Chapter 4

It is often easier to make these connections in the context of communities. It is in communities that people work, play, and feel most connected to society. Problems like congestion, pollution, and crime may seem abstract as national statistics, but they become personal and real at the local level: for example, people are frustrated by long commutes that take time away from family life. It is in communities that people profoundly feel the effects of shifts in the national and regional economy. Although decisions may be justified based on restructuring or other economic needs, workers experience the loss of wages to provide for themselves and their families when factories or military bases are closed. It is within communities that children gain basic education, skills, and training for jobs in the changing marketplace. It is within communities that people can most easily bring diverse interests together, identify and agree on goals for positive change, and organize for responsive action. While the challenges facing the nation are difficult to resolve at any level of government, local communities offer people the greatest opportunity to meet face to face to fashion a shared commitment to a sustainable future.

The role of local communities is becoming increasingly important as the United States, and much of the rest of the world, moves toward more decentralized decisionmaking. The federal government will continue to bear the responsibility for bringing together diverse interests to establish national standards, goals, and priorities. The federal role is important and necessary in areas such as these because national interests may not always be represented in local decisions, and the effects of community choices are felt beyond one municipality. As discussed in chapter 2, "Building a New Framework for a New Century," the federal government is providing greater flexibility and expanding the roles played by states, counties, and local communities in implementing policies and programs to address national goals. This new model of intergovernmental partnership will require information sharing and an unprecedented degree of coordination among levels of government. Local government will play a key role in creating stronger communities from planning and facilitating development, to creating community partnerships, to providing leadership.

It is clear that the scope of a problem determines the level at which it is most appropriately solved. For example, some issues have global, regional, and interregional ramifications. Air pollution is one such issue. The air pollutants in acid rain may originally have been emitted hundreds of miles from where the precipitation ultimately falls. The cooperation of more than one region is required to correct this type of problem.

Sustainable communities are cities and towns that prosper because people work together to produce a high quality of life that they want to sustain and constantly improve. While it is not possible today to point to a list and say, "These communities are sustainable," the emerging ideal of sustainable communities is a goal many are striving to achieve. And while there is no single template for a sustainable community, cities and towns pursuing sustainable development often have characteristics in common. In communities that sustain themselves, all people have access to educational opportunities that prepare them for jobs to support themselves and their families in a dynamic local economy that is prepared to cope with changes in the national and global economy. People are involved in making decisions that affect their lives. Businesses, households, and government make efficient use of land, energy, and other resources, allowing the area to achieve a high quality of life with minimal waste and environmental damage. These communities are healthy and secure, and provide people with clean air to breathe and safe water to drink.

In sustainable communities, people are engaged in building a community together. They are well-informed and actively involved in making community decisions. They make decisions for the long term that benefit future generations as well as themselves. They understand that successful long-term solutions require partnerships and a process that allows for representatives of a community's diverse sectors to be involved in discussions, planning, and decisions that respond directly to unique local needs. They also recognize that some problems cannot be solved within the confines of their community and that working in partnership with others in the region is necessary to deal with them.

height=191 width=330 hspace=15 vspace=15 In sustainable communities, people use a participatory approach to make conscious decisions about design. The concepts of efficiency and liveability guide these decisions. Development patterns promote accessibility, decrease sprawl, reduce energy costs, and foster the creation of built environments on a human scale. Use of environmentally superior technologies for transportation, industry, buildings, and agriculture boosts productivity and lowers business costs while dramatically reducing pollution, including solid and hazardous wastes.

In sustainable communities, partnerships involving business, government, labor, and employees promote economic development and jobs. Participants cooperatively plan and carry out development strategies that create diversified local economies built on unique local advantages and environmentally superior technologies. These efforts can strengthen the local economy, buffering it from the effects of national and international economic trends that result in job losses in a community. Such partnerships also invest in education and training to make community members more productive, raise earning power, and help strengthen and attract business.

Much of what is needed to create more sustainable communities is within reach if people and their community institutions join forces. Many communities are beginning to use sustainable development as a framework for thinking about their future. The big institutions in society-- including federal and state governments, businesses, universities, and national organizations--can and should provide support for local community efforts. And in some cases, these institutions need to review the barriers they sometimes inadvertently have erected that diminish the ability of communities to pursue sustainable development.

