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Seattle is on the global path
What it takes to be a world-class city
Andrea James, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
If Seattle is an international city, as its political leaders declare, its economy, people and appearance are subject to global trends.
Business leaders gained a glimpse of those trends — economist-inspired insights into how global forces are already affecting downtown Seattle — on Thursday morning at a State of Downtown economic forum.
Economists and researchers at Denver consulting firm Progressive Urban Management Associates have identified 10 global trends that affect downtown cores. Economist and company president Brad Segal presented the findings Thursday, along with data specific to Seattle.
Among the points:
# The suburban life — with its sport utility vehicles and big green lawns — will become increasingly expensive because of long commutes and scarce natural resources, thus making downtowns more popular. Aging retirees and young people also are flocking to urban cores.
That means that Seattle’s public schools need to improve, downtown needs to become more family-friendly and the city needs to offer diverse price points in housing, Segal said.
# The growing national, mortgage and consumer debts, combined with more people retiring, could impede investment. “America’s growing debt burden looms as an economic cloud,” Segal said. “The type of stress it puts on us is astounding.”
# The cities of the future will be teeming with well-educated young women. They increasingly outnumber men in college enrollment and will form a majority of the work force by 2010. Seattle ranks fifth nationally in the number of college-educated young women.
Cities will appeal by giving those women fun things to do. “Women tend to recreate more than men,” Segal said.
# The cities with an advantage will be ones with strong public transportation systems. Transportation is Seattle’s biggest vulnerability, Segal said.
(7 February 2008)
New rules for front gardens to fight floods
Rebecca Smithers, Guardian
The government yesterday declared war on the traditional right of homeowners to cover their front gardens with asphalt, as part of a drive to save water and reduce the risk of flooding. New legislation will mean that only areas made of gravel or porous bricks or paving, which provide better drainage than hard surfaces, will not need planning permission.
The measure is included in a document published yesterday by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which sets out proposals aimed at improving water conservation and efficiency in England.
Ministers also called on consumers to limit the use of appliances such as power showers, dishwashers and washing machines, and to conserve rainwater for domestic use through the use of water butts. They want to reverse the trend of rising water use and cut individual consumption from current levels of around 150 litres per person per day to 130 litres, or even 120 litres if possible.
An independent review of water charging was also announced, which could lead to “near universal” water metering in homes in the most drought-hit parts of England by 2030.
(8 February 2008)
In Many Communities, It’s Not Easy Going Green
Felicity Barringer, New York Times
… But even in Arlington, county officials are reckoning with the fact that though green is the dream, the shade of civic achievement is closer to olive drab. Constraints on budgets, legal restrictions by states, and people’s unwillingness to change sometimes put brakes on ambitious plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
Emissions are stubborn things. In Arlington, emissions per capita are now 15 tons annually and rising. In Sonoma County, Calif., the figure is close to nine tons. Arlington is not alone in bumping up against obstacles.
“We have been doing things like filling potholes and reducing crime since cities began,” said David N. Cicilline, the mayor of Providence, R.I., but energy efficiency requires “a whole new infrastructure to evaluate and measure.”
… Ann Hancock, the executive director of the Climate Protection Campaign, a nonprofit based in Sonoma County, a wine-growing area north of San Francisco, said that the county and its nine municipalities signed climate-protection agreements with enthusiasm more than five years ago, committing to bringing down greenhouse-gas emissions. Then they tried to figure out how.
“It’s really hard,” Ms. Hancock said. “It’s like the dark night of the soul.” All the big items in the inventory of emissions – from tailpipes, from the energy needed to supply drinking water and treat waste water, from heating and cooling buildings – are the product of residents’ and businesses’ individual decisions about how and where to live and drive and shop.
“They’ve seen the Al Gore movie, but they still have their lifestyle to contend with,” she said.
“We need to get people out of their cars, and we can’t under the present circumstances,” because of the limited alternative in public transportation, Ms. Hancock said. And the county’s many older homes are not very good at keeping in the cool air in the summer or the warm air in winter. “How do you go back and retrofit all of those?” she asked.
… “Unrealistic and unreasonable expectations,” Ms. Connor [of Carbondale, Colo] said, “should not stand in the way of us taking climate change seriously and taking control of energy security with our own hands.
(7 February 2008)
