Where Did The Sidewalk Go?

GUEST BLOGGER: Serena Zhang, Fifty Forward Summer Intern and Rising High School Senior

 

Have you ever been stranded at the edge of a sidewalk–looking into the hopeless jungle of uneven grass, potholes, potentially fatal anthills, and ruthless intersections between you and the next stretch of sidewalk?

Though the Atlanta region should ultimately aim to increase the total mileage of sidewalks in general, I believe planners should concentrate on connecting existing sidewalks first. It’s not that sidewalks do not exist, it’s their lack of accessibility that prevents them from becoming more successful. I believe developers will aid pedestrians more by forming networks through bridging individual stretches than by creating a new piece of sidewalk safely tucked away from public use.

If more people use sidewalks, maybe the use will spread. Hopefully, it will be contagious.

 

Letting Go of the Snickers Bar

GUEST BLOGGER: Kathryn Lawler, Aging Services Consultant

I am a person of patterns. I eat the same thing for breakfast. Look in my closet. You’ll see I buy the same 3 colors year after year. Sometimes this is good, like when my intermittent morning jog turned into an almost daily routine. Other times it’s not so good like when my periodic mid-afternoon chocolate break quickly morphed into a mandatory 3 pm candy bar. For better or worse, only major events interrupt my patterns- my favorite blue suddenly falling out of style; the vending machine at work ceasing to stock Snickers.

Because I am not alone in my need for patterns, habits and schedules, it’s not such a hard thing to confess. In fact as a region, our habits are more than patterns, they are codified into local policy. These rules shape the way we live, work, play, eat, exercise, relax and get around. Some things make life easier. Some make life more difficult. Some like my Snickers bar are good right now, but not so good in the long run.

Whether we’re ready or not a big change is already in progress and it calls into question just about all of our local patterns and policies. Our population is about to radically shift. We will soon be a region of over 6 million people. More households will be childless. More people will be over the age of 60 and at the same time we’ll have more school children than ever before. The region will be home to cultures, languages, art, ideas, food and expertise from around the globe.

All of this change brings with it a lot of uncertainty and who likes that? We can however assert some control. We get to decide-are we going to re-imagine our future and seize the opportunity to change what we don’t like? Are we going to maximize the best of what’s ahead? Or are we going to cling to our old habits comfortable in both the good and bad that we know?

Regardless of what we chose, in the decades to come when the predicted trends have become the new reality, the leaders of today will get the blame or the credit. We have the imagination and the expertise. We just need the will power and perhaps the courage to leave our old Snickers habits behind.

(Not) Living Together

In his book “The Big Sort,” journalist Bill Bishop takes a look at how Americans have sorted themselves out over the last 30 years. It’s not a red-state/blue-state division. The sorting that he’s looking at is taking place at the neighborhood level. Bishop’s thesis is that affluence and mobility have made it possible for us to live pretty much anywhere we want. Increasingly, he suggests, we are choosing to live in neighborhoods of like-minded people. “Given a choice,” he writes, “people will choose to read, be among, watch, live with, worship with, vote with, people who are like themselves.”

This sorting out is accelerated by the Internet. About eight million people log on to political blogs or partisan web journals every day, creating virtual communities of like-minded individuals who hear only from others who think like they do. Thus, we rarely find ourselves in spaces where we have conversations with people who don’t share our world view.

As we prepare for a much more culturally diverse metro region, what will we need to do to create those spaces where conversations among people of differing views can occur?

What new institutions and organizations we need to work across cultural boundaries to address regional challenges?

Feeling the Squeeze

OK, stop us if you’ve heard this before- we’re getting older. Sound familiar? Of course it does.

 

For years we’ve heard and read about the impending retirement of the 75 million or so boomers. Volumes upon volumes have been written about how this fundamental demographic shift will affect our communities. And, really, this is a dramatic change.

 

The bulk of community planning for the past few decades has been geared to the working age classes and their children because, simply, they constituted the vast majority of the total population. This will no longer be the case, so the fundamental planning assumptions must change. And they will.

 

Concomitant with the aging of the population is the squeezing of the working age population, meaning that there will be fewer workers to support a growing “dependent” population. So not only do we need to rethink who our communities are designed for, we also need to think about the workforce of the future.

 

How can we continue to support traditional safety net programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security if there are going to be fewer workers contributing to these programs and more people drawing from them?  

 

A lot of political capital is being spent on being the toughest on immigration, but given the coming trends, is immigration, including those here illegally, a solution?

Making Green from Working Green

GUEST BLOGGER: Lee J. Harrop LEED AP, PE — Georgia State University MBA Student, Program Management Officer Atlanta BeltLine Inc.

With oil prices over $130/barrel, debates in Congress about the merits of a US carbon market, and record temperatures many people are looking into “green jobs” as a way to do their part to help the environment. In fact eco-friendly jobs are booming both in Atlanta and all over the world.

