We’re all at the table, so let’s talk

Martha Farnsworth Riche, former director of the U.S. Census Bureau, spoke to more than 150 participants at “The Changing Faces of the Future” Fifty Forward forum, held Sept. 10 at the Morehouse Leadership Center.

Following Riche’s address, two local experts, Jane Smith, executive director of the Spelman College Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement, and Tisha Tallman, President and CEO of the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, joined Riche onstage for a Q&A session with members of the audience.

Most of the discussion centered around situations where the benefits of embracing diversity had not yet been realized.

When answering one audience member’s question about maximizing the benefits of diversity in the workforce, Riche said:

 “Atlanta is incredibly positioned to embrace diversity as a positive force, perhaps the leading city in the country in this regard. Anybody in the world can come to Atlanta and be at home. That is a strength that few cities have.”

We’ll have more updates on the forum later, but for now …

 Do you agree with Riche? Is metro Atlanta as welcoming as many of us think it is?

Your Growth is My Sprawl and Vice Versa

Since the mid-1990s, the Atlanta region has had a tsunami of growth – almost a million new residents as well as a huge accompaniment of businesses, visitors and public and private investments – which has swept aside capacities, plans and resources needed to meet the demand.

A series of three Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable sessions will bring in a number of respected thought-leaders to discuss the impact of Atlanta’s historic growth and what can be done to ensure a more livable future.

Guests include:

Michael Dobbins, Professor, Georgia Tech College of Architecture

Kay B. Lee, Director, Center for Community Preservation and Planning, Newton County

Randy Roark, Professor Emeritus, Georgia Tech College of Architecture

Scott Bernstein, Founder and President, Center for Neighborhood Technology

Leon S. Eplan, Principal, Eplan Consulting

Dan Reuter, Chief of Land Use Planning, Atlanta Regional Commission

While we’re on the subject of rising to the massive challenge of growth management, be sure to read the candid article below.

A Time To Review Georgia’s Growth Policy

By Dan Reuter

There are many good examples of Georgia cities and counties that are permitting new walkable and mixed use developments, upgrading aging infrastructure and building sidewalks or multi-use paths, such as Athens, Savannah, Morrow Woodstock, Suwannee, Cobb County Gwinnett County and others. 

But we also have cities and counties that are still stuck in the last century of promoting growth and economic development that may have a short lifespan of success. We understand that we are living in a global economy with competition for oil, resources and investments. 

But are we ready to make decisions that can allow Georgia to compete? 

Will the state of Georgia and local governments work together to make new investments in our economic future? 

Full article

Back to the Future

In 2005, a group of interested citizens and organizations began a dialogue to create a more sustainable food system for Metro Atlanta, resulting in the creation of the Atlanta Local Food Initiative.

Some of the group’s partners include the CDC, DeKalb County Board of Health, UGA’s Cooperative Extension and Center for Urban Agriculture.

The group “envisions a transformed food system” made safer, more affordable and one that will “rebuild Southern foodways in harmony with the land.”

One of the group’s goals is to launch a farm-to-school program, which are popular in other urban areas surrounded by thriving agricultural communities. Atlanta certainly fits the bill in that regard.

 Some other goals:

• Preserve greenspace
• Reduce petroleum
• Promote healthy eating
• Build local economies
• Create new jobs

Check out the initiative’s brand-spanking new report. It’s comprehensive but not in a dull way. And, maybe report isn’t the best way to describe. It’s more like a plan, a roadmap to actually accomplish the goals ALFI has set.

Could this document outline some of the key steps that could lead to a prosperous, sustainable and yummy future for the Atlanta region?

We’re always focusing on the future on this site, but this report suggests that looking at the past is just as worthy an exercise. Back in the day, local markets sold local produce that was chemical-free and grown in a way that didn’t ruin watersheds or require barrels of oil.

And since that food wasn’t trucked half-way across the country, it was less expensive, too. Today, prices – whether gasoline or groceries -  are a big concern for most of us.

We’ve got a lot to learn, a long way to go and every little bit helps. Thanks, ALFI.

Local PBA Channel airs ARC sustainability show

Seattle’s Mayor, Rolling Stones Keyboardist and Georgia Secretary of State Speak out on Sustainability

“Looking Fifty Forward: Sustaining a Quality Region” is the topic of the ARC’s latest half-hour “Shape of Things to Come” television show.

Catch the Program on WPBA Atlanta, Channel 30, Sunday, July 27 at 10:30 a.m.

