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Monday Mailing Quote of the Week: “Whether fuel cell system development in central Oregon, wind power generation along the Columbia Gorge, or geothermal energy in southern Oregon, investing in new energy sources makes America more energy independent while creating good paying, environmentally friendly jobs.” ~Greg Walden Oregon Fast Fact: The H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest is one of the largest longterm ecological research sites in the United States.

Year 23 • Issue 38 10 July 2017 1. More Than 250 US Mayors Commit to 100% Renewable Energy Amidst Adoption of New Climate Resolution 2. This Map Shows Which Parts of The U.S. Will Suffer Most From Climate Change 3. New Ruralism: Solutions for Struggling Small Towns 4. The Final Bar? How Gentrification Threatens America's Music Cities 5. Southern Exposure: Tsunami Survival Tips Gleaned From Japan 6. Oregon House Passes $3.8 Billion Transportation Tax and Spending Bill 7. Nearby Nature for Human Health: Sites to Systems 8. Dense Urbanism is Great for Downtowns. But What About Suburbs?

9. Mountains Are Warming Twice as Fast as The Rest of The World 10. Our Town Grant Program 11. Can Food Hubs Boost Rural Farming Economies 1. More Than 250 US Mayors Commit to 100% Renewable Energy Amidst Adoption of New Climate Resolution More than 250 United States mayors have adopted a new bipartisan climate change resolution that includes a push for US cities to commit to 100% renewable energy by 2035, further widening the divide between US cities and their new Commander in Chief.

The resolution was adopted at the 85th Annual Meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors, which was held from June 23 to 26 in Miami Beach. The resolution is in fact an all-encompassing energy resolution, including numerous functions intended to reverse climate change, and increase US city leadership in the fight against climate change. The resolution focuses on a wide variety of issues that US cities will attempt to take leadership on, including energy efficiency, the electrification of the US transportation sector, driving city and energy technology innovation, and of course supporting cities in their transition to 100% renewable energy generation.

To access the full story, click here.

2. This Map Shows Which Parts of The U.S. Will Suffer Most From Climate Change If you live in Texas or Louisiana, your community will be harder hit by climate change than cities in New Hampshire or Oregon. By the end of the century, if emissions continue unchecked, some parts of the U.S. will see far greater economic damage from climate than others–and because the communities that will be affected most tend to be poorer, the shift will also widen income inequality.

A new map shows the projected county-by-county damages for the last two decades of the century, with the counties facing the heaviest burden shown in dark red. Those in green are likely to see some economic benefit, though as temperatures continue to warm, those

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benefits may be temporary. The impacts are highest in the South, where temperatures are already hotter.

“One of the overarching patterns that we’ve seen in real world data, over and over again, is that when you’re hot, getting hotter is much more damaging than if you start out pretty cool,” says Solomon Hsiang, an associate professor of public policy at the University of California-Berkeley and one of the authors of a new study that used state-of-the-art statistical methods and more than 100 climate projections to calculate the local costs of climate change.

To access the full story, click here.

3. New Ruralism: Solutions for Struggling Small Towns New Urbanism is a well-known movement that aims to create more walkable communities. Less known is New Ruralism, which is focused on the preservation and enhancement of rural communities beyond the edge of metropolitan regions. Small towns now part of this nascent movement seek to define themselves on their own terms, not just in relation to nearby cities. These towns are more than “just food sheds for metro areas,” explained Peg Hough, Vermont, planner and environmental advocate with Community-resilience.org, at the American Planning Association (APA) annual conference in New York City. Representatives from three northeastern states — Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire — explained how the principles of New Ruralism can help suffering communities.

In many struggling small northeastern rural towns, the drug epidemic has ravaged communities already weakened by the loss of manufacturing jobs. But it’s clear there are also many using “creative economy” approaches to revitalize themselves. Through her organization, Hough has collected case studies of success stories in Vermont. The communities making themselves more resilient share some important values: “volunteerism, empowerment, ingenuity, creativity, cooperation, entrepreneurism, local ownership, and self-sufficiency,” Hough said, adding that “leadership is key.”

For more information, click here.

4. The Final Bar? How Gentrification Threatens America's Music Cities At a Sixth Street bar in the heart of Austin, Texas a pop up version of Seb’s jazz club from the Hollywood hit film La La Land is being set up – its blue letters yet to be switched on. Nearby, a replica of Breaking Bad’s Los Pollos Hermanos fast food restaurant has appeared, causing a minor Twitter frenzy.

These are just two of the attractions materialising in the city in time for the music and media festival South by Southwest (SXSW), and throughout the 10 days of the event it is hard to find someone who isn’t wearing an official SXSW wristband worth $1,000.

What started 30 years ago as a celebration of Austin’s local music scene, though, is now in danger of harming the very thing that made it unique. SXSW brings in hundreds of artists from around the world, 200,000 visitors and $325.3m (£250m) to the city’s economy. Its success has helped Austin establish music as a fundamental part of its development, but at the same time, as many as 20% of musicians in this self-appointed “live music capital of the world” survive below the federal poverty line.

To access the full story, click here.

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5. Southern Exposure: Tsunami Survival Tips Gleaned From Japan This spring, Clatsop County Emergency Manager Tiffany Brown and Oregon State University Extension Coastal Natural Hazards Specialist Patrick Corcoran joined a delegation of about 50 sponsored by the Greater Portland Inc. economic development agency on a community resilience study mission in Japan to observe firsthand how public agencies and citizens have recovered from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which left almost 16,000 confirmed dead.

What can Clatsop County benefit from the experience? Corcoran shared his thoughts on preparedness, evacuation and adjusting our mindset to meet a Cascadia Subduction Zone event.