The Council was inspired by communities throughout the country that are using innovative approaches to reinvigorate public involvement in finding solutions to community problems. From small towns like Pattonsburg, Missouri, to cities like Chattanooga, Tennessee, to large urban centers like Seattle, Washington, many communities are taking responsibility for meeting their economic, environmental, and equity objectives. While none of these communities has been transformed into a utopia, much can be learned from their efforts and progress. By building upon their leadership and innovation, marshaling and reorienting government resources, and creating new standards for process and participation, strengthened communities can provide the foundation for a stronger, revitalized America.

Building A Community Together

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The capacity of democratic institutions to solve problems and create a better future depends on the knowledge and involvement of citizens in a community decision-making process that encourages systemic thought and broad-based action. Systemic thought is required so that economic, environmental, and social problems are recognized as integrated and actions to address them are coordinated. Because these problems are interconnected in daily life, approaching them one at a time does not work. In fact, such a strategy is often counterproductive, leading to short-term fixes and long-term difficulties--a situation society can ill afford. The integration of local decisionmaking offers a way to improve the economy, the environment, and social equity in communities.

Broad-based action is needed because local government alone cannot accomplish long-term solutions to community problems. Nor can individuals, businesses, community groups, or state and federal agencies do so by working in isolation. Lasting solutions are best identified when people from throughout a community--as individuals; elected officials; or members of the business community, environmental groups, or civic organizations--are brought together in a spirit of cooperation to identify solutions to community problems.

But make no mistake: this work is difficult, and there are barriers to its success. The time and energy of many families are already drained by juggling the demands of the workplace and the home. Cynicism toward government is high, and. all too frequently. Participation in civic life is declining.

Despite the obstacles, some communities are succeeding in ambitious efforts to involve citizens in building a stronger community. For example:

• Since 1984, more than 2,000 Chattanooga residents have worked together to identify broad goals to lay out a vision for their city's future.

• In Pattonsburg, which was nearly destroyed by a flood in 1993, residents came together and, with the assistance of experts on sustainable design, decided to rebuild their community on higher ground.

• In Seattle, a local citizens' group spearheaded an effort to measure the progress or decline of key social, economic, and environmental indicators that were identified by the community as priorities.

• Metropolitan areas like Portland, Oregon, and states like Minnesota have begun to use broad-based goal-setting and benchmarking projects in planning their collective future and measuring their progress.

By listening to the stories of communities throughout the country, the Council learned that there are fundamental steps to a community-driven strategic planning process. A critical first step is to assemble a broad cross section of the community to participate in an open, public process. Through a series of meetings and events, the community develops a vision for its future. It then conducts an inventory and assessment of its economic, natural, and human resources. Specific economic, environmental, and social goals are determined; these build on the community's vision, resources, and needs. Next, the community sets priorities for its goals, identifies specific actions, and establishes indicators or benchmarks to measure progress toward the goals. If successful, the strategic planning process results in a clear sense of direction and timing. It specifies the actions and responsibilities to be undertaken by business, residents, government, and community groups.

Fundamental to the long-term success of community-driven solutions is the opportunity for all residents to participate, including people who have been historically underrepresented in decisionmaking. While citizen participation is primarily an individual decision, government and the private sector can encourage people to be more involved by addressing barriers to participation. By developing a strategic plan that involves the diverse sectors of the community and generates leadership to bring about specific actions, communities have taken steps to create a better future for their residents.

Cooperation among communities in a metropolitan area is also necessary. For some time, there has been a trend toward increased concentration of the U.S. population in metropolitan areas. This trend is linked both to population growth and people's migratory patterns. The number of Americans living in metropolitan areas rose from 140 million in 1970 to more than 203 million in 1992.[1] This trend affects such concerns as congestion, urban pollution, and high demand for public space and services, which together lower the quality of life in cities and contribute to the exodus from central cities that is occurring in many parts of America. By working together, communities can tackle issues--like transportation planning--that affect, and whose resolution can benefit, an entire region. This collaborative approach is not only an opportunity, it is a necessity. Community leaders who met with the Council emphasized that without regional approaches to solve many critical problems that affect communities--such as economic development, transportation, land use, sprawl, and water quality--little long-term progress can be made.

