Monday Mailing 070119

Monday Mailing

Year 25 • Issue 40 1 July 2019 1. What If Bike Paths Looked Like Subway Maps? (Corum Ketchum) 2. Climate Fight Lays Bare A Divide Between Rural, Urban Oregon (Michael Hoch) 3. Don’t Call Trump’s Housing Order A YIMBY Plan (Gabriel Leon) 4. E.O. Wilson at 90: The Conservation Legend Shares Dreams For The Future 5. I Went To Australia To Test Out Tesla’s Vision Of The Future (Corum Ketchum) 6. Oregon Senate Republicans Will Return To Work Saturday 7. ‘Climate Apartheid’: Rich People To Buy Their Way Out Of Environmental Crisis While Poor Suffer, Warns UN 8. Federal Efforts To Help Rural Hospitals Could Hurt Urban Ones, Opponents Say 9. Affordable Housing For Minimum Wage Workers Doesn’t Exist 10. The Food Business Incubator That Helps Immigrant Women Pursue The American Dream 1. What If Bike Paths Looked Like Subway Maps?

CityLab readers: Sometimes you scare us.

Quote of the Week:

“There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life's July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Oregon Fast Fact #37

The Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area is a spectacular river canyon cutting the only sea-level route through the Cascade Mountain Range.

Not only are you intimidatingly smart, many of you are professional experts in the topics we try to cover. Others are self-taught aficionados in urban planning or cartography—in other words, obsessive city-stuff superfans.

That may be the case with Michael Graham, who sent CityLab an actual snail-mail letter a few weeks back with a QR code linking us to his Spider Bike Maps page.

His cool idea: Make maps for bike infrastructure as if the lanes, trails, and paths constituted a connected transit system.

Graham became fascinated with London’s bus maps on a family vacation there in 2004. The bus route diagrams in London are sometimes referred to as “spider maps” and they are designed to help make bus routes as intuitive as the lines of the London Underground for the people that use them.

A simplified spider map of London’s bike trails. Photo by Michael Graham.

Later on, Graham learned all about Harry Beck, the draftsman who broke from geographic fidelity to devise a stylized map for the London Underground. Beck drew inspiration from an electrical schematic to create the prototypical transit map for the system in

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1931. He used colors to represent different subway lines and made the lines intersect at either 45 or 90 degree angles. “The map of almost every subway system in the world has converged upon some approximation of Beck’s design,” Graham says. “I think people appreciate the simplicity; it makes complex information easier to understand.”

To access the full story, click here.

2. Climate Fight Lays Bare A Divide Between Rural, Urban Oregon The divide in Oregon between the state’s liberal cities and its conservative and economically depressed rural areas has made it fertile ground for the political crisis unfolding over a push by Democrats to enact sweeping climate legislation.

Eleven Republican senators were in the seventh day of a walkout Wednesday to deny the supermajority Democrats the number of lawmakers needed to vote on a cap and trade bill, which would be the second of its kind in the U.S. The stalemate has drawn international attention, in part because right-wing militias have rallied to the GOP cause.

One Republican lawmaker said state troopers dispatched to hunt down the striking lawmakers should “come heavily armed” if they want to bring him back to the Capitol.

“This is not the Oregon way and cannot be rewarded,” Democratic Gov. Kate Brown said. “The Republicans are driving us away from the values that Oregonians hold dear, and are moving us dangerously close to the self-serving stalemate in Washington, D.C.” Experts say the standoff was inevitable given the state’s political makeup.

Oregon has a national reputation as a liberal bastion best known for its craft beer, doughnuts and award-winning wine. But while its cities lean left, about 40% of residents — mostly those in rural areas — consistently vote Republican, said Priscilla Southwell, a University of Oregon professor who wrote “Governing Oregon.”

To access the full story, click here.

3. Don’t Call Trump’s Housing Order A YIMBY Plan

The president just signed an executive order calling for states and cities to pursue zoning reform. But affordable housing advocates aren’t celebrating.

On Tuesday, President Trump signed an executive order to establish the White House Council on Eliminating Barriers to Affordable Housing Development. The new council, chaired by Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, will “address, reduce, and remove the multitude of overly burdensome regulatory barriers that artificially raise the cost of housing development and help to cause the lack of housing supply.”

In other words: The administration wants to loosen restrictive zoning and building regulations, increase the supply of housing, and bring housing costs down.

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At first glance, this sounds like a call to adopt the upzoning prescription that progressive leaders and advocates of the “Yes In My Backyard” movement have been demanding in cities across America to address a deepening housing-supply problem. Minneapolis just eliminated singlefamily zoning within city limits as a means of increasing the supply of multifamily housing and combating the legacy of racial segregation. Seattle upzoned a few dozen neighborhoods to ease its tech-saturated affordability crisis; California has tried (and so far failed) to push a broad zoning reform bill, SB 50, statewide. Democratic 2020 candidates like Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren have all adopted different variations on the theme in their presidential campaign platforms.