Q: How does the Japanese attitude and level of preparedness differ from ours?

A: For 1,000 years they’ve continually been dealing with earthquakes and tsunamis. These are people who have experience, discipline and practice. I came back from Japan basically with my top 10 reasons why Japan is not an analog for Oregon, or a model for what we should do. The exact opposite. In 2017, it was all about engineering show, I never saw more cranes and backhoes, massive excavation projects and 3-kilometer seawalls — it just goes on and on, and that’s in a community of 20,000. Our default approach is “don’t expect this to happen” and then get bailed out by the government after it happens.

To access the full story, click here.

6. Oregon House Passes $3.8 Billion Transportation Tax and Spending Bill SALEM — The Oregon House approved a major transportation tax and spending bill Wednesday, a key step toward state lawmakers wrapping up their 2017 session.

The bill would raise $3.8 billion in new tax and fee revenue over the next seven years to be spent on road and bridge maintenance, new highway construction and transit services around the state.

House Bill 2017 passed on a bipartisan 39-20 vote, with 28 Democrats and 11 Republicans in favor.

As a tax-raising measure, the package needed at least 36 “yes” votes. The bill now heads to the Senate, where it’s expected to pass.

To access the full story, click here.

7. Nearby Nature for Human Health: Sites to Systems While many cities have created rich systems of public parks, presenting residents with ample opportunity to linger in nature, the same cannot be said for all urban settings. That need not be the case. In the report, “Nearby Nature for Human Health: Sites to Systems,” the authors provide a “how to” on creating systems of linked parks and open spaces that can become health support systems, offering opportunities for city residents to be outdoors in pleasant environments.

To access the report, click here.

8. Dense Urbanism is Great for Downtowns. But What About Suburbs?

Post-war America has largely been built around cars. Many existing cities (including my home of Seattle) permanently scarred themselves with new urban freeways. Newer cities were oriented around freeways, extending out into low-density suburban development — the kinds of places where virtually any activity outside the home requires a car.

Though the status quo of big, bland, car-centric subdivisions retains enormous inertia, there is now a real counter-movement of urbanists trying to reclaim the virtues of pre-car towns and cities: scale,

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character, and walkability. As low-density developments become a drain on regional budgets — the infrastructure and service costs exceed the tax revenue — city officials are listening.

To access the full story, click here.

9. Mountains Are Warming Twice as Fast as The Rest of The World As the 20th century ended, there were still quite a few mountain men in Austria—guides, farmers, and the like—who were not at all convinced that humans were causing the planet to warm. Theirs wasn't a cynical ideological skepticism, but rather a pragmatic view of the world based on a close connection to the rhythm of nature in the mountains.

The mountains have always changed, they would tell you over a mug of beer and a shot of pungent schnapps brewed from the roots of mountain herbs. We are small, nature is great, they would say, nodding in respect toward the lofty crags of the Alps.

To access the full story, click here.

10. Our Town Grant Program The Our Town grant program supports creative placemaking projects that help to transform communities into lively, beautiful, and resilient places – achieving these community goals through strategies that incorporate arts, culture, and/or design. Creative placemaking is when artists, arts organizations, and community development practitioners deliberately integrate arts and culture into community revitalization work - placing arts at the table with land-use, transportation, economic development, education, housing, infrastructure, and public safety strategies. This funding supports local efforts to enhance quality of life and opportunity for existing residents, increase creative activity, and create or preserve a distinct sense of place.

Through Our Town, subject to the availability of funding, the National Endowment for the Arts will provide a limited number of grants for creative placemaking. Our Town requires partnerships between arts organizations and government, other nonprofit organizations, and private entities to achieve livability goals for communities.

Our Town offers support for projects in two areas: 

Arts Engagement, Cultural Planning, and Design Projects. These projects represent the distinct character and quality of their communities. These projects require a partnership between a nonprofit organization and a local government entity, with one of the partners being a cultural organization. Matching grants range from $25,000 to $200,000.

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Projects that Build Knowledge About Creative Placemaking. These projects are available to arts and design service organizations, and industry, policy, or university organizations that provide technical assistance to those doing place-based work. Matching grants range from $25,000 to $100,000.

Through Our Town projects, the National Endowment for the Arts intends to achieve the following objective: Livability: American communities are strengthened through the arts. See "Livability" for more details.

For more information, click here.

11. Can Food Hubs Boost Rural Farming Economies Page 4 of 5

Dan Hobbs farms 30 acres of land east of Pueblo, Colorado. For years, he spent weekends traveling hours to farmers markets to sell his produce, always losing a day in the fields and returning home with leftover vegetables that didn’t sell.

Other farmers in the area were facing the same issues, so a local farmer-networking group called the Arkansas Valley Organic Growers decided they had to find a better way to support local food. In 2013, they leased out Excelsior Middle School in nearby Boone, which had sat vacant for two decades. Their idea was to use the building as a community food hub: Local farmers pay a fee to the organization to bring their food to the school building, where it’s sold wholesale at an affordable price for consumers. That way, the hub can compete with chain grocery stores. Instead of traveling to markets every week and advertising their own products, farmers store their surplus in freezers there, and workers at the hub are responsible for marketing, selling and distributing the food to customers, hospitals, and schools in Pueblo and across the region.

The Excelsior Farmers Exchange now has a chile roaster, seed storage area, and a full commercial kitchen so members can process and prepare food, which allows them an opportunity to expand their product lines. And Hobbs, one of the first farmers to sell there, only has to drive five miles to drop off his produce. To yield a larger amount of crops, he now grows a smaller variety and sells for less than he did at markets, but he crunched the numbers – working with the hub is already paying off.

To access the full story, click here.

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