Restoring Prosperity
The Greater Ohio Policy Center Blog
June 1st, 2009
Today in Louisville, Kentucky, hundreds are taking part in the opening day of the second Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference. The conference is a ray of hope in the midst of our housing and economic crises — and an incubator for the ideas and solutions that can bring prosperity back to the cities, communities and neighborhoods hit hard by abandonment and vacancy.
Greater Ohio's Gene Krebs talks with Sue Douglass, Belmont County Department of Development's Associate Director, about ongoing development activities in the area and road blocks it is facing.
How many times have you been walking somewhere when the sidewalk suddenly ends and your only options are walking on a busy road or walking through an unkempt field? Even Google is guilty of providing walking routes to people without taking into account whether sidewalks actually exist on those roads. Well, someone is finally starting to recognize that usable sidewalks matter and can spur economic development. AMATS (Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study) is compiling a comprehensive map of the region's sidewalks. You can view the most up-to-date list at http://ci.akron.oh.us/AMATS/whatsnew.asp.
An Ohio.news article Sidewalks are strolling to forefront discusses AMATS' project and how sidewalks contribute to sustainable development.
Even relatively short sidewalks can be attractive to people who don't want their kids walking to a neighbor's house in the street. But linking scattered stretches certainly makes sense — assuming the money is there.
''We're not talking millions of dollars,'' Baker says, ''but maybe there are missing links, places where $100,000 could make important connections, especially in those heavily used commercial corridors.''
Smart Growth America Release
CONTACT: David Goldberg
Communications Director
(202) 412-7930
Livable Communities: Just What the Doctor Ordered
Smart Growth America Praises American Academy of Pediatrics’ Community Prescription for Child Health
Washington, D.C. — Geoff Anderson, President and CEO of Smart Growth America, today praised the American Academy of Pediatrics for prescribing community design as a crucial part of child health (“POLICY STATEMENT: The Built Environment: Designing Communities to Promote Physical Activity in Children”). The American Academy of Pediatrics today:
American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statements are “Organizational Principles to Guide and Define the Child Health Care System and/or Improve the Health of All Children”. Today’s policy statement appears in the June issue of Pediatrics®, the flagship journal of the AAP.
Pediatrics has been ranked #1 out of 74 pediatrics journals by the Thomson/ISI Journal Citation Reports for the fourth consecutive year.
Geoff Anderson:
“Healthy communities mean healthy kids. The American Academy of Pediatrics is the most authoritative voice in the United States for healthy kids, and we applaud the Academy for stepping forward to connect smart neighborhood design to the well being of our children. We also applaud the Academy for calling on our government leaders to act on that connection.
“We can have a direct impact on reducing childhood obesity, lowering the pollution that causes asthma, and improving our children’s quality of life. We can—and the American Academy of Pediatrics says we should—build less car-dependent communities, make existing routes to school safer, and ensure that children and their parents have safe, active transportation options like walking or bicycling.
“Looking ahead, we encourage the Obama administration, the U.S. Congress, and our state and local leaders to include childhood health as they make transportation decisions. By spending transportation portions of the economic stimulus and shaping upcoming transportation legislation in ways that prioritize healthier, better living, they can build 21st Century infrastructure that is safer, cleaner, smarter and healthier for the next generation.”
The AAP Policy Statement is available at: http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;123/6/1591
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ABOUT SGA
Smart Growth America is a coalition of national, state and local organizations working to improve the ways we plan and build the towns, cities and metro areas we call home. The coalition includes many of the best-known national organizations advocating on behalf of historic preservation, the environment, farmland and open space preservation, neighborhood revitalization and more. Our state- and regional-level members are community-based organizations working to save treasured landscapes while making our towns and cities ever more livable and lovable.
On Monday, June 1st from 2:30-5:30, Greater Ohio's Lavea Brachman will join other experts on the Building a State Vacant Properties Campaign training session. The session is part of the Reclaiming Vacant Properties Campaign in Louisville, KY from June 1st-3rd. Although online registration is now closed, on-site registration is available.
With the rising number of foreclosures, blight from vacant properties confronts communities across the country and severely threatens neighborhood stability. Cities of all shapes and sizes are searching for innovative, cost effective strategies to abate these public nuisances and transform vacant properties into catalysts for revitalization. As the new Obama Administration gets under way, what better time to join your vacant property colleagues to share successful initiatives taking place across the country and discuss the new opportunities to change the federal and state policies that affect our cities and towns.
