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Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
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3

Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions

Wim Wiewel, president of Portland State University (PSU), discussed the challenges of trying to embed sustainability into an organization, stressing that there is always room for growth and opportunities to find new ways and places to make substantive differences. In academia, this could be a research project answering an important question or an educational tool to better inform people about sustainability issues. One example at PSU is that all graduating seniors must complete a partnership project: a capstone course in which students work as a team with a business, community organization, or unit of government. Many of these projects revolve around sustainability issues. Dr. Wiewel is also chair of the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities, and he emphasized the potential for advancing urban sustainability through partnerships with urban universities. These universities have a vast reservoir of faculty research and students as well as the capacity to make significant impacts on sustainability through their operations, administration, and land use and transportation options.

PSU has realized some of these impacts through work done nearly 30 years ago on the urban growth boundary legislation, and with capital investments made on the streetcar and in light rail. PSU was part of the local match for those funds, and as a result they now have streetcar and light rail stops on campus. This was essential, as these initial lines served as the nexus for every new line that has been built since; they also played a key role in driving down private automobile use. PSU is not a large residential campus, so most of the faculty and students commute from elsewhere in the city, yet less than 25 percent use private automobiles to commute. PSU also engages in the cluster industries that the Portland Development Commission identified as key to economic development in the region. These include computer electronics and software, clean technology and

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×

renewable energy, and sustainable manufacturing and metal companies. PSU also has a partnership with Portland General Electric (PGE) that is experimenting with six different charging stations on campus. This partnership also includes research on the implications of shifting to new forms of biomass as fuel sources.

PSU is a signatory on the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), which Mr. Wiewel described as a large grassroots effort. Over 600 universities agreed to prepare climate action plans, which required an inventory of greenhouse gasses of all university buildings and financial obligations in the millions of dollars. After the inventories were completed, universities then drafted plans to address major emissions sources. Mr. Wiewel noted that these plans were done by universities without a government directive, and they have put over 600 universities on the path to being carbon neutral. PSU has a goal to be carbon neutral by 2040, and all new buildings will be either Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified Gold or Platinum. PSU was recently recognized by the Center for Green Schools of the U.S. Green Building Council and received a Climate Leadership Award from Second Nature and ACUPCC.

Charlie Hales, mayor of the City of Portland, discussed the city’s efforts to develop partnerships to address sustainability challenges. In particular, Mr. Hales highlighted the relationship the city has with local universities, including PSU and Oregon Health Sciences University. These relationships have evolved from an opportunistic partnership to one that focuses on developing shared strategies and a synergy between how the city and universities can address key sustainability issues. These synergies require the involvement of all levels, ranging from leaders to students. Students have been a major driver; for example, hundreds of students at PSU are engaged in research and academic training that will prepare them to become practice leaders in the fields of sustainability, urban planning, energy, and business. Students, faculty, and researchers at PSU are developing sustainability best practices that will ultimately be implemented in partnership with other universities and the city. The results of this partnership are evident throughout the city, including in several transportation initiatives.

The city continues to face several significant sustainability challenges. One in particular is a Superfund site located on the Willamette River. This poses a significant challenge as engineering and environmental management solutions must be affordable and effective while ensuring business continuity. Homelessness is another significant challenge in Portland, despite efforts to develop partnerships, programs, and facilities that serve the homeless. Another issue is the overlapping responsibilities of city and county government; universities can also play a role in informing and advising local government on how to better accomplish its goals.

Portland has increased the amount of affordable housing in the city. For urban renewal districts, 30 percent of the tax revenue is set aside for affordable housing, which is managed by the Portland Housing Bureau. Some development agreements require as much as 25 percent of the housing in a given district to be

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×

affordable housing. Ultimately, these agreements over performed and more than 25 percent of the housing in some districts was affordable housing. Portland has also used a mixed-use zone in neighborhoods and zoned for higher density along main streets. There is an ongoing debate in Portland regarding how much parking should accompany mixed use zoning.

