On Monday, half of the Legacy Crew headed to the Moose Visitor Center on the south end of Grand Teton National Park. There we met with Park Superintendent Mary Gibson Scott and two park rangers, Andrew and Damien, from the Revegetation Crew. The team of seven on the Reveg Crew works on revitalizing areas of the park that have been disturbed by human activity. They only use plants and seeds that are native to the park itself in their projects.
I've been on the road for nearly four weeks and we've already covered so much ground. Traveling the country at this whirlwind pace is both incredible and disorienting, simultaneously fast and slow. I'm now in Oklahoma, a week ago I was in Tennessee and the week before that in Pennsylvania (you can check out our route here). I'm happy to report that I have been amazed by the diversity of our country and reinvigorated by what I have seen.
The purpose of this post, however, is to share my experience from New Orleans. I will preface this by saying that what I write is based on my three days in the city, talking to people and trying to see as much as possible. I certainly don't have the hard facts or the complete picture of everything going on there (who does?), but I feel compelled to share what I did learn.
Compared to our other stops on the trip so far, New Orleans was so real and raw. Almost two years after Katrina, the situation is still quite grim in many ways, but there is also an atmosphere of optimism amongst the people I met that they are reclaiming their city. I was really moved by the importance of the work that still needs to be done there.
After our day flexing muscle with Working Bikes, we set out Friday morning to learn about sustainability in Chicago from the perspective of the city government. Several years ago Mayor Daley declared that he wanted to make Chicago the “greenest” city in the nation, and over the course of the day we found out how the government is working to make that statement a reality.
We started with a meeting at the Chicago Department of the Environment, an office which is responsible for “protecting human health and the environment, improving the urban quality of life, and promoting economic development in Chicago.” Antonia Ornelas from the Energy and Air Quality division hosted us for the meeting and began by giving an overview of the city’s current environmental projects, many of which are based on Chicago’s Environmental Action Agenda
Some of the initiatives we heard about included a recently passed ordinance requiring every new public building to be LEED certified, as well as the city’s permitting system that gives priority to green buildings in the approval process. We also found out that Chicago is one of the most bike-friendly large cities in the nation, with over 100 miles of bike lanes so far, and a plan to have a 500 mile bike lane network completed by 2015.
Next we heard from Dave Graham about how the city manages brownfields, which he defined as sites with environmental health issues that affect the development of a property. Since Chicago is a city still transitioning from a heavily industrial past, many places require remediation to remove toxins from the land before they are safe for humans. Another initiative we learned about is the department’s work to encourage the installation of green, or living, roofs in the city through a grant program. Green roofs help mitigate the urban heat island effect, which is when the temperature in cities becomes much hotter than they naturally would be due to concrete, asphalt, and other traditional building materials absorbing and re-radiating the sun’s energy. Kevin Laberge gave us a guided viewing of the green roof installed on City Hall, which is just across the street from the Department of the Environment.
Our meeting rounded out with presentations by Marissa Strassel and Margaret Rice. Marissa told us about the Chicago Conservation Corps, a project to train and empower city residents to tackle environmental issues in their neighborhoods. Margaret then led a discussion on environmental justice in Chicago, and we learned about environmental health disparities between different communities in Chicago.
Our discussion at the Department of the Environment really demonstrated the potential that local governments have to set up systems that favor sustainable development. By building viable bike lanes, for example, the city encourages people to use a carbon-free source of transportation. And by offering expedited permit approval for green development projects, Chicago provides a strong incentive for developers to consider sustainable building materials and design. Far from traditional command and control environmental regulation, the Department of the Environment’s initiatives instead create conditions that make going green a logical and relatively easy decision. It’s a powerful geographic lesson to be sure: we shape our landscapes, but in turn they shape us. While there is still much work to be done in Chicago, the city has already come a long way.
Antonia Ornelas gives the crew a presentation at the Chicago Department of the Environment
I was both excited and encouraged to hear about what was going on in the city, and that feeling only increased at our next stop for the day, The Chicago Center for Green Technology (CCGT). Built on an old brownfield site on the west side of the city, the center is a demonstration of the possibility of green building technology. Meghann Maves gave us a tour of the site, telling us that
CCGT’s dual mission is to research sustainable building design, but also to educate the public on what they are learning. The center itself is a LEED Platinum building (the highest level of certification possible), and it is bursting with examples of green building technologies: wind turbines, solar panels, permeable parking lots, storm water collection, green roofs, native plantings, etc. The building also hosts a great line-up of programming related to sustainability – seminars, speakers, workshops – that are open to the public. And perhaps the best part is that it houses a growing public Green Building Resource Center, with ample materials and knowledgeable staff available to help answer questions for prospective homeowners and business owners.
If I lived in Chicago and were taking on a building project, this would be my first stop.