To access the full story, click here.

4. E.O. Wilson at 90: The Conservation Legend Shares Dreams For The Future Wilson’s message is as strong as ever: Saving space for non-human life will save humanity.

National Geographic paid a visit recently to Edward O. Wilson, one of the great figures in biology and conservation of this, or any, century. Wilson, who turned 90 on June 10, sat in the plantfilled conservatory at his retirement community outside of Boston and reflected on threequarters of a century of insights into the astounding diversity of species on Earth, the mounting troubles at the intersection of nature and human nature, and strategies for saving wild things and, in so doing, saving ourselves.

In each comment, Wilson, retired only in the most technical sense, looked forward more than back, eager to spur everyone from school children to the world’s elected leaders to save space for non-human life and fend off a brewing mass extinction. He described his work on the final stages of another book, which he’s calling “Tales from the Ant World,” preparations for a July 6 “bioblitz”—a saturation exploration by students and scientists of the nearby Walden Woods immortalized by Thoreau—and correspondence with officials in his home state of Alabama about a long-held vision to expand parks there.

He laid out afresh his argument for the audacious conservation target he called for in his 2016 book, Half-Earth: for humans to set aside half of our planet’s terrestrial and oceanic space for other species within the next few decades. He insists that it is both essential and achievable.

Conserving this amount of space for nature, he has calculated, can safeguard some 85 percent of the world’s species, offering the prospect of a sustainable long-term human relationship with the planet once our population stabilizes and we learn how to satisfy human needs without undermining ecological health.

To access the full story, click here.

5. I Went To Australia To Test Out Tesla’s Vision Of The Future

Forget about Tesla’s cars for a minute — about the self-driving taxis or semis or whatever else Tesla CEO Elon Musk is currently hyped about on Twitter. This story is about the virtue of being boring, a perhaps underappreciated thing in our day and age. This is a story about not changing your life and how much better that can make it. That’s what Tesla is selling in terms of renewable energy: your life, but with fewer fossil fuels. Your house, powered by solar.

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I wanted to know what that would be like in reality. That’s how I find myself in an Australian mansion powered by Tesla’s solar panels and Powerwall batteries, driving a Model X. I can tell you firsthand that renewable energy isn’t exciting. That’s what makes it so compelling.

On the drive to the mansion, signs warn me to be careful of wildlife, complete with a portrait of what I am guessing is a wombat. A representative from Tesla picked me up at the nearest airport to Byron Bay and sat next to me while I figured out how to drive on the left. (Lane tracking helped.) When I arrive, I count the bedrooms. There are five, decorated with a minimum of personality. The master bedroom is entirely white and approximately the size of my last studio apartment. Besides the walk-in closet and king-size bed, there’s also an enormous sunken tub that looks out at what I am told is called the hinterland. Among my neighbors in the hinterland are some manner of Hemsworth brothers.

The tub is big enough that there’s a bench you can sit on. So, naturally, I run a bath and then slide into it to watch the sunset. Here I am, at the very first Tesla Destination in Australia, a home just outside Byron Bay, a surfer / hippie town that’s been overrun by rich people, possibly as a result of Hemsworthiness. The point of a Tesla Destination, as I understand it, is that it’s a place with a charger for your electric car. In my case, this is a Tesla Model X, an SUV that Musk has described as a “Fabergé egg.”

To access the full story, click here.

6. Oregon Senate Republicans Will Return To Work Saturday Senate Republicans will return to work Saturday following a nine-day walkout, setting the stage for a weekend where lawmakers sprint toward adjournment.

As expected, Senate Minority Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr., R-Grants Pass, announced in a press conference Friday morning his members would be in the building at 9 a.m. Saturday. That comes after Democratic leaders offered assurances a sweeping climate change bill, House Bill 2020, will not pass this session.

“The Senate president says it will be dead, the governor says it will be dead, and members of the Democratic caucus will be voting ‘no,’” said Baertschiger, in his first public appearance since Republicans walked out last week.

Baertschiger had strongly suggested in an interview OPB earlier Friday his members were prepared to get back to work.

With Republicans’ presence seemingly assured, the question becomes how quickly lawmakers in both chambers can pass more than 100 remaining bills before they are forced to adjourn Sunday at midnight. Baertschiger said Friday that his party would decline to grant a blanket rules suspension that would allow all legislation to be fast-tracked.

Though he repeatedly professed to believe Democrat promises the bill was dead, Baertschiger said Republicans worried such a suspension could lead HB 2020 to be brought forward at the last minute. He said his party would grant suspension for a portion of bills.

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Baertschiger also signaled his party wants the Senate to take up budget bills first. That’s not likely to be warmly received by Democrats, who have insisted that remaining policy bills be passed before the Legislature takes up bills to complete a state budget. They say giving up those bills would amount to another concession, in a year when Democrats have already scuttled bills on climate change, guns and vaccines in the face of Republican walkouts.