Mr. Hales commented that one thing Portland has embraced is to live in the present day and improvise when needed on new projects. The streetcar project for Portland serves as an example of how the city pushes forward to make progress. As the city was moving forward with the project, it was being financed with tax increment financing, assessments from local property owners, parking revenue, and any other way the city could find funds. Even once all the capital costs were financed, the operating costs were still unfinanced as the project was progressing. The goal was to keep the project moving and have confidence it would come together, which it did successfully.

The city will continue to demonstrate leadership in making Portland a model of planning and sustainability, said Mr. Hales. The city-university partnership is a successful one that develops solutions to these sustainability challenges, and it can serve as a model for other cities. The city may be better able to solve difficult urban problems because of the strength, quality, and depth of this partnership.

INTEGRATING RESEARCH INTO URBAN SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGIES

Colin Harrison, distinguished engineer emeritus from IBM, discussed IBM’s Smarter Cities program and how research and technology contribute to urban sustainability initiatives. In the mid-2000s, there was a realization that the world was becoming instrumented—a very large number of devices were being deployed and connected to networks to serve as indicators of different events. Sometimes these were direct sensors, such as those that sense environmental phenomenon, but often they were indirect, such as those that aggregate usage numbers from cell towers. This awareness led Dr. Harrison to lead a study called Life on an Instrumented Planet, which investigated what it would be like to live on a planet with so much information available, in terms of big data and the aggregation of terabytes of data. This data could also be applied to improve the operational efficiency of urban systems. This well-known systems approach was applied to urban systems and sustainability goals, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, waste, and energy consumption, as well as improving transportation, etc. A city is comprised of many systems that interact, and it was necessary to try to integrate these systems. Resilience and social behavior also became areas where IBM could apply information technology, and the idea of a Science of Cities emerged (Figure 3-1).

Telecommunications and data networks, continued Dr. Harrison, were being built to run cities or large corporations without much consideration of how they

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
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FIGURE 3-1 A Science of Cities.
SOURCE: Colin Harrison, presentation, May 29, 2013

would perform under adverse conditions like earthquakes or tsunamis. The rise of the global economy has introduced risk into these systems—for example, by connecting industries in North America to manufacturers in the northern part of Japan. Although this opens up many options for supply chain managers, natural disasters pose risks all around the globe, and the more extensive the network, the higher the risk of disruption. The frequency of natural disasters that cause major perturbations is rising as well; since 1960, the amount of damage due to natural disasters has increased significantly, reaching the hundreds of billions of dollars. Cyberattacks also pose a threat to global information networks, including electrical utilities and smart grids. All of these elements are integrated into the system of systems that comprise sustainable and resilient urban centers. Technology can play a role in the solution as well. The “cloud,” for example, allows for a technology platform that is inherently resilient because it is geographically dispersed; operational loads can be moved across regional and country boundaries.

While much attention is given to the physical infrastructure of cities, ultimately it is people that make up the city, said Dr. Harrison. Research is needed on how people live in the city and how they interact with city services. The city

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×

provides capabilities to people, and the public is using those capabilities, resulting in a need to synergize two complex systems. The idea behind Smarter Cities is to build the information interface between these two systems. Much research is being done on urban systems, looking at scaling issues, policies, and innovation in new technologies. However, Dr. Harrison noted, this is analogous to trying to understand human physiology by studying public health statistics: Although one would learn a great deal, one would never learn how the human body actually works. Understanding how the city actually works in relation to the composition of these two complex systems is the thrust behind the research with Smarter Cities.

Joseph Danko, managing director of urban programs at CH2M HILL, discussed different approaches to integrating research into urban sustainability, including rapidly deploying research and the power of social networking in creating sustainable cities. In the rapid deployment of research, technology development has a valley of death: a gap between the science behind the technology and commercial success. Partnerships are critical in overcoming this valley of death, with universities and national labs playing a key role in the initial investigation and feasibility. Scaling up technologies from the pilot phase to commercial viability requires an understanding from technologists on the practitioner level; there is a need to simultaneously develop technologies and conduct real pilot testing in the field. There are important linkages among city and state partners, infrastructure engineering, technologists, and university partners to develop a community of practice to test new ideas (Figure 3-2).

