The Ecopolitan

A historic opportunity to improve our cities

Are we witnessing history in the making?

One of the front-page stories in last Wednesday's New York Times suggests that rising fuel costs are sparking a shift in the American dream. 

A downtown condo or cozy little rail-line bungalow in a first-ring suburb may soon replace the big fancy house as a symbol of the good life. 

Lots of people living on the outer fringes of American cities are struggling under the weight of gasoline prices, along with increased costs for heating and cooling their dream homes. Some are moving into smaller quarters back toward the center of town--that is, if they can find buyers for their houses.

Home values are seeing steeper declines--or slower increases--in the suburbs of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, Atlanta, Denver, Tampa and other metropolitan regions than in the urban core, according to several sources quoted in the Times report. And the housing market is weakest in far-flung exurban areas, according to economist Joe Cortright of Impresa Inc.

Christopher Leinberger, a real estate developer and professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan, predicts that today's affluent subdivisions might become tomorrow's slums in a much-talked-about article in the Atlantic Monthly.

But even if the fortunes of outer-ring suburbs don't slide quite that far, we still find ourselves at a historical turning point. One thing that's been certain in American life for the past 60 years has been the steady outward sprawl of cities, with wealthy residents leading the exodus to new suburbs carved out of the countryside.

This ironclad trend has had profound consequences for America's environment and social relations, fueling massive energy use and the deterioration of older communities. 

Now, despite the pain inflicted on many households by high energy prices, we are being handed a golden opportunity to reduce our ecological footprint and restore vitality to many neighborhoods left behind in the great rush to the suburban fringes. 

This is not the end of the American Dream, but a chance to expand and replenish it.  Portland, for example, put the brakes on exurban sprawl a generation ago by setting an urban growth boundary beyond which new development was restricted.  Today Portland ranks high on many lists of the best cities in America.

And what if energy prices dip in the coming years? By then many people will have discovered that long commutes and cavernous homes aren't what make them happy. 

© The Green Guide, 2008

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The Greatest Inventions of the Past 100 Years

I count myself a lucky man this time of year because I always take a couple of days off around my birthday and bike all over town. I feel lucky not only because I was born into the glorious warmth of June, but because I live a short ride away from one of the best network of urban bike trails in the country.

Leaving my door in Minneapolis last week, I was soon pedaling around Lake Harriet, along Minnehaha Creek, past a waterfall made famous by poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and through the forested Mississippi River gorge.

In the midst of a metropolitan area of 3 million people, I felt like I was deep in the woods. Then, ready for some cosmopolitan excitement and a good lunch, I headed into the bustling downtowns of Minneapolis or St. Paul on scenic riverfront trails free of auto traffic. And when it came time for dinner with my family, I hightailed it home on one of several old railroad lines converted to bicycle expressways.

With a couple more days off I could have cruised on trails all the way to the rolling countryside of rural Minnesota--past the suburbs sprawling far west of Minneapolis or east of St. Paul--hardly ever mixing it up with traffic on city streets.

This stellar system of bike trails is great not just for recreational rides--it's boosted biking so much that Minneapolis now trails only Portland in commuters who travel to work on two wheels. Since we are famous for our brutal winters, this fact surprises almost everyone. Yet I bike all winter for work and for fun, and can attest that bike paths are busy on all but the most severe below-zero days.

Building urban bike paths is becoming a trend across the continent. Indianapolis, a city most known mostly for racecars, is constructing the ambitious eight-mile Cultural Trail bike and pedestrian greenway right through the center of the city. Davis, California has been serious about bike trails and bike lanes since the 1960s, and now boasts that 17 percent of its commuters travel by bike--a number that is certainly rising with advent of four-buck-a-gallon gas. Boulder, Colorado devotes as much as 15 percent of its transportation budget to bicycle priorities.

To learn more about urban bike trails, which also are wonderful for walkers and skaters, check out the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and Walk and Bike for Life.

And see our guide on biking to work: "Shifting Gears: 12 Tips on Moving From the Fast Lane to the Bike Lane."

© The Green Guide, 2008

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America’s greenest city

Saving the Earth is no game. It's urgent, serious business. Yet the environmental movement could learn a lot from the world of sports about how to win attention and loyalty.

The hoopla over the NBA finals, NHL Stanley Cup and baseball's summer pennant races proves that heated competition captures the human imagination.

So let's make a big contest out of choosing the greenest city in America. We could keep tabs all year long on how Chicago is doing against San Francisco, whether Montreal can outdistance Seattle. The excitement culminates on the big day when everyone wonders who will come out on top. (Look for the Green Guide's list of the greenest cities, one of several authoritative rankings.)

And even better than big-time sports, we can all pitch in to help our local team win the championship next year.

Think how much easier it would be to persuade the city council to ban lawn chemicals or embrace energy conservation if these actions might increase the likelihood voters could dance in the street chanting, "We're number one!"

Portland, Oregon, mayor Tom Potter, a former police chief, is already leading cheers for his hometown favorite. He makes the case for Portland as America's Greenest City to National Geographic Adventure magazine (May 2008):

"We have solar-powered parking meters. Our overall recycling rate is 63 percent. We passed a biodiesel ordinance for gas stations, are considering a carbon tax, and are creating bike boulevards. Even with recent growth, we've reduced our carbon footprint by one percent, while the rest of the nation has increased by 16. How's that?"

How is that? Do you think Portland is America's greenest city? If not, what is? Leave a comment below.

© The Green Guide, 2008

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