Monday Mailing 071519

Monday Mailing

Year 25 • Issue 42 15 July 2019 1.

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Oregon’s Tsunami Risk: Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Seas (Gabriel Leon) The Effects On Employment And Family Income Of Increasing The Federal Minimal Wage (Emily Bradley) A Year Ago, Richmond Debuted A New Bus System. Transit Ridership Is Up 17% (Corum Ketchum) The Internet Is Drowning (Emily Bradley) The Urbanist Case for Trailer Parks (Gabriel Leon) Americans Shouldn’t Have to Drive, But The Law Insists On It (Emily Bradley) Twenty Years Of Dam Removal Successes – And What’s Up Next Recession’s Impact Lingers For Food-Insecure Rural Seniors ‘Speak Up, Rural America,’ Say Small-Town Business Consultants Art Project On I-205 Pedestrian Bridge Caught In Bureaucratic Limbo Is Spared ‘Restoration’

1. Oregon’s Tsunami Risk: Between The Devil And The Deep

Blue Seas

Quote of the Week: “What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? — it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s goodbye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.

- Jack Kerouac

Oregon Fast Fact #15 The Chinook salmon is Oregon’s official state fish.

Other than asteroid strikes and atomic bombs, there is no more destructive force on this planet than water. Six inches of it, flowing at a mere seven miles per hour, will knock a grown man off his feet.

Two feet of it will sweep away most cars. Two cubic yards of it weighs well over a ton; if that much of it hits you at, say, twenty miles per hour, it will do as much damage to your body as a Subaru.

In rough seas, a regular ocean wave can break with a force of two thousand pounds per square foot, more than enough to snap a human neck. A rogue wave—one that is more than twice the height of those around it—can sink a nine-hundred-foot ship.

Keep scaling up the water, and you keep scaling up the trouble.

Eight years ago, a tsunami struck the northeast coast of Japan. A tsunami is not like a regular wave, and it is not like a rogue wave; it is more like a rogue ocean. It forms, most often, when an earthquake shifts the seabed and displaces all of the water above it.

That displaced water does not crest and fall; it simply rises, like an extremely high tide, until the entire water column is in motion, from seafloor to surface. Then it rolls inland, with ten or twenty or sixty miles of similar waves at its back, and demolishes everything in its path. The tsunami that struck Japan swept over eighteen-foot protective barriers, rushed through towns and cities, and tore them apart, so that those towns and cities became part of the wave, cars and trucks and warehouses and real houses swirling in the water. It reached a hundred and thirty feet high at its apex, travelled up to six miles inland, and killed almost twenty thousand people. Seven years earlier, a similar tsunami rose up out of the Indian Ocean on the day after Christmas, poured outward to India, Sri Lanka, Page 1 of 7

Thailand, and Indonesia, and left more than two hundred and eighty thousand people dead.

To access the full story, click here.

2. The Effects On Employment And Family Income Of Increasing The Federal Minimal

Wage The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour has not changed since 2009, though many states and localities have set their minimum wage above that level. Increasing the federal minimum wage would have two principal effects on low-wage workers. For most low-wage workers, earnings and family income would increase, which would lift some families out of poverty. But other low-wage workers would become jobless, and their family income would fall—in some cases, below the poverty threshold.

What Options for Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage Did CBO Examine?

CBO examined three options for increasing the federal minimum wage.

The first option would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour as of January 1, 2025.

That increase would be implemented in six annual increments starting on January 1, 2020. After reaching $15 in 2025, the minimum wage would be indexed, or tied, to median hourly wages.

The $15 option would also gradually eliminate exceptions to the minimum wage for tipped workers, teenage workers, and disabled workers.

The second option would raise the federal minimum wage to $12 per hour as of January 1, 2025.

The $12 option would be implemented on the same timeline as the $15 option but would not index the minimum wage to wage growth after 2025. It would leave in place current exceptions.

The third option would raise the federal minimum wage to $10 per hour as of January 1, 2025.

