The Civics of Sustainability

The Civics of Sustainability An Overview BY JOEL MILLS For those working in the field of community sustain- Addressing the growing urgency of climate change ability, reading the news these days might seem de- and national renewal will require substantial in- pressing. The challenges are dramatic. On April 20, novation and adaptation at the regional and local 2010, the explosion of a British Petroleum oil rig in levels. At the local level, municipalities across the the Gulf of Mexico ignited what is now the worst country have begun mobilizing to meet the chal- environmental catastrophe in our nation’s history, lenge. To date, 1,042 municipalities have signed on with estimates of the scope of the oil spill reach- to the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protec- ing as high as sixty thousand barrels per day. The tion Agreement. With more than 81 percent of the Gulf crisis has highlighted America’s continuing de- U.S. population, cities and metropolitan regions will pendence on oil, and our ever-expanding carbon have a central place in strategies addressing climate footprint. change on an effective scale. In recent years, the level of interest in applying new tools to meet our Currently, even the most energy-conscious challenges has grown dramatically in the public sec- Americans have twice the carbon footprint as tor. In February 2009 a broad partnership launched the average global citizen. The United States Sustainable New Jersey as a voluntary certification comprises about 4 percent of the earth’s population program for the state’s municipalities seeking to but emits about 25 percent of the total global develop strategies for long-term sustainability. By greenhouse gases. In contrast to China, the United August of that year, 214 municipalities across the States emits more than seven times as much per state had signed on to the program. In May 2009, person. And compared to India, Americans produce Living Cities released a report that found four out more than twenty times as much per capita. of five big cities now ranking sustainability as a top- five issue. There is little doubt that sustainability has Patterns in consumption and energy use have been come of age. trending negative over the long run. Total U.S. emis- sions have risen by approximately 14 percent in The Sustainability Paradigm the last twenty years. Most projections lead us to In 1987, the United Nations Brundtland Commis- the conclusion that an ever-expanding population sion offered what may be the definitive explanation will continue to fuel this trend, exacerbating al- of the term: “Sustainable development is develop- ready strained resources. The nation’s population ment that meets the needs of the present without reached 300 million in 2006, and it is projected to hit compromising the ability of future generations to 350 million by 2025. Expansive land use policies meet their own needs.” However, given sustainabil- and continued growth will put severe pressure on ity’s broad meaning, it has been subject to a range our ability to decrease our carbon footprint and of interpretations. In recent years, the term sustain- adapt to a changing climate. ability has been widely adopted by both the public and private sectors. In fact, it is so overused that it Our nation’s condition is fragile by most estimates. has given birth to a new lexicon, with words such as In perhaps the most disturbing development, recent “greenwashing” (on the model of “whitewashing”) studies reveal that the American public doesn’t grasp gaining currency to describe the many attempts to the severity of the challenges faced today. A recent co-opt the issue. Gallup poll revealed that 48 percent of Americans believe the threat of global warming is an exagger- This edition of the National Civic Review is orga- ated claim; the poll registered the highest percentage nized as a survey of community sustainability. It of doubters in the thirteen years the organization has represents a compilation of diverse community ex- been asking the question. periences that focus on how a range of successful c 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) National Civic Review • DOI: 10.1002/ncr.20022 • Fall 2010 3 strategies are being applied in community settings its limited resources to become an All-America and on various scales, from neighborhoods and City and a national model for preservation and cities to regions. Each place featured in this edi- sustainability? r tion demonstrates how communities are addressing How can a modest rural town such as sustainability within their own context, and each Greensburg, Kansas, not only recover from a dev- of them has defined its sustainable vision and goals astating tornado but position itself as a national through a unique community narrative. In particu- leader in sustainable development, such that two lar, these cases feature some examples highlighting presidents have referred to it as a model for the critical connection between building civic capac- others? r ity and achieving success toward becoming a more How are established communities that have un- sustainable place. dergone transformative revitalization in previous eras, such as Chattanooga, Tennessee, redefining their processes for modern challenges and devel- Despite the negative tone of the national news cy- oping the next generation of leadership and sus- cle, there are profoundly positive stories developing tainable community enterprise? under the radar, at the local level. These communities all have great stories to share. In Philadelphia, civic leaders have convened the com- The Importance of Civic Capacity munity to build a grand civic vision for their waterfront. In Los Angeles, a youthful movement of r Since 2005, the Center for Communities by De- “creatives” and professionals is producing exciting sign has engaged in pro bono technical assistance new opportunities for a downtown that was long projects on sustainability issues with more than since considered extinct after enduring the negative forty communities. One of the common state- impact of decades of city sprawl. In Tampa, a group ments we hear from communities illustrates the of design professionals formed the Urban Charrette, challenge facing local jurisdictions today: “We an organization dedicated to engaging the commu- don’t need another plan. We have plans—they nity in a common conversation about sustainability. all sit on the shelves. We need an implementa- In Chattanooga, a new generation of civic leader- tion strategy.” The simple fact is that many com- ship is redefining the “Chattanooga process” for munities are struggling to put in place effective the twenty-first century. Collectively, these narra- structures and processes to achieve success. In tives offer an illustrative group of potential mod- some places, the politicized nature of public di- els and approaches for the rest of us. In accom- alogue is driving apathy and conflict, preclud- plishing bold, context-specific goals, they have also ing development of effective partnership and col- produced remarkable similarities in how they ap- laboration. Therefore, civic capacity—the ability proach public work, and as a group they hold criti- to leverage all of the collective resources avail- cal value for other communities and partners in the able in a given community toward achievement field. of public work—is at the heart of any inquiry about today’s success stories. Despite the nega- These communities excel in their ability to engage tive tone of the national news cycle, we’ve found the whole community in public work, identify com- through our work that there are profoundly pos- mon purpose, and build vibrant partnerships for suc- itive stories developing under the radar, at the cess. The numbers alone speak volumes about their local level. These stories have gone largely unno- capacity: ticed, but many of them offer us unique insights r into the opportunities we have to engage in trans- Greensburg, Kansas, engaged hundreds of people formative change. In these places, the focus is not in a town of fewer than fifteen hundred. r only on what gets done but more important how Philadelphia engaged more than four thousand it is done. How can a small city of only sixty residents in its development of a Civic Vision for thousand residents, like Dubuque, Iowa, leverage the Delaware Waterfront. 4 National Civic Review DOI: 10.1002/ncr Fall 2010 r Envision Utah involved more than eighteen thou- It takes a vision. As the proverb tell us, “without a vi- sand participants in a two-year regional planning sion, the people perish.” Successful communities are process. defining collective visions of their future, and work- r Chattanooga Stand attracted more than twenty- ing together deliberatively to realize those visions. six thousand residents in the “largest survey- All of the communities involved in this edition have based visioning campaign” in the world. engaged in some form of visioning as a preliminary step in doing public work. Philadelphia has a proud These communities apply a variety of engagement claim to being the original city of grand visions. To- techniques and formats to produce remarkably sup- day, it is renewing that tradition through comple- portive public processes. Public involvement tools tion of the Civic Vision for the Central Delaware. varied from online engagement to in-person engage- The city’s Great Expectations process leading up to ment, from public workshops and presentations to its last mayoral election demonstrates the power of surveys and summits—and those are just the exam- public processes in framing a city agenda that tran- ples from one community profiled here. The abil- scends politics. Dubuque has won a host of awards ity to supply a range of access points and a broad and received considerable national recognition for platform for participation enhances their ability to leveraging its historic assets to create a model sus- leverage cross-sector partnerships for success.

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