Social networking also can be key to creating sustainable cities because it enables communities to participate and share ideas about solutions, such as

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FIGURE 3-2 Linkages between city and state partners and others to develop a community of practice to test new ideas.
SOURCE: Joseph Danko, presentation, May 29, 2013.

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×

renewable energy, stormwater management, and waste reduction. By making a public portal available, a city enables residents and businesses to understand the city’s goals, make better informed choices, and provide feedback into the system. The Urban EcoMap from San Francisco and GreenUp DC are examples of portals that can relay information from the city to businesses and residents.

Lawrence Baker, research professor in the Ecological Engineering Group of the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering at the University of Minnesota, discussed the importance of data. Years of research has generated a lot of data that is never analyzed or used for meta-data analysis, Dr. Baker said; this is the case not only with universities, but also with cities. In 2011, his group acquired a stormwater database for a watershed district in St. Paul, MN. The district had been using it only to calculate manual loading from nutrients, but by further analyzing the data, Dr. Baker was able to reveal much more information about how pollutants were moving through the ecosystem. A challenge with data management is retaining databases that can be accessed by the public, an area where universities could play a role. Cities could also partner with universities in order to better utilize these datasets.

The city-university partnership would offer benefits for the city as well as the university. For the city, these could include:

  • Solving problems by moving outside bureaucratic silos
  • Utilizing cutting-edge science and technology
  • Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of programs
  • Cultivating students as future employees
  • Cultivating an early adopter model

For the university, benefits of this partnership would include:

  • Sharpening theories and having opportunities to solve real-world problems
  • Utilizing the resources of cities, such as case study sites, databases, and expertise of practitioners
  • Leveraging research funding
  • Exporting products (e.g., models)
  • Repurposing the extension mission of land-grant universities

As an example of how such partnerships work, Dr. Baker explained his own partnership’s efforts on street sweeping in St. Paul, MN, which required the collection of data for 4,600 trees. His group found that leaf litter can compose about half of the total phosphorous yield in an urban watershed. Every tree and hard surface in St. Paul was mapped out using NASA’s LIDAR satellite data, and when one layer was overlaid on the other, it was possible to determine which street sweeping regimes would be most effective at reducing nutrient flow into the watershed. This has led to more work looking at the path of nutrients through

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×

urban systems, focusing on mapping sources where flows can be interrupted to protect water quality. This work is most effective when the university and the city share information and data; it is the needed connection between the theory and practice.

One challenge Dr. Harrison encountered in his work with the Smarter Cities program at IBM was being able to acquire data from municipal agencies. He recommends external integration: Instead of working with municipal agencies to integrate among themselves, encourage them to publish their data so that others can build the integration on the outside. This use of open data could be applied to integrating systems at local and federal levels, and it could be done more quickly and more efficiently than if these agencies were to do it themselves.

Jonathan Fink, vice president for research and strategic partnerships at Portland State University, discussed the challenge of translating the science of cities in a way that makes sense to practitioners in cities. There can be a translational gap between the areas the National Science Foundation may fund academic research to investigate and the information a practitioner in a city needs to make better-informed decisions. There needs to be a way to bring these two disparities together. There are four main sectors involved in different aspects of this research: government, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), universities, and corporations (Figure 3-3).

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FIGURE 3-3 The four main sectors in urban research.
SOURCE: Jonathan Fink, presentation, May 29, 2013.

