Gar Alperovitz, Steve Dubb and Thad Williamson write,
Anchoring Wealth to Sustain Cities and Population Growth:
Americans face a unique challenge in solving the climate crisis. Unlike other Western countries and Japan, where population is projected to be relatively constant, the U.S. population is set to grow by at least 100 million—and likely 150 million—people by 2050. Where and under what conditions these people live present serious challenges to sustainability planning. American cities today are so spatially and economically unstable that anything beyond superficial sustainability planning is impossible.
Gar Alperovitz
Alternatively, we can radically change existing community and regional planning strategies to more sustainably house and serve the growing population. Fortunately, emerging approaches are capable of helping with this shift. One involves building local economies that anchor capital in place through community, worker, or public forms of ownership—so-called green community wealth strategies. By linking such stabilizing forms of economic organization to democratic forms of local, regional, and national planning, cities can regain the capacity to target jobs and investment to specific locations.
There will be at least 100 million more Americans by 2050. Where and under what conditions these new Americans live present significant challenges not faced by Japan or western Europe, where population is projected to be relatively stable.
New and emergent approaches to community economic development are capable of altering current unsustainable and unstable patterns.
Two primary strategies for stabilizing jobs and capital in existing urban areas are: (1) developing place-based forms of “green community wealth building”—forms of business ownership that rely on worker, community, nonprofit, or public ownership and that are inherently anchored in the community; and (2) tapping into resource flows generated by public spending as well as quasi-public institutions (“meds” and “eds”) to nurture and support place-based ownership.
The United States must embrace regional planning strategies. Population growth will otherwise reinforce the unstable and unsustainable cities we now have, which serve as major drivers of global warming.
Regional planning can result in positive outcomes—for example, retooling the automobile industry to manufacture domestic mass-transit vehicles.
A good starting point is a clear understanding of America's "throwaway city" habit. Simply put, as jobs move in and out of cities in uncontrolled ways we literally throw away housing, roads, schools, hospitals, and public facilities—only to have to build the same facilities elsewhere at great financial, energy, and carbon costs. All the while, the instability makes it impossible to carry out coherent transportation and high-density housing planning.
The most dramatic examples are places like Detroit and Cleveland, where the devastated landscape in many areas looks like bombed-out World War II cities. But these cases are not exceptional. Of the 112 largest U.S. cities in 1950 with populations over 100,000, 56—fully half of them—had experienced population decline by 2008. The people moved elsewhere, where all the usual facilities had to be built anew to serve them—and, built under conditions that were inherently likely to be subject to future instability and disruption.
Cities in general, of course, have gained population since 1990, but the long-term trend of instability is dominant.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2006:
byThe pillar of northeast establishment, the NY Times and its editorial board, will be endorsing Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman tomorrow.
That report comes from Adam Nagourney, writing about Lieberman's troubles in taking Lamont seriously from the get-go.
The New York Times, in an editorial published on Sunday, endorsed Mr. Lamont over Mr. Lieberman, arguing that the senator had offered the nation a "warped version of bipartisanship" in his dealings with President Bush on national security.
dThe problem that Joe has had in painting Lamont supporters as far-left blogger-driven fringe people is that just about none of it is true. In an earlier post today, I referenced many of the quotes from local voters who have many issues with Joe from a long-standing and general lack of attention to CT issues, to his stance on nationalizing Terri Schiavo's case, school vouchers, and the Alito confirmation in addition to his stance on the Iraq War (which is becoming less defensible every day - the claim about Iraq being better off than a year ago that he made in the debate is hurting him badly, as is everything else he's previously said about Iraq).
Tweet of the Day:
Bust of FDR in Oval Office Replaced With That of George W Bush #RomneysFirst100DaysAsPOTUS
— @JeffersonObama via TweetDeck
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