By creating incentives to encourage communities to work together, state and federal governments can improve the decision-making process and promote long-term, holistic solutions to regional problems. Building stronger links among people, communities, and the decisions that affect them can revitalize grassroots democracy and thereby strengthen communities, regions, and the nation. The actions listed below need additional commitments of time and resources, but we as a Council believe they are necessary and worthwhile.

Sustainable building design and community planning make efficient use of existing infrastructure, energy, water, materials, and land. Not only does such use save money, it also safeguards public health and the environment and conserves natural resources. Building codes can shape how much energy, water, and materials a building consumes in its construction and operation. Zoning ordinances frequently influence decisions on the construction, design, and siting of buildings and developments. Efficient land use protects vulnerable environmental areas that provide important benefits to society. For example, coastal areas, watersheds, and floodplains absorb the forces unleashed by nature. And preserved wetlands can filter water far more cheaply than expensive water treatment facilities.[3] In contrast, development in these areas exposes people and their investments to unnecessary risks and natural hazards.

Location efficiency is another important component of sustainable design. Zoning ordinances that allow for mixed-use development, such as having a store, apartment building, and school on the same block, can give people easy access to a range of facilities and the ability to walk to obtain goods and services. This can result in decreased reliance on motorized vehicles, thereby reducing congestion and air pollution.

Sustainable community design is based on an understanding of the powerful effect of the built environment on aesthetics, scale, and a sense of history and culture. Historic buildings give society an important sense of tradition and education about the past. Preservation of existing structures also offers a way to reuse and recycle materials and related infrastructure. By rehabilitating older buildings, communities can save energy and materials and establish a sense of continuity.

Localities have used zoning and other ordinances to foster historical connections. For example, the bay windows contributing to the beauty and character of Boston's Back Bay were the result of a zoning code that allowed one-third of each building to extend to the street. Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, among many other historic areas, have protected their architectural heritage -- and enhanced their property values -- by using design control measures and by making historic preservation a priority.

Some communities are working together to create regional strategies for transportation, land use, and economic growth. For example, in the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area, communities are working together to plan for the explosive population growth the area has experienced since the 1980s. By using coordinated decisionmaking and establishing an urban growth boundary, which contains future growth, these communities are conserving open space and prime farmland to preserve the quality of life that has attracted so many people to Portland in the first place. They are also using community impact analyses to inform themselves about proposed development during the planning phase when adjustments can be made more easily.

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Design that is coordinated among communities can help address issues related to growth. While some growth is necessary, it is the nature of that growth that makes the difference. Sprawl typically is development situated without regard to the overall design of a community or region. It often results in types of development -- such as rambling, cookie-cutter subdivisions and strip malls -- that perpetuate homogeneity, make inefficient use of land, and rely almost exclusively on automobiles for transportation. Sprawl development provides immediate and direct benefits to the people who move there, but the costs are longer term and borne by society at large. This is a "tragedy of the commons" in which individuals acting logically in their own interest harm a common resource. Sprawl is caused by a combination of incentives established by governmental policies and individual decisions made in response to a complex array of factors. This combination results in urban decline and is made worse by competition among local jurisdictions with little regional cooperation.

The brownfields issue is an example of the need for regional strategies. Brownfields are abandoned, contaminated, and/or underused land that is often found in the inner city. In contrast, greenfields are relatively pristine, undeveloped land, usually found at the edge of a metropolitan area or in a rural area. A company deciding whether to invest in building or modernizing a plant in a city center or building on rural or suburban open space weighs many factors. What is the cost of development? How much time will it take? What are the uncertainties? What are the operational costs? What is the proximity to the market or the workforce? Answers to these questions depend on a number of factors, such as labor skills and public safety concerns. The economic opportunities presented by brownfield redevelopment are discussed later in this chapter; but the issue of brownfields is clearly linked to sprawl, land use, and regional design as well.

Land use and infrastructure policies have a significant impact on development decisions. If the cost of cleaning up brownfields is borne by the developer but the cost of roads and utilities needed to serve greenfield development is borne by government, the scales tip. If the uncertainty of time and liability associated with brownfield development is greater, the scales can tip further. And if the tax burden in a newer, more affluent suburb is less than in the urban center, the case for greenfield development could be substantial. While it is a private decision made by individuals and businesses, it is greatly influenced by governmental policies that are not always readily apparent.