The $10 option would be implemented on the same timeline as the $15 and $12 options. Like the $12 option, it would not index the minimum wage to wage growth and would leave in place current exceptions.

To access the full story, click here.

3. A Year Ago, Richmond Debuted A New Bus System. Transit Ridership Is Up 17% Richmond, Virginia, has seen at least a 17% bump in transit ridership in the year since it debuted the city's bus rapid transit system, called GRTC Pulse, with average ridership on the new line double what planners initially expected.

At the same time, transit ridership nationally declined by nearly 2%.

So what is Richmond doing right?

Garland Williams, director of planning and scheduling with the Greater Richmond Transit Company, tells Here & Now a total redesign of the city and county's outdated bus system is paying significant dividends.

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"That roughly hadn't been done in about 30 years," Williams says.

The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy recently recognized Richmond's Pulse bus as one of the best rapid transit corridors in the country. It boasts features and amenities you might expect to see on a subway or light rail system, but with greater route flexibility — and all at a much cheaper cost.

"It has features that are very different than our local bus system: It has level boarding platforms, off-board fare collections," he says. "What it means is that you don't necessarily pay your fare like you would on a normal bus by getting on and using a fare box. So we have ... ticket vending machines at each one of the stations, you pay there prior to getting on, which actually helps us speed up the movement of our buses."

To access the full story, click here.

4. The Internet Is Drowning When the internet goes down, life as the modern American knows it grinds to a halt. Gone are the cute kitten photos and the Facebook status updates—but also gone are the signals telling stoplights to change from green to red, and doctors’ access to online patient records.

A vast web of physical infrastructure undergirds the internet connections that touch nearly every aspect of modern life. Delicate fiber optic cables, massive data transfer stations, and power stations create a patchwork of literal nuts and bolts that facilitates the flow of zeros and ones.

Now, research shows that a whole lot of that infrastructure sits squarely in the path of rising seas. (See what the planet would look like if all the ice melted.)

Scientists mapped out the threads and knots of internet infrastructure in the U.S. and layered that on top of maps showing future sea level rise. What they found was ominous: Within 15 years, thousands of miles of fiber optic cable—and hundreds of pieces of other key infrastructure—are likely to be swamped by the encroaching ocean. And while some of that infrastructure may be water resistant, little of it was designed to live fully underwater.

“So much of the infrastructure that's been deployed is right next to the coast, so it doesn't take much more than a few inches or a foot of sea level rise for it to be underwater,” says study coauthor Paul Barford, a computer scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “It was all was deployed 20ish years ago, when no one was thinking about the fact that sea levels might come up.” [Learn about how cities may be underwater soon].

“This will be a big problem,” says Rae Zimmerman, an expert on urban adaptation to climate change at NYU. Large parts of internet infrastructure soon “will be underwater, unless they're moved back pretty quickly.”

To access the full story, click here.

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5. The Urbanist Case for Trailer Parks Earlier this summer, the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University released its annual report on the state of housing affordability in America. The findings aren’t pretty.

According to the study, the percentage of cost-burdened renters—households spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing—continues to rise, as rents have risen 12 times faster than income over the last half century.

What’s a policymaker to do? As housing advocates howl for more construction and NIMBYS square off with YIMBYs over density in many cities, state and local leaders find themselves with limited options. Although programs like the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and Section 8 have been successful at increasing affordable housing and defraying rising rents, federal policy is unlikely to provide a comprehensive fix for the mounting housing crisis soon. Cities need to find politically palatable, low-cost ways of adding housing now. Luckily, we already have a source of market-provided housing that’s self-funded, affordable, and efficient. There’s just one snag: In many of the places it’s needed most, it’s illegal. Policymakers should act now to legalize manufactured housing.