Reclaiming Vacant Properties: Building Leadership to Restore Communities is the only national conference focusing on building the knowledge, leadership, and momentum to reclaim vacant and abandoned properties for thriving neighborhoods.
The Wall Street recently published an interesting comparative piece of two cities in Michigan: Ann Arbor, a city with promise and Warren, a city in decline. The article, Ann Arbor and Warren: A Tale of Two Economies, not only addresses the need for cities to move beyond the automotive industry as the economic driver, to a more diverse group of innovative industries, it also shows the difference civic capacity makes in fostering growth. During my travels as the Project Coordinator at Greater Ohio, I have witnessed the decline in civic capacity throughout the entire state of Ohio. As big box stores overtake mom and pop businesses, the city loses the people who traditionally fill civic leadership roles. Ann Arbor is fortunate to have the University of Michigan and has wisely invested in this asset to create more jobs and spur innovation. New technology companies crop up and there is a supply of leaders to improve the quality of the city and offer residents a safe and unique culture.
"Over the years, the city [Ann Arbor] developed the types of schools, cultural institutions and amenities that made it an attractive place to live and work. Google, whose co-founder Larry Page attended the University of Michigan, opened an Ann Arbor campus in 2006. About 70,000 people commute to this city, about 40 miles west of Detroit, each day.
Accio Energy got its start in 2007, based on plans two of the founders hatched at Zingerman's Deli, Ann Arbor's renowned gourmet-food destination."
In contrast to Warren which "has the largest concentration of auto workers in the country, job transitions are more difficult to make. Just one in five of Warren's workers between the ages of 25 and 64 holds a bachelor's degree or higher, a relic of the days when a college degree wasn't necessary to find a job that paid well. By comparison, three-quarters of Ann Arbor's work force has at least a college degree."
There are leaders in Ohio's cities, however they can not go it alone and will need to grow in numbers and in strength in order to make an impact.
The bike movement has hit Cleveland and the city is responding by constructing a bike station that will offer downtown bikers a place to park their bike as well as have access to showers, changing rooms, lockers and even a small repair shop staffed by a mechanic. As Mark Lefkowitz of GreenCityBlueLake reports in Downtown bike station can catalyze mode shift, this bike station needs to be viewed in the context of a continuous movement: "Consider the question in the context of the region’s long-range plans for transportation investment. We are incorporating climate action goals in NOACA’s long-range plan. The next logical step is specific carbon reduction strategies such as offsetting Vehicle Miles Traveled by “X” percent. One way we reduce greenhouse gasses is to take cars off of the road. Investing in bicycling infrastructure can help."
Cleveland has the right mindset toward transportation; it is time that Ohio start looking at alternatives to the automobile, however one thought: What will bikers do during the winter?
David MacKay, a physics professor at the Univeristy Cambridge, wrote an insightful commentary on CNN news, Let's get real about alternative energy. The article gives a realistic view of the feasibility of alternative energy and how that would impact our lives. In the article, MacKay breaks down the amount of energy simple household products use (One kilowatt-hour (kWh) per 40-watt bulb on for 24 hours), how much the average persons uses in a year (the average European uses 125 kWh per day per person; the average American uses 250 kWh per day for transport, heating, manufacturing, and electricity). MacKay uses this information to put into perspective how much alternative forms of energy really produce. For those of you interested in learning more about "green" energy this is a great article. Ultimately, in current economy the best thing you can do to save energy is to buy an electric car (Hydrogen cars use around 254 kWh per 100 km, the average fossil car in Europe uses 80 kWh per 100 km; the electric vehicles use as little as 20 kWh per 100 km, or even 6 kWh per 100 km)!
Restoring Prosperity to Cleveland Mini-Summit
Monday, June 8, 10:30 a.m.-4:15 p.m.
As part of the Brookings Institution/Greater Ohio Restoring Prosperity to Ohio Initiative, join Policy Bridge and corporate, civic, political, academic and philanthropic leaders from the Cleveland area to explore alignment of the Cleveland urban revitalization agenda with state reforms.
The Cleveland Mini-Summit will build on the momentum and success of the Brookings/Greater Ohio Restoring Prosperity to Ohio Summit held last fall. The State Summit launched the Restoring Prosperity to Ohio Initiative and unveiled a state reform agenda with the goal of revitalizing the state’s communities and reinvigorating their economic competitiveness.