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×

Each of these sectors approaches research on urban systems differently:

  • The government sector, including federal, state, and local agencies, funds basic research and applied research. These agencies also set policies that would dictate how such research would be incorporated into practice.
  • Universities conduct both basic and applied research using funding from a variety of sources, which can serve to inform public policies. The university itself can also serve as a laboratory for trying out new policies or new research ideas.
  • NGOs are generally not primarily funding agencies but conduct applied research and disseminate results through advocacy activities.
  • Corporations fund applied research that often is directly applicable to cities or, could be brought into urban practice. Much innovation and technology that comes out of the private sector results in applications in cities. The private sector can also create new markets, which feeds back into research and new technologies.

Much research is conducted across these different sectors, and it can be challenging for a city manager to integrate a lot of this into their work. An exchange program could be helpful, where someone from industry would work with the city for a given amount of time, and then vice-versa, so that there is an exchange of information.

Universities can play a unique role in bringing together these varied entities to cut across different domains, such as transportation, water, and land-use issues, which would otherwise be a part of several federal and local agency missions and affect multiple companies in the private sector. There have been successful collaborations at the federal level, such as the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, a collaborative effort of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Department of Transportation (DOT); however, in practice, this partnership has faced limitations in how funding information has been shared among the agencies. Dr. Fink offered another way to organize federal agencies working on urban systems by drawing an analogy to the human genome project. Twenty years ago there was a major research initiative to map the human genome with the ultimate goal of trying to help cure human diseases by understanding this common system that operates in all humans. Similarly, there are many different components in an urban system, different funding mechanisms, and different groups asking research questions about how to integrate these systems. Using this analogy could help address these urban issues by using cities as a vehicle to integrate the currently ongoing but disparate research across the government, university, corporate, and NGO sectors. The appropriate organizational structure—whether it is a federal agency or a collaboration of universities—remains unclear, but there is a need to bring cohesion to these different systems and research efforts.

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
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FEDERAL EFFORTS IN PROMOTING URBAN POLICY AND RESEARCH INNOVATIONS

Jim Lester, president of the Houston Advanced Research Center, described Houston as an interesting laboratory because the city manufactures approximately one-third of the refined products and over half of the petrochemical products used by the United States. Houston’s size and coastal location results in air quality, water quality, and human health challenges to sustainability. Also contributing to Houston’s uniqueness is that it is the largest city with no zoning. Culturally, the region is very business driven and tends to be anti-regulation. One of the success stories Dr. Lester noted was about Houston’s air quality; business leaders realized that to attract talented new employees they wanted, Houston needed to be as desirable a place to live as possible. To do that, air quality had to be improved and green spaces and parks added around the city.

A lot of work is being done with free markets in Houston, including mixed use development and smart growth, which allows for development and walkable streets in a way that does not require new regulations, said Dr. Lester. There is also a drive to reduce risk, especially in terms of flooding, due to proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and hurricanes. Houston now purchases 50 megawatts of wind energy annually; harnessing wind energy has also been a rural development strategy, allowing farmers to maintain their livelihoods. Also related to energy, Houston is installing distributed generation with combined heat and power systems, and it has recently implemented electric car charging stations and a bike share program. All of these programs have been helped financially by federal funding. Federal regulation, such as the Clean Water Act and the Air Quality Act, have also been instrumental in moving many of these initiatives forward. Funding for research on and demonstration of best practices that move technologies and policies forward to get adopted is key.

Ann Bartuska, deputy under secretary of research, education, and economics (REE) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), discussed lessons learned at USDA in building capacity and trying to connect across agencies and organizations. The agency has increasingly recognized its importance in urban environments, because in building urban infrastructure there is a critical role for agriculture and natural resources. For example, the Urban and Community Forestry Program in the Forest Service, part of USDA, supports projects and research related to an array of urban and community forestry issues.1

The Baltimore Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) Site is also an example of how USDA has been conducting research in an urban environment, said Dr. Bartuska. The Baltimore LTER, initially an integrated ecosystem watershed project, was transplanted to the urban environment with a defined watershed. The research began by looking at the hydrology, but soon the community’s social fab-

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1 See www.fs.fed.us/ucf.