 
Being green in the work place is no longer a political issue. It is a legitimate competitive strategy being actively embraced by businesses of all sizes. Rising energy and transportation costs are causing businesses to re-think the manner in which they use resources. Businesses are constantly seeking for ways to “out-green” the competition – either to gain a financial edge or to improve their corporate image.
In Atlanta we’re seeing a boom of eco-conscious real estate developments (Glenwood Green, Inman Village, Georgia Tech’s Technology Square - not to mention the Atlanta BeltLine). The State Legislature recently instituted several tax credits for clean and renewable energy (House Bill 670). Local governments are recognizing the cost benefits of sustainable operations (Atlanta’s newly launched Sustainability Initiative). And local corporate giants are also leading the way (Home Depot’s Eco Options). These efforts are a small part of the momentum building that will usher Atlanta into a greener future over the next 50-years.

 
So how can you contribute to this future – and what makes a job green? A green job doesn’t necessarily have to be a new position – it can be as simple as a re-application of an existing skill set. It can be anything from blue-collar jobs (manufacturing wind turbines or solar panels) to service-based careers (eco-friendly engineering and architecture, conducting building energy audits) to traditional white-collar positions (lawyers specializing in evolving green laws and trends, sustainability officer of a corporation). A green job can be anything that helps business or society use a little less of our collective resources.

 
There is a wealth of continuing education opportunities available for green jobs. Georgia State’s Robinson College of Business is in the process of developing a concentration in Business and Environmental Sustainability for its MBA program. The US Green Building Council and local non-profit Southface (both excellent resources) offer various training sessions and certifications. In many cases you might be able to persuade your current employer to pay for continuing education.

 
For more information, visit these online resources: GreenBiz.com, EcoJobs.com, TreeHugger.com, and G3Agency.com.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.” -  Alfred North Whitehead, English mathematician and philosopher

 

It goes without saying, the Atlanta region is changing. The vast majority of the 20-county Atlanta region’s growth this decade has come from non-whites, according to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

 

Some 75 percent of all growth since 2000 has come from non-whites, with the African-American population adding the most, followed by Whites, Hispanics and Asians.

 

Gwinnett County led the region, adding 167,000 non-whites between 2000 and 2006. In fact, Gwinnett captured one-fourth of all the growth in non-whites. This growth includes an increase of 65,000 Hispanics (30% of all Hispanic growth) and 26,000 Asians (37% of all Asian growth).

 

These trends are expected to continue for the next 50 years and the ramifications of this shift are as exciting as they are challenging. The sheer volume of the region’s expected population growth, mixed with the new diversity this growth will bring, will create an Atlanta region that will be hard to recognize when compared to the region we live in today.

 

Multi-culturalism will likely permeate every corner of the society, including classrooms. What will the education system look like then?

 

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?

“Bring your own___”

GUEST BLOGGER: Rebecca Cutts, Fifty Forward Intern and Rising Senior at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School

“Bring your own____” seems to be an ongoing green trend among Americans today in light of the going green movement. The encouragement to bring your own re-usable bags to grocery stores is now being carried (no pun intended) to other stores, including department, drug, and home improvement stores.

In Seattle, Washington, Mayor Nickels is suggesting a 20-cent green fee on paper and plastic shopping bags in hopes to push the use of reusable bags, which many retail and grocery stores are now selling. Although there are exceptions to the fee, such as dry cleaner bags, and bags for prepared food, some may ask if this is going too far. Mayor Nickels does not think so. Researchers have found “with the bag fee alone, [Seattle] can cut more than 4,000 tons [of greenhouse gas generation] per year…the same as taking 665 cars off the road”

In addition to bringing your own bags, people are finding other new ways to extend the use of re-usables. In the work place, people are bringing in their own coffee mugs as well as silverware, to avoid using the less sustainable Styrofoam cups and plastic silverware.

Even chopsticks have become a common eating utensil when it comes to choosing a sustainable option. I learned how to use chopsticks my freshman year of college to seem more cultured and sophisticated. Who knew I was being environmentally friendly?

Although reducing the use of disposable plastic and paper bags may seem like a small step towards creating a sustainable city, these types of initiatives are what make the green movement, well, move. We all know how much people love change. So without becoming overwhelmed by immediately giving up your car, you may just be asked to try to reduce or to give up your use of plastic and paper bags. Small steps make change possible for bigger steps to be taken.

Small, sustained changes can have huge impacts over the long-term. If a similar bag fee program were instituted in Atlanta, how might Atlanta be different fifty years from now? The bag fee if brought to every city, is an action people could take now to help preserve the future.

Question for thought:

Is it reasonable to ask people to “Bring your own___” or face a standard fee? How would you feel about one day being asked to pay a fee for your to-go boxes or Styrofoam cups? Should this proposal be approved and eventually brought to Atlanta?

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?