Benefits of developing open space are experienced one house or one business at a time. These benefits are tangible and immediate. The costs are harder to measure. In contemplating open land for residential or industrial development, an awareness and appreciation of what might be lost and of the environmental costs should be taken into account. Visionary planner Frederick Law Olmsted described urban parks as the lungs of a city.[4] This concept also applies to rural regions. Forests, farmland, mountains, plains, deserts, and swamps give the nation vital breathing room. New development should be based upon the carrying capacity of a region, which is the environment's finite ability to support life and renew itself.

Given the importance of the physical design of communities and their infrastructure, it is essential that communities continue to work cooperatively to understand and evaluate the potential long-term consequences of decisions made and to adapt them for their long-term well-being. State and federal governments should work collaboratively with communities to devise ways to measure these consequences in order to help local governments make their decisions.

Design, by definition, involves planning and making deliberate decisions. This occurs at different scales in the context of a community. The following recommendations are organized along these scales of design. The first scale relates to the design of buildings and other structures within the community. The second relates to the physical layout of streets, transit, residences, stores, and workplaces in the community. The third ties the community to others in the region.

There will also be opportunities to target the benefits from regulatory flexibility to encourage social equity and economic development. An example is a cash-for-clunkers program in which companies that own stationary sources of air pollution can purchase and scrap older, more polluting cars rather than make expensive investments in pollution control in their facilities.[7] Such a program benefits industry by allowing a more cost-effective method for reducing air emissions and benefits the environment by removing some higher polluting cars from the road. This program could provide further social benefit if some of the economic savings were targeted to provide training and jobs to low-income workers to repair older vehicles to meet air quality requirements.

Urban communities around the country are also working to redevelop brownfield sites to improve public health and the economic competitiveness of these sites and surrounding neighborhoods. Cleveland, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois, are examples of cities that are cleaning up brownfield sites as a strategy for revitalizing their local economies. By targeting economic development in otherwise wasted brownfield areas, these cities are hoping to create jobs, generate tax revenue, and improve the environmental quality of the inner city. They are working to identify and eliminate barriers to redeveloping brownfield sites and to create partnerships among city, state, and federal environmental agencies, residents, local businesses, and lenders. They are also using incentives to attract and retain business activity. Closely tied to issues of sprawl, brownfield sites are often not competitive with greenfield sites -- undeveloped suburban or rural areas -- because the true costs of development are not clear. For example, developers often do not consider the infrastructure costs of undeveloped areas, such as the cost of sewers, roads, and electrical lines that need to be built to support the growth.

[1] U.S. Department of Commerce, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994), p. 97, table 39.

[2] Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, Pub. L. 103-66, 107 Stat. 312. Under this statute, businesses and employers of the nine empowerment zones are eligible for three major tax benefits, including employer wage credits, increased Section 179 spending, and tax-exempt bond financing for qualified properties.

[3] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Wetlands Fact Sheet #4: Economic Benefits of Wetlands (Washington, D.C., 1993), p.1.

[4] Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr., and Theodora Kimball, eds., Forty Years of Landscape Architecture: Central Park (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1973), p. 45. The passage is from a report Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., submitted to the Department of Public Parks in 1872.

[5] For more information, see Homestead Habitat for Humanity, Concept and Background, Jordan Commons: A Pilot Program for Sustainable Community-Building (Homestead, Fla., 1995).

[6] Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, Pub. L. 102-240, 105 Stat. 1914.

[7] U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Retiring Old Cars: Programs to Save Gasoline and Reduce Emissions (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1992); Environmental Law and Policy Center, Components of a Model Accelerated Vehicle Retirement Program, report to the Energy Foundation (Chicago, 1994); and President's Commission on Environmental Quality, Partnership to Progress: The Report of the President's Commission on Environmental Quality (Washington, D.C., 1993), pp. 30-31. Examples of cash for clunkers programs include the Accelerated Vehicle Retirement project and, in the private sector, the Union Oil Company of California in which 7,000 model-year 1970 and older vehicles registered in the Los Angeles Basin were scrapped.