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×

ric became relevant to the research as well. Baltimore has a city regulation stating that any house that has been abandoned for more than 1 year is to be torn down. These resulting vacant lots appearing in the center core of the city presented an opportunity to take a fully integrated approach, knitting together the ecological and social aspects of the research in a meaningful way.

One study that came out of the Baltimore LTER led to a better understanding of urban soils. Because urban agriculture is increasing, knowledge about urban soils is increasingly important for cultivating crops and siting community gardens. Agricultural systems are being re-evaluated, and because front yard and community gardens are on the rise, there is a reframing and restructuring of urban infrastructure around these urban agriculture systems. Stormwater runoff is also part of understanding these systems and can be mitigated by increasing permeable surfaces. Urban systems are now being viewed as large watersheds, and the biogeochemistry, ecology, and hydrology that have been applied to traditional watersheds are now being applied to understanding these urban ecosystems. Tools to help address manage these urban systems are available as well; the i-Tree tool, for example, started as a fairly simple aid for decision making about the quantity and types of trees to plant, but it has grown to incorporate much more information, such as water patterns, energy patterns, and the amount of CO2 captured.2

Partnerships are important, Dr. Bartuska stressed. For example, USDA has been working with New York City on their MillionTreesNYC initiative, which is changing the fabric of the city; this partnership has led to the establishment of a USDA office and research site in the city and to other city initiatives such as urban agriculture. USDA is also partnering with EPA on the Urban Waters Federal Partnership.3 In addition, USDA is involved in a partnership focusing on the Green-Duwamish watershed near Seattle. The project—a collaboration among the EPA, Forest Service, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service—is working with local communities and tribes to restore the watershed’s ecosystem and help salmon populations recover.

Danielle Arigoni, deputy director of the Sustainable Communities Program at EPA, also spoke about partnerships and about EPA’s work with HUD and DOT as part of the Sustainable Communities Partnership. The partnership focuses on six livability principles developed in 2009 that set clear policy objectives for all three agencies to follow. There is a strong commitment to this partnership at the EPA, and that commitment is starting to filter down through the agency. Ms. Arigoni commented that culture change is slow in federal agencies, but they are seeing more now than before. One key effort from HUD is the Sustainable Community Regional Planning Grant; before HUD issued the notice of funding availability, the agency went to communities and held listening sessions to receive feedback. A recurring theme was the need to include nontraditional partners and community

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2 See www.itreetools.org.

3 See www.urbanwaters.gov.

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
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organizations and to make the consortia more representative of stakeholders. The Sustainable Communities Partnership has also worked to de-silo regional government efforts at EPA, HUD, and DOT; these agencies are working together in the regions in a way that they historically had not operated, because the agencies’ staff are engaged and on the ground making connections.

There are challenges to the partnership, such as budget cuts across agencies, as well as outdated policies that focus too closely on just one domain and do not facilitate the cross-sectoral work that the partnership tries to achieve. To work across these sectors and de-silo the efforts of the agencies, staff must spend a lot of time and energy coordinating meetings and keeping initiatives moving. Over time, however, there has been trust and commitment built up among the agencies and slowly those barriers are coming down. One step that has made efforts easier was the use of common language in requests for proposals and notices of funding availability. Such steps help signal to communities that there is consistency across different agency programs about the importance of the livability principles, regional planning, and community engagement in project implementation.

Sustainability and environmental protection have economic benefits, Ms. Arigoni noted, and EPA recognizes that sustainability does not resonate unless there is an argument for its economic benefits. The Sustainable Communities program works directly with communities to recraft growth opportunities and to make investments that deliver multiple benefits rather than just one. One example would be to create an ecodistrict that re-uses captured stormwater and enhances the pedestrian experience rather than just re-directing flow into sewers. Land use is also being analyzed more, and there are relevant trends to consider, such as population per square mile decreasing over time and home sizes increasing. Additionally, the building sector’s energy usage is growing, and greenhouse gas emissions from transportation are still increasing, largely due to growth in vehicle miles traveled nationally. There are ways to reduce these trends by looking comprehensively at land-use design, population density, and proximity to amenities, which are addressed in EPA’s 2013 report Our Built and Natural Environments: A Technical Review of the Interactions Among Land Use, Transportation, and Environmental Quality.4 Changing building and zoning codes at the local, regional, and state level can also address land-use issues. Engaging with standard setting organizations, such as the International Code Council, helps to build more sustainable practices into these codes and have them adopted at the local level.

