Building a Restorative Economy: Nurturing Local Self-Sufficiency and Responsible Industry

1. Chapter 5:Building a Restorative Economy The Ecology of Place Beatley & Manning Presented by Danielle Zeigler

2. Introduction • Symbiotic relationship between economy and environment • Citizen lives improved through protective environmental policies, diversification of local economies, and greater independence from corporations with distant headquarters

3. Introduction • Communities halting economic development in response to sprawl, traffic congestion, and overcrowded schools • While promoting quality of life, this response squelches tax base to support that quality of life

4. Introduction • “To avoid these problems, communities must undertake more strategic, forward-looking approaches to economic activity by assuming control over their own development patterns and proactively seeking out the appropriate mix of activities.” • “Just as a healthy environment is critical to a sound economy, a sound economic base is necessary for a healthy community.”

5. Introduction • Approaches to encouraging economic development that is environmentally restorative and supportive of local communities • Nurturing Environmentally Responsible Industry • Fostering Local Self-