health and resiliency of the nation's forests, and advance sustainability in the built environment."

To access the full story, click here.

4. Report: Metrics for Planning Healthy Communities Inside this report is a set of Healthy Planning Metrics that can be used to assess, measure, monitor, and report progress toward healthy planning goals. Key built environment indicators and policies are identified for five healthy communities domains to promote health and measure health inequities.

To access the report, click here.

5. Oregon May Strip Portland of Its NIMBY Powers People can’t afford to be poor in Portland, Oregon. Nearly half of the households that rent in the Portland metro area pay too much. Almost one-quarter (24.3 percent) of these households are severely cost burdened, meaning half of their household income goes to keeping a roof over their heads. The median income of Portland metro homeowners is nearly twice that of renters: $81,900 versus $41,600, per a new Harvard report on housing.

Oregon has decided to do something to boost affordable housing in the state. A new law before the legislature has opened unexpected fault lines in the already fractured political debate over housing costs.

The bill represents something of a mixed blessing for affordability boosters: it’s designed to remove barriers to new construction, but at the cost of local authority.

House Bill 2007 would make it harder for local governments to restrict developments that include affordable housing. The bill would require city or county governments to complete a review of an application for a development with affordable housing within 100 days. Given the high costs associated with permitting, this bill could help pave the way for apartments and homes that Portlanders can afford.

To access the full story, click here.

6.

Guide: Engaging Small Businesses in Disaster Preparedness The International Economic Development Council (IEDC) released a user-friendly guide for business support organizations with practical tips on engaging small businesses in disaster preparedness. The intended audience for this resource includes local chambers of commerce, economic development organizations, small business development centers, SCORE offices, community colleges, business schools, community development financial institutions, local banks, and nonprofits that serve small businesses. Developed with input from continuity professionals, the information from this guide can be referenced when creating workshops or writing articles for company newsletters and e-blasts.

Highlights from the guide include: Page 2 of 5

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Why community and business organizations should engage small businesses in continuity exercises; The top ten ways to engage small businesses in preparedness activities; A case study on ‘A Day without Business’ Workshop in Tulsa, OK; Resources for Crisis preparedness.

To access the guide, click here.

7. Oregon Highway Funding Bill Thrown Into Peril as Deadline Loom SALEM -- State lawmakers drafting a multibillion-dollar package of infrastructure upgrades say the plan is in jeopardy and may not pass this year.

Failing to pass the proposal would mark the second time in two years that a transportation package has been drafted only to die without a vote, dealing a major blow to the agendas of Gov. Kate Brown and other top Democrats. Brown, Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, and House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, have time and again proclaimed a transportation improvement plan must be passed this year.

Democratic and Republican leaders have warned for years that roads are crumbling, bridges would fall like matchsticks in an earthquake and that traffic bottlenecks drain commuters and freighters of valuable time and fuel. Something must be done, they say.

To access the full story, click here.

8. AARP Community Challenge AARP staff and volunteers across the country are working with local leaders and organizations to enhance the quality of life for all people of all ages.

Our most comprehensive program to make this vision a reality is the AARP Network of Age Friendly Communities. This ever-growing network includes more than 170 enrolled communities across more than three-dozen states, representing more than 65 million people. (Check out The Member List.)

To help support communities and create change in both AARP age-friendly network and non-network communities, AARP plays several key roles, including advocating on important issues, engaging citizens, providing resources and expertise, and serving as a catalyst and convener We know that great communities take time to build and sustain. But "quick actions" can be the critical spark for longer-term progress. That's why the AARP Community Challenge will fund projects to help build momentum. If your idea is big, no project is too small. Projects can range from short-term activities costing a few hundred dollars to sizable efforts that might need thousands.    

Follow the link at right to apply by Saturday, July 15, 11:59 PM (ET). Proposed projects must be completed no later than Wednesday, November 1.