The show features an interview with Seattle mayor Greg Nickels, Sec. of State Karen Handel, United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta President Milton Little.

It also features the sustainability success stories at Emory University and Interface carpet.

You won’t want to miss it.

What Is The Tie That Binds?

In “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century“, Harvard’s Kennedy School Professor Robert Putnam contends that ethnic diversity is increasing in most advanced countries, driven mostly by sharp increases in immigration and that this has definite long-term and short-term consequences for society.

It is certainly the case for metro Atlanta that we are becoming a more diverse region. In our earlier post, One New City A Year For The Next 43 Years, we point out that if current trends persist by 2050, our demographic composition could be 38% White, 27% Hispanic, 26% Black, and 9% Other by 2050.

Putnam says that in the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. But in the short run, increases in ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital.

He offers new evidence from the US that suggests that in ethnically diverse neighborhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one’s own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation is rarer, and friends are fewer.

The positive side of this though is that in the long run, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities.

This concept can be very instructive for us. In a recent Regional Snapshot, we can see that non-white populations have been concentrated in certain areas of the region but that between 2000 and 2007, almost every census tract in the region experienced an increase in non-white population.

So if Putnam is correct, we’ve got some work to do to make sure that we can stick together as a cohesive population, economic, and decision making unit over the next fifty years.

Could our quest for sustainability help us in this regard? If we all have a common goal, then maybe we can find some common ground. Hopefully Fifty Forward can help us find that common ground in the form of a long-term regional vision.

One New City a Year for the Next 43 Years

Up to now, this blog has rightfully focused to a large degree on the issue of sustainability. In some respects, sustainability is the only issue of any real consequence. It is about the economic, social, cultural, and environmental health of the region now and in the future.

How we as a region will survive and thrive over the next half century is of paramount importance. Sustainability is sort of the lens through which the other topics of the Fifty Forward program will be viewed. But there are other topics to be considered.

Another topic critical to our future is the size and composition of our population. If current trends persist, and this is a big if, the region’s population could reach almost 9.5 million people by 2050. That’s roughly 4.5 million more people than today for an average annual increase of just over 100,000 people a year. This roughly equates to the addition of two Alpharettas or five Stockbridges to the region every year for the next 43 years.

But there’s more to the story than just the sheer volume of people. The make up of those people will transform the face of Atlanta just as much. Again, if current trends persist, it is reasonable to expect that by 2020, there will be no single racial or ethnic majority in the region. And by 2050, we could see the population breakdown like this: 38% White, 27% Hispanic, 26% Black, and 9% Other, a significant departure from today.

Additionally, by the time we get to 2050, the shifting age profile could result in a relatively equal distribution of ages. And along the way we will see the Baby Boomers, a major portion of our population, age out of the workforce. This means that one-third of the region’s population could end up supporting the other two-thirds.

Obviously, there is a lot of time between now and the middle of the century, but each new year along the way will bring change to the region’s demographic profile and an increase in our diversity. Some like to say that demography is destiny. This may be partially true, but how we handle demographic change is completely up to us. We get to determine the vision for what we will become.

But to do so, we’re going to have to answer questions like:

Where the heck are we going to put all these people?
How can the region absorb this population growth in a sustainable way?
What will be the civic ramifications of the lack of a dominant paradigm provided by a majority racial/ethnic group?
How do we prepare an economy and its workforce to support two-thirds of our population?

Fifty Forward is looking for suggestions. Maybe you have some?

Global Competitiveness and Sustainable Transport

Since 1956, the primary federal funding source for transportation infrastructure has been the Highway Trust Fund which was initially established as a method to speed the completion of the Interstate System. For the last 50 or so years, the trust fund and its Mass Transit Account have served us well. They have allowed us to build and maintain roadway and transit infrastructure that has enabled our economy to grow and thrive.

Sadly, the trust fund is on the verge of collapse. It is time that we start considering new options for the next 50 years. How will we ensure that we are able to maintain what we have and build new infrastructure that will support or economy in a sustainable way for the next two or three generations of Americans?

As the globe shrinks due to increasingly mobile capital and labor supplies, competition for economic development gets fiercer. Places across the world are finding ways of funding and constructing sustainable transportation infrastructure that will enable and support continued economic expansion for years to come. Check out thes numbers from the Urban Land Institute and Federal Railroad Administration:

17 – Number of new subway lines Shanghai will add by 2010
6 and 4 – Number of new light-rail and high-speed rail lines Shanghai will add by 2010
40 – Percent growth of rail ridership in the United Kingdom in the last decade
225 – Top speed of France’s high-speed passenger train, the fastest in the world
6 – Number of countries France’s high-speed passenger train connects
150 – Top speed of the U.S.’s only high-speed passenger train, operating in the Boston-New York-Washington corridor.
0 – Number of rail line miles on the Boston-Washington corridor that have been upgraded to accommodate the high-speed train’s top commuting speed.