Jay Williams, director of the Office of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers at the Department of Labor, experienced working for communities firsthand as mayor of Youngstown, OH. Currently, the Office of Recovery for

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4 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2013. Our Built and Natural Environments: A Technical Review of the Interactions Among Land Use, Transportation, and Environmental Quality. EPA 231-K-13-001. Washington, DC: EPA Office of Sustainable Communities.

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×

Auto Communities and Workers is working with dozens of communities across the country that are transitioning from a post-industrial state to the next stages of the restructuring of the auto industry. Youngstown is one of these communities, having experienced both economic and social challenges. During the past 5 years, Youngstown experienced a loss of over 35,000 jobs, a precipitous drop in population, and an increase in vacant homes and fallow land. The community needed a new understanding of how it defined its role in the regional and global economy. They began to shift from being a city that is surviving to being one that is sustainable. At the same time, there has been growing consensus among mid-level cities in the United States that there needs to be a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional approach to addressing sustainability in these communities, and including a better understanding of the role cities play in the regional economy. Federal agencies have had a strong role in this by engaging directly with mayors, local elected officials, and other stakeholders.

The Office of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers, created in 2010, is one example of how the federal perspective has changed and is seeking to rebuild the manufacturing communities that were at the core of automotive manufacturing. Although the industry saw a near-collapse, it has resuscitated and the companies are profitable again; however, many communities are still struggling and were left with the shell of the auto manufacturing facilities. There is still a need for federal investment to help bring back these communities and put them on a pathway to sustainability. One federal program doing this is the Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2) initiative from the Department of Commerce. This program, first announced in 2011, seeks to strengthen neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions by enhancing the capacity of local governments to develop and execute economic visions and strategies, providing technical assistance and access to federal agency expertise, and creating new public and private-sector partnerships. There were seven pilot cities in the program: Chester, PA; Cleveland, OH; Detroit, MI; Fresno, CA; Memphis, TN; Youngstown, OH; and New Orleans, LA. The program has made an impact in these communities by ensuring that urban development has encompassed economic development and sustainability principles. There has been a new entrepreneurial spirit in many of these historically manufacturing cities that has driven new economic development.

André Pettigrew, executive director of the Climate Prosperity Project, Inc., discussed how mitigating climate change could become an economic opportunity. Over the past 10 years, there has been tremendous growth in innovation, job creation, and business efficiency around climate change mitigation. Mr. Pettigrew’s theory of change is that climate action plans need to be translated into economic development plans. Economic development in communities affects quality of life issues, and economic development and long-term thinking need to incorporate climate change mitigation in order for real progress to be made. There is an opportunity to cross political boundaries in discussing sustainability. There is a need for cities to work at the regional level, which is important for mitigat-

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×

ing environmental degradation, but also for industry and economic development. There are challenges, however, with politicians and economic developers unaccustomed to working across these political boundaries.

Mr. Pettigrew noted that Climate Prosperity Project, Inc., recently issued a publication compiling lessons learned from four communities pursuing a low carbon economy.5 One key lesson was that when energy efficiency is aggregated across larger scales, there is a stronger business case to developers for including technologies such as solar panels on homes. Another important example is the portfolio of energy that the Denver metropolitan region has developed, which had considerable support from the former governor Bill Ritter, who is now of the Center for the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University. The diversity of energy options, such as solar, wind, natural gas, and coal, has garnered political support and brought a diversity of groups together to address the state’s needs. The approach has been more pragmatic, in that there has been support from the coal and oil refineries to help develop wind, solar, and biofuel capacity.