We suggest that you draft your application in a Word document on your computer and then copy and paste the information into the online application when done.

Watch a 30 second video about the AARP Community Challenge Learn more below

To apply for this funding opportunity, click here.

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9. Guide: Equitable, Community-Driven Climate Preparedness Planning Delivering more equitable outcomes requires a different approach to planning. Many climate preparedness and adaptation guides exist and most acknowledge the importance of equity and public participation; however, few address equity issues by addressing specific adaptation solutions, tactics for inclusive community engagement, or the root causes of inequities in climate risk. This guide from the Urban Sustainability Directors Network addresses these gaps. The purpose of the Guide to Equitable, Community-Driven Climate Preparedness Planning is to provide guidance to local governments in designing and implementing a more inclusive, equitable planning process.

To access the guide, click here.

10. Report: Attracting Infill Development in Distressed Communities: 30 Strategies After World War II, many communities in the United States developed outside city and town centers, leaving older neighborhoods, traditional downtowns, and central business districts abandoned and underserved. In the past two decades, some communities have revitalized their central neighborhoods through infill development. However, economically distressed communities have been less able to attract infill development and attain the accompanying economic, environmental, health, and quality of life benefits.

Infill development occurs in a built-up neighborhood, often using vacant land or rehabilitating existing properties. Infill development can bring many benefits, including financial savings for municipalities, increased property values for residents and businesses, easier travel, reduced pollution, and economic stabilization of neighborhoods.

This report helps communities determine their readiness to pursue infill development and identify strategies to better position themselves to attract infill development.   

It presents strategies and case studies to establish priorities, policies, and partnerships and change public perceptions, which can help make infill development more feasible.

It discusses innovative strategies to help finance infill development and replace aging infrastructure.

It includes comprehensive self-assessment questions communities can answer to determine if they are ready to pursue infill development and if particular strategies are appropriate for their context.

Many of the strategies in this publication stem from work in Fresno, California, that was part of the Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2) initiative, which provides intensive technical assistance and capacity building to economically distressed cities. EPA and the state of California partnered with the city to convene a task force of experts in development finance, law, public policy, planning, and business to identify strategies to promote infill that were feasible in Fresno’s challenging economic and fiscal environment. EPA developed this publication based in part on the task force’s work.

To access the report, click here.

11. The Party Analogy What do you do if you throw a party and everyone who shows up brings more to eat and drink than they themselves consume– whether they were specifically invited or not? You throw the doors as wide open as possible, of course. Everyone who shows up is making your party better, and so the more, the merrier.

What do you do if you throw a party and everyone who shows up– whether they were specifically invited or not– eats and drinks more than they themselves brought? You would be a fool if you didn’t shut the door and bar entry to anyone else. Your party is getting worse in a hurry and everyone who shows up only accelerates the decline.

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The city-building conversation is full of discussion regarding NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) behavior, including the moral dimension of what is good, decent and righteous. I’ve seen time and again people who move into a neighborhood and then say, “no more.” Whether the stated excuse for freezing the neighborhood in time is a fear of gentrification, environmental degradation or the loss of community character, the desire is the same: prevent what I just did from happening again.

I think it’s rather lazy to simply ascribe greed, selfishness and hypocrisy to these situations, as if there is a public policy approach we will agree on that will overcome human tendencies that have been welldocumented since before the earliest chapters of the Bible. We are human, and while I believe in a personal journey of growth, I understand that society is a collection of flawed people– good people who don’t always do good– and that, many times, our collective actions merely justify our worst personal desires. And note, I’m not exempting myself from this observation.

My approach, as always, is to try and understand the way past societies prospered despite being comprised of flawed humans, people with all the same shortcomings we have today. When we do that, one thing we quickly realize is that the Traditional Development approach – the way we built cities for thousands of years prior to the past century– was a good party, while our modern approach, what we call the Suburban Experiment, is a really bad party.

To access the full story, click here.

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