Pathways to Urban Sustainability Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest: Summary of a Workshop (2014) / Chapter Skim
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3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions
3 Research to Inform Sustainable Urban Regions
Pages 23-36
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From page 23... ...
These universities have a vast reservoir of faculty research and students as well as the capacity to make significant impacts on sustainability through their operations, administration, and land use and transportation options. PSU has realized some of these impacts through work done nearly 30 years ago on the urban growth boundary legislation, and with capital investments made on the streetcar and in light rail.
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From page 24... ...
Hales highlighted the relationship the city has with local universities, including PSU and Oregon Health Sciences University. These relationships have evolved from an opportunistic partnership to one that focuses on developing shared strategies and a synergy between how the city and universities can address key sustainability issues.
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From page 25... ...
INTEGRATING RESEARCH INTO URBAN SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGIES Colin Harrison, distinguished engineer emeritus from IBM, discussed IBM's Smarter Cities program and how research and technology contribute to urban sustainability initiatives. In the mid-2000s, there was a realization that the world was becoming instrumented -- a very large number of devices were being deployed and connected to networks to serve as indicators of different events.
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From page 26... ...
The frequency of natural disasters that cause major perturbations is rising as well; since 1960, the amount of damage due to natural disasters has increased significantly, reaching the hundreds of billions of dollars. Cyberattacks also pose a threat to global information networks, including electrical utilities and smart grids.
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From page 27... ...
Joseph Danko, managing director of urban programs at CH2M HILL, discussed different approaches to integrating research into urban sustainability, including rapidly deploying research and the power of social networking in creating sustainable cities. In the rapid deployment of research, technology development has a valley of death: a gap between the science behind the technology and commercial success.
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From page 28... ...
His group found that leaf litter can compose about half of the total phosphorous yield in an urban watershed. Every tree and hard surface in St.
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From page 29... ...
Jonathan Fink, vice president for research and strategic partnerships at Portland State University, discussed the challenge of translating the science of cities in a way that makes sense to practitioners in cities. There can be a translational gap between the areas the National Science Foundation may fund academic research to investigate and the information a practitioner in a city needs to make better-informed decisions.
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From page 30... ...
Universities can play a unique role in bringing together these varied entities to cut across different domains, such as transportation, water, and land-use issues, which would otherwise be a part of several federal and local agency missions and affect multiple companies in the private sector. There have been successful collaborations at the federal level, such as the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, a collaborative effort of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
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From page 31... ...
Houston now purchases 50 megawatts of wind energy annually; harnessing wind energy has also been a rural development strategy, allowing farmers to maintain their livelihoods. Also related to energy, Houston is installing distributed generation with combined heat and power systems, and it has recently implemented electric car charging stations and a bike share program.
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From page 32... ...
The project -- a collaboration among the EPA, Forest Service, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service -- is working with local communities and tribes to restore the watershed's ecosystem and help salmon populations recover. Danielle Arigoni, deputy director of the Sustainable Communities Program at EPA, also spoke about partnerships and about EPA's work with HUD and DOT as part of the Sustainable Communities Partnership.
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From page 33... ...
Such steps help signal to communities that there is consistency across different agency programs about the importance of the livability principles, regional planning, and community engagement in project implementation. Sustainability and environmental protection have economic benefits, Ms.
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From page 34... ...
André Pettigrew, executive director of the Climate Prosperity Project, Inc., discussed how mitigating climate change could become an economic opportunity. Over the past 10 years, there has been tremendous growth in innovation, job creation, and business efficiency around climate change mitigation.
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From page 35... ...
was important in connecting economic recovery, climate change, and clean energy.6 The federal money ARRA provided was able to support ideas and empower programs that mayors and local government had, but had no way of funding. These programs help sustain clean tech markets.
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From page 36... ...
For an economic developer, public policies such as renewable portfolio standards can help drive this growth, but the initial investments, such as those made under ARRA were important for starting the momentum.
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