Outstanding Challenges to Urban Development

  • Connect regional sustainability planning efforts to low-income communities,
  • Community capacity building that empowers residents to be more active participants in sustainability,
  • Effectively align and leverage traditional community economic development resources to catalyze private sector investment,
  • Generate business opportunities for small, women, and minority-owned businesses,
  • Connect job seekers and employers through effective Workforce Development strategies, and
  • Develop affordable housing and transit options connected to jobs in the region.

SOURCE: André Pettigrew, Climate Prosperity Project, Inc., May 29, 2013.

Federal support is also important, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was important in connecting economic recovery, climate change, and clean energy.6 The federal money ARRA provided was able to support ideas and empower programs that mayors and local government had, but had no way of funding. These programs help sustain clean tech markets. Mr. Pettigrew noted that this is a dynamic business landscape, and there are core green and adaptive green activities. Core green is defined as the clean tech market that has been developed over the years, while adaptive green companies

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5 Climate Prosperity Project. 2011. Towards a New Prosperity. How Business and Regions are Creating a Prosperous Low-Carbon Economy through Energy Savings, Economic Opportunities and Job Creation. [Available online: http://cleaneconomysolutions.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/TowardsANewProsperity_2011.pdf]

6 In response to the economic crisis, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—commonly referred to as the “stimulus” or the “stimulus package” (www.recovery.gov).

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
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apply the tools and technologies from the core green companies, such as the construction companies that have adopted the green technologies. It is important for these industries to build the demand, grow the market, and support the base. For an economic developer, public policies such as renewable portfolio standards can help drive this growth, but the initial investments, such as those made under ARRA were important for starting the momentum.

Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×
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Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×
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Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×
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Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×
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Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
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Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
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Page 28
Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×
Page 29
Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×
Page 30
Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×
Page 31
Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×
Page 32
Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×
Page 33
Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×
Page 34
Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×
Page 35
Suggested Citation:"3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions." National Research Council. 2014. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18704.
×
Page 36
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Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest is the summary of a workshop convened by the National Research Council's Science and Technology for Sustainability Program in May 2013 to examine issues relating to sustainability and human-environment interactions in the Portland metropolitan region. Topics addressed included the role of land-use restrictions on development, transportation innovations, and economic and social challenges. The speakers at the workshop used examples from Portland and the greater Pacific Northwest region to explore critical questions in finding pathways to urban sustainability. This was the third and final of a series of three place-based urban sustainability workshops - the other two workshops focused on Atlanta, Georgia and Houston, Texas. These public workshops gathered local, state, and federal officials, academics, and key stakeholders to examine how challenges due to continued growth in the regions can be addressed within the context of sustainability.

For more than 40 years, the Portland Metropolitan Region has been a national leader in urban policies and investments intended to revitalize the central city and adjacent neighborhoods, preserve the environment, improve equity, and make the city more economically competitive and livable. Portland has been both emulated as path breaking and discounted as overly idiosyncratic. Among the elements contributing to Portland's success have been strong public-private partnerships, a culture of planning, and a willingness to implement diverse ideas generated by federal, state, and local agencies, academics, and the private sector. Regionally, Portland benefits from its location in the middle of the progressive Cascadia Corridor, stretching from Vancouver, British Columbia, to San Francisco, California.

This report uses examples from Portland and the Northwest U.S./S.W. Canada region to explore critical questions about the future of urban sustainability. The report provides background about Portland and Cascadia, emphasizing policy innovations and lessons that are potentially transferable elsewhere; focuses on ways to leverage local success through partnerships with state and federal agencies, companies, and nongovernment organizations; examines academic and corporate scientific and engineering research that could help cities to become more sustainable; and addresses the challenging question of how resource-constrained cities can become agents for achieving broader societal goals not directly linked to their operational mandates, such as climate change mitigation, energy independence, and improvement in human health, particularly in low-income communities.

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