To access the full story, click here.

7. ‘Climate Apartheid’: Rich People To Buy Their Way Out Of Environmental Crisis While Poor Suffer, Warns UN

Wealthy communities will be able to buy their way out of the unfolding climate crisis while the poorest will suffer most, a UN report has found.

Even under the unrealistic "best-case" scenario of 1.5C of warming by 2100, many millions of people will have to choose between starvation and migration, Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights warned.

He predicted a split between those able to mitigate the worst effects of the warming planet and those with no means to avoid it, calling it a "climate apartheid".

And he said the fallout from our rapidly warming climate would have dire implications for human rights and democracy.

"What was once considered catastrophic warming now seems like a best-case scenario," Mr Alston said.

"While people in poverty are responsible for just a fraction of global emissions, they will bear the brunt of climate change, and have the least capacity to protect themselves.

To access the full story, click here.

8. Federal Efforts To Help Rural Hospitals Could Hurt Urban Ones, Opponents Say

A Trump administration proposal calls for increasing Medicare reimbursements for some rural hospitals by taking money from hospitals in major urban areas. Both opponents and proponents of the measure say the entire Medicare reimbursement system needs an overhaul.

While proposed changes to Medicare reimbursements to hospitals may keep some rural hospitals from closing, industry executives say the entire system of reimbursement needs to be reformulated.

A proposal by the Trump administration would raise reimbursement rates for some rural hospitals by taking the money from reimbursements to the richest hospitals. Advocates for rural hospitals say it is a way to save those hospitals from closing. But hospital advocates in urban areas say their hospitals shouldn’t be penalized to help those in poorer communities. Still others say the way reimbursements are determined is flawed.

For some rural hospitals, the proposal could be a game-changer. But about half of all rural hospitals won’t be affected by the changes.

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Currently, Medicare reimbursement for hospitals is determined by the U.S. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) using the “area wage index,” which adjusts a hospital’s reimbursement rate based on how much the hospital pays its staff. Hospitals report their wages to the CMS, where they are compared to wages in their respective labor markets. The index is intended to create an annually updated measure that shows how hospital wages compare across regions.

To access the full story, click here.

9. Affordable Housing For Minimum Wage Workers Doesn’t Exist

The affordable housing crisis for low-income workers in the United States was put in stark terms by the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s (NLIHC) annual Out of Reach report on Tuesday.

According to the report, fair market rent for one-bedroom rentals in 99 percent of counties in the U.S. are not affordable—with affordable defined as 30 percent or less of a renter’s income— for a full-time minimum wage worker; there are currently 1.8 million people making minimum wage or less. While the federal minimum wage has remained stuck at $7.25 since the aftermath of the financial crisis, rents have risen at a steady clip between 2.5 and 4 percent since 2012, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

On the national level, affordable rent for someone living on Social Security income—roughly 8 million people—would be just $231 per month. For someone living on minimum wage it’s $377, and for someone making the average renter wage, it’s $913. These amounts are all lower than the national average fair market rent for a one-bedroom—$970.

With Americans feeling the pinch across the country, housing has become a national issue that’s picking up steam among 2020 presidential candidates. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris have all released housing plans, and NLIHC president and CEO Diane Yentel believes the report shows that the federal government needs to act.

To access the full story, click here.

10. The Food Business Incubator That Helps Immigrant Women Pursue The American

Dream

"La Cocina" means "the kitchen" in Spanish. It's also the name of a business incubator based in San Francisco's Mission District. Since it began in 2005, it's been helping local food entrepreneurs, many of whom are low-income immigrant women, develop their small businesses.

Over the years, many of its alumni have found success: More than 50 chefs in its program have become self-sufficient business owners, and many of them have opened their own brick-andmortar restaurants. Two alumnae of its culinary program, Nite Yun and Reem Assil, were even recognized as semi-finalists for prestigious James Beard awards.

A new cookbook, We are La Cocina: Recipes in Pursuit of the American Dream, tells some of their stories.

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Executive director Caleb Zigas says the non-profit La Cocina grew out of two grassroots economic development organization who found many people cooking at their homes and selling food on the streets. The vendors needed an affordable commercial kitchen space and technical assistance in order for their businesses to be legally viable. La Cocina provided just such a space, in addition to helping them develop business plans, pull city permits and more.

Zigas says as many as eight businesses can work in the kitchen space at La Cocina at any one time. Some can prep for a farmer's market sale, corporate catering gigs or weddings, while others might be making and packaging their food products.

"It's just an incredible and exciting range of techniques, flavors, perspectives, age, language. And that's a really beautiful thing," he says. "But I think we would be doing a disservice to reality of the space if we also didn't talk about how tense that can be, to have that many people from different places in the world come together, certainly with a shared purpose."

Later this year, La Cocina plans to open a marketplace in the Tenderloin District.

To access the full story, click here.

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