Often hidden away at the fringes of towns and cities by physical or regulatory barriers, various forms of manufactured housing—call them trailer homes, mobile homes, modular homes, or even tiny houses—earn the rare distinction of being among the only forms of new housing provided by the market for mostly low-income households. They now shelter about 20 million Americans. But “Bring on the double-wides!” hasn’t exactly been a rallying cry for urbanists and affordability activists.

To access the full story, click here.

6. Americans Shouldn’t Have to Drive, But The Law Insists On It In a country where the laws compel the use of cars, Americans are condemned to lose friends and relatives to traffic violence. My childhood neighbor was a varsity student-athlete, the president of the junior class, and the most popular girl in school. One day in September 1995, a car crash took her life. She had been driving home on the freeway when her car went across the median and collided with one going the opposite direction, killing both drivers. A third vehicle was said to have struck her car moments before, causing her to lose control. The police put out a call for information, apparently without success.

My neighbor’s passing was shocking and heartbreaking. But at the time, it felt like a basically unavoidable tragedy. In our small city in Michigan—like almost everywhere in America—driving is the price of first-class citizenship. We never stopped to ask whether a different bargain was possible. Since her passing, approximately 1 million more Americans have been killed in car crashes.

In America, the freedom of movement comes with an asterisk: the obligation to drive. This truism has been echoed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has pronounced car ownership a “virtual necessity.” The Court’s pronouncement is telling. Yes, in a sense, America is cardependent by choice—but it is also car-dependent by law.

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As I detail in a forthcoming journal article, over the course of several generations lawmakers rewrote the rules of American life to conform to the interests of Big Oil, the auto barons, and the car-loving 1 percenters of the Roaring Twenties. They gave legal force to a mind-set—let’s call it automobile supremacy—that kills 40,000 Americans a year and seriously injures more than 4 million more. Include all those harmed by emissions and climate change, and the damage is even greater. As a teenager growing up in the shadow of Detroit, I had no reason to feel this was unjust, much less encouraged by law. It is both.

To access the full story, click here.

7. Twenty Years Of Dam Removal Successes – And What’s Up Next Twenty years ago, the annual run of alewives (a migratory fish essential to the marine food web) up Maine’s Kennebec River was zero. Today, it’s five million — thanks to the removal of Edwards Dam and additional restoration measures upstream. The Kennebec and its web of life have rebounded in many ways since Edwards Dam came down in 1999.

The removal of Edwards Dam was significant because it was the first time the federal government ordered a dam removed because its costs outweighed its benefits. The restoration of the Kennebec sparked a movement for free-flowing rivers in the U.S. and around the world.

According to the dam removal database maintained by American Rivers, 1,605 dams have been removed in the U.S. since 1912. Most of these (1,199) have occurred since the removal of Edwards Dam in 1999. The year with the most dam removals was 2018 (99 dams removed).

2017 was the second most productive year, with 91 dams removed.

The lesson from the Kennebec after twenty years? Dam removal works. Our partners at the Natural Resources Council of Maine report that since Edwards Dam was removed on July 1, 1999, tens of millions of alewives, blueback herring, striped bass, shad, and other sea-run fish have traveled up the Kennebec River, past the former Edwards Dam, which blocked upstream passage since 1837. Abundant osprey, bald eagles, sturgeon and other wildlife have also returned.

“The precedent setting 1999 Edwards Dam removal continues to surprise us all with the dramatic recovery of the river and its native fish,” said Steve Brooke, who worked for American Rivers in Maine and led the Kennebec Coalition. “Each year the numbers of returning fish grow and document the fact that our rivers can restore themselves given a chance.”

On a basic level, dam removals matter for the specific rivers and ecosystems that are restored to health. But looking at the bigger picture, dam removals also matter in terms of our relationship with all rivers – because with every individual act of restoration we’re creating a new and compelling picture of what the future can look like. We’re spotlighting the benefits that healthy, free-flowing rivers can naturally provide. We’re demonstrating the power of local citizens to drive positive change. And we’re proving that communities can reclaim their rivers and their stories.

To access the full story, click here.