Fifty years is a long time and the world will change a lot before we hit the mid-century mark. If we want to remain competitive as a nation, state and region, we have some tough questions to answer and serious work to do.

How will we fund our transportation system for the next 50 years?

Will there be room in the national, state, and regional agendas for the expansion of our sustainable transport network?

Cometh the Climate Change Cavalry?

Last Thursday, the White House released a new study on the effects of human-induced climate change on the United States.  The New York Times reports that the study concludes, as you might expect, that spread of warmth-loving pests and loss of low-lying lands to rising seas are potential effects of the climate change.

 

The study also comes to some new conclusions:  “An increased frequency and severity of heat waves is expected, leading to more illness and death, particularly among the young, elderly, frail and poor.”  Additionally, the report included new projections of how the poor, elderly and communities with lagging public-health and public-works systems will face disproportionate health risks from warming.

 

To us at Fifty Forward this is a particularly timely report.  The aging of the Baby Boomers and all the potential attendant impacts to our society are beginning to seriously capture the attention of policy makers.  And the issues of health care are becoming increasingly important in our national debate. 

 

Both of these issues take on new significance in light of this report, which raises some hopeful questions.

 

Are regulations on carbon emissions far behind?

 

Will the EPA finally grant carbon emissions the status of a threat to human health, as the Supreme Court says it should?

Can Coke Cool the Planet?

Well not alone they can’t, but they are making a run at it.  In an AJC article today, Craig Simons highlights Coke’s plans to buy 100,000 new beverage coolers that work using compressed carbon dioxide as opposed to hydrofluorocarbons.  Given that these flourocarbons are 1000 times more potent as greenhouse gases than is carbon dioxide, this is a significant step for one of the Atlanta region’s major international corporations.

 

While speaking at a lecture in Beijing organized by Greenpeace, Coke’s CEO Neville Isdell said, “We cannot wait for consumers or governments or technologies or price to move us towards sustainable solutions … so we’re doing what we can within our own business.”

 

These coolers cost about 25 percent more than the current industry standard.  So, Mr. Isdell and Coke are to be congratulated for going to the extra expense to help protect the environment we all share.

 

But there is more that can be done. Coke replaces 1 million refrigeration units annually.  With that kind of buying power, Coke is poised to help drive down the cost of these environmentally friendlier coolers.  Hopefully, other corporations will follow suit.

 

Coke isn’t a perfect company, but it’s adding its waves to a ripple effect that might one day lead to a more sustainable world.

If You Can’t Stand the Heat….Capture It!

When power plants generate electricity, a lot of heat simply goes up the chimney, so to speak. Estimates are that for every three units of fuel — like coal, natural gas or oil — that are burned to make electricity, two are lost in the process, most of it as waste heat that just drifts away. Likewise, many manufacturing operations such as steel mills produce waste heat.

 

Ten years ago, an Indiana steel mill began capturing heat above its coke ovens to make electricity. That operation, along with other energy recycling processes employed at the plant, creates about 250 megawatts of power every day, about half of the plant’s needs for electricity. In the process, the company says it has reduced CO₂ emissions by 1.3 million tons a year.

What would happen if more companies and electric utilities captured heat and used it to make electricity? It’s a common practice in Europe. Denmark generates close to 55 percent of its electricity this way. In the Netherlands and Finland, the figure is closer to 40 percent, and in Germany it is 35 percent. But, energy recycling in the U.S. accounts for only 8 percent of the nation’s electrical power, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

 

Recent EPA and Department of Energy studies suggest U.S. industries waste enough heat to generate an estimated 200,000 megawatts of power — nearly 20 percent of what this nation uses. That’s enough electricity to replace up to 400 coal-fired power plants.

So what’s the problem?

State and federal laws often prohibit companies like the Indiana steel mill from selling excess power, and few electric utilities have chosen to install energy recycling equipment at older power plants because under New Source Review, they will then be subject to newer, stricter environmental regulations.

We recycle beverage cans. Wouldn’t it make even more sense to recycle energy, to use the waste heat that goes up the chimney to produce electricity and, in the process, save millions of tons of carbon from entering the atmosphere?