Our final stop on our tour of Chicago’s “green government” was just down the road from CCGT, The Garfield Park Conservatory. The conservatory, one of the largest in the nation, is an internationally recognized horticulture facility and an important part of the City of Chicago Park District and its surrounding Westside community. Thousands of plants are grown here each year for City parks and spaces. The rich and tangy smell of the conservatory alone makes it worth visiting, ant the variety of flora and fauna from around the world was really great to see in the middle of the country’s third largest city.
After a day of much walking, we were excited to rest our feet and spend the evening with Julia Ferguson (Udall ’05) and her dad, Doug Ferguson. Along with good conversation, they grilled us an excellent dinner, complete with Midwestern brats! It was a great way to end our tour of the city, though I know that with so much exciting environmental work going on in Chicago, I’ll be back.
*A special thanks to Samantha Bingham, Clean Cities Coordinator, for helping us set up our visits at the Department of the Environment and the Chicago Center for Green Technology!
By: Julie Curti
We were joking today on the bus about how many of us might have chosen to stay in Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor all summer if we were given the choice (which would have made for a brief tour!). As we began to drive through the lush rolling hills of Vermont, however, we knew that would have been a big mistake. Our first stop in the state was in a town called Rutland, where we met with Larry Fisher from the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution, a program of the Udall Foundation. Larry had brought together a group of diverse folks who worked for three years to redraw the forest management plan for Green Mountain National Forest, GMNF. Over the course of the afternoon, we engaged them in a discussion about what they learned from the process.
Before our meeting, I didn’t know that the National Forest Management Act requires the Forest Service to use public input to redraw a forest management plan every fifteen years. Forest plans describe the management objectives and guidelines that determine how different parts of the land will be used and are the roadmap for the future of the forest. In the case of Green Mountain, the Forest Service reached out to towns, regional planning commissions, and other local organizations to help facilitate the plan revision process.
The Forest Service worked with the U. S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution to select a neutral mediator who conducted a Situation Assessment, which involved a series of rolling interviews with residents to establish the issues that mattered to people. Based on the results of the assessment, the Forest Service organized 75 focused public meetings in the various towns around
It was great to hear about how the Forest Service engaged so many stakeholders in designing a future direction for Green Mountain National Forest. One interesting thread from our conversation, however, was the issue of whose concerns matter most in the process of creating a forest plan. In the case of Green Mountain, 90 percent of the people who use the land live right on the edge of the forest, and those were the members of the public most actively involved in the plan revision process. Local interests and community-based planning were emphasized by the Forest Service, with the idea that those who are most connected to and invested in a place will be its best stewards.
Yet, Green Mountain is also a National Forest and therefore land that belongs to all the people of the United States. But can those of us who have never been to the forest have a stake in planning its future? Can there even be such a thing as a national interest when it comes to determining how to manage a specific site? In the case of Green Mountain, it seemed that the lesson was that place matters. A collaborative public planning process can only be effective if the “public” decides to participate, and the revision drew many people who cared about the forest because it was more than a place on paper, and instead a place that they had personally experienced.
By: Julie Curti
What does it mean to be a sustainable city? From the perspective of government and city planning, there certainly are many important elements to put on a checklist: mixed zoning codes, green building and roofs, city parks, public transportation, renewable energy, etc. During our travels to come this summer, we’ll spend a lot of time learning about these greening efforts in cities across the country. While in Philadelphia, however, we were challenged to think about what can make a city sustainable from the grassroots level.
On our first evening in Philly, we saw a sampling of some of the 2,700 murals that adorn the walls of buildings throughout the city. As part of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, creating murals encourages both young people and adults to use community art as an alternative to crime. Rarely targets of vandalism, these murals teach people valuable art education and job skills, beautify neighborhoods, and instill pride in residents. Check out this link to take a virtual tour of some of the murals: http://www.muralarts.org/about/prevention.php
The night continued with a dinner at the White Dog Café, a center for environmental and social justice action in the city...
Founder and owner Judy Wicks spoke to us there about her work to turn her restaurant into both a community gathering place and network for addressing issues of concern both locally and globally. Educational “Community Tours” of Philadelphia regularly leave from the White Dog with themes such as affordable housing, mural arts, urban agriculture, prison gardens, and more. The cafe staff gets all of their food from local farmers, and ensures that it is organic and cruelty-free. What’s more, they actively work to share their sustainable business strategies with other restaurants in the area. These are just a few of the many endeavors that Wicks has undertaken. You can find out more about the café here: www.whitedog.com. As a side note, I should also mention that the food was amazing.
To return to the point of this entry, both the Mural Arts Program and the White Dog Café seemed to demonstrate that evaluating what makes a city sustainable is a multi-faceted undertaking. It is critical not to forget, however, that ultimately what makes a city is its people and the communities that they create. In the case of Philly, grassroots greening seems to be going a long way.
By Julie Curti
