hope in America

One thing I have to say for the Americans: when the administration in Washington fails to show leadership, there are always individual states and cities that will step up to the plate. That doesn't make up for a poor showing on the international ballpark, but it does at least prepare the field so that when Washington eventually shows up, the country is ready to play ball.

On the challenges of peak oil, Portland, Oregon is first up. In May 2006, Portland City Council created a Peak Oil Task Force to develop recommendations on appropriate responses to uncertainties in the supply and affordability of oil. The Task Force's final report, titled Descending the Oil Peak: Navigating the Transition from Oil and Natural Gas, was issued in March 2007 and includes recommendations to reduce oil use and strengthen the community’s ability to respond to social and economic stress.

This is not doomsday scaremongering, but a credible plan of action. Transition Town Stroud has prepared a headline summary of the report, highlighting both the possible effects of a post-peak scenario and recommended actions to mitigate the effects. None of the key actions are attempts to create alternatives to oil - it's all about appropriate multi-sector planning that reduces dependency on liquid fuels. One of the actions, perhaps in anticipation of negative side effects of the growing biofuels industry, is to "preserve farmland and expand local food production and processing".

While scratching around the online world of Oregon, I came across minutes of a meeting held earlier this month by the Post Carbon Eugene Outpost. (There are nearly 180 Post Carbon groups across the US and Canada - part of the Relocalisation Network, under the Post Carbon Institute.) I found these minutes interesting, not because I have any affinity for Eugene, which happens to be a small city located about 2 hours south of Portland, but because the meeting gives a taste of some of the concerns being expressed by ordinary American citizens about energy, the environment, local community and the economy - and planning responses to these issues.

Many of the issues raised in the meeting are understandably parochial and of little interest to outsiders looking in, but a couple of points caught my eye. One is that the group engages with the city's Sustainability Commission set up earlier this year, through their regular public forums, and at a previous forum the group has raised issues such as the nature of economic growth and whether the prevailing growth model is really sustainable. Subversive talk, that!

The other point of interest was reference to Portland "intersection repair", which is about "creating physical structures that contribute to building community, social cohesion and community interaction".

There is a fascinating blog post on this concept on The Next American City:

Since 1996, Portland’s City Repair has been transforming the nature of public space and the dialogue that surrounds it. A nonprofit organization dedicated to creating public gathering places with creativity, artistry, and compassion, City Repair is a catalyst for neighborhood-based interaction and transformation. Most of City Repair’s projects focus on what they call “Intersection Repair,” which turns intersections into public gathering places. Despite early opposition, the City of Portland has embraced the idea, and City Repair has become a model for citizen-driven neighborhood improvement.

Of interest to traffic engineers, transport planners and other planning professionals, the post mentions the challenge of "balancing the interests of bureaucrats and neighborhood residents." Traffic engineers are trained to move cars, and are inherently conservative when it comes to altering the design of road space with innovative projects aimed at building strong communities. But when Portland City Council not only allowed a mural to be painted on a road surface as part of an Intersection Repair project, but passed an ordinance which specifically permitted Intersection Repair projects, city transportation officials became more supportive, after initially refusing to contemplate the project.

The interaction of infrastructure and social activity is a serious concern here in South Africa, where community disintegration might be considered a national pandemic; I recently touched on the topic of infrastructure design as it relates to sustainability, here and here. It is heartening to know that a Post Carbon group on the other side of the world is grappling with the importance of social sustainability as a planning and design issue.