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8. Recession’s Impact Lingers For Food-Insecure Rural Seniors Betsy, a food bank recipient in rural Kentucky, never expected to need handouts of food.

For nearly 35 years, she had a good job making decent money. But now, at age 51, she suffers from health problems and often has to decide between buying food or medicine. (EDITOR’S NOTE: This story uses the first names of food-pantry recipients to protect their privacy.)

Decisions like those are part of the reason senior citizens in rural America are facing food insecurity, a new study shows. In fact, one in five rural seniors has difficulties getting enough to eat.

According to Dr. James Ziliak, director of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Poverty Research and the co-author of the study, nearly 30 percent of senior citizens living below the poverty line are food insecure, or concerned they won’t have anything to eat. About half of those seniors, defined as 60 years and older, have very low food security, meaning they frequently worry about access to food.

Of the top 10 states for food insecurity in seniors, nine of them are in the Southeast.

The study shows that while the economy has recovered since the Great Recession, it hasn’t recovered as quickly for those in rural areas. Lack of jobs, lack of access to food and lack of income are hampering seniors’ ability to rest assured that they will have food when they want it, Ziliak says.

To access the full story, click here.

9. ‘Speak Up, Rural America,’ Say Small-Town Business Consultants In just five minutes, you can help shape the rural narrative.

Deb Brown and Becky McCray of SaveYour.Town are gathering data on the needs of rural communities that they believe will transform conversations about the challenges and futures of small towns.

“We’re looking to see how well-publicized issues like drug abuse and poverty rank versus other challenges, whether small business lending gets rated higher than the lack of usable buildings. …

Those are just a few of the highlights we’re watching for,” said McCray.

Now in its third biennial run, the Survey of Rural Challenges asks for input from rural folks on two key questions: community challenges and business challenges.

Each question is followed with a series of requests for “help” from the folks at SaveYour.Town, such as, “Help, no one shops in town! How can we get people to shop local first?”

“Each one also has an open-ended answer, where you write in some other problem,” McCray said. “Those are always fascinating. People give us a ton of information there about what’s going on in their communities.”

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The survey also asks a few demographic questions to help surveyors better understand the worldview of respondents. And, new this year, the rural gurus are working with a communitydevelopment specialist at Oklahoma State University, Dr. Dave Shideler, who suggested a third main question: “What things are you trying?”

To access the full story, click here.

10. Art Project On I-205 Pedestrian Bridge Caught In Bureaucratic Limbo Is Spared

‘Restoration’ Just after midnight on June 3, Amy Hoffmann stood on what had always been a drab concrete pedestrian bridge spanning Interstate 205 in her Lents neighborhood.

The Southeast Steele Street footbridge is a vital part of the Portland neighborhood’s daytime life, as parents and kids shuffle back and forth across the freeway to Oliver P. Lent School just east of the torrent of traffic. Hoffmann said she would never normally go to the pedestrian bridge at night. But she had to see it this night, so she snuck out without her waking her husband and kids.

“It did not feel dark and scary at all,” Hoffmann said. “It was such a magical moment.”

Hours earlier, Hoffmann and more than 60 neighborhood residents of all ages spent the day injecting life into the sad, utilitarian structure encased by a chain-link arch-like roof. They painted chickens, bees, hearts, quotes from Malcolm X and Kanye West, an homage to the nearby Portland Pickles baseball team and more amid a backdrop of bright warm colors.

The volunteer-led project, funded through hundreds of dollars in donations from the neighborhood and area business, wrapped up six hours later. The Pickles donated coffee and mascot Dillon the Pickle and some players helped paint.

Then on July 3, the email from Oregon Department of Transportation officials arrived, demanding Hoffmann “restore all unpermitted painted areas back to previous conditions.” The state gave her until July 10 to paint the bridge gray again.

“If there is any unpermitted art work after ODOT’s restoration, it can result in legal action,” the state wrote.

To access the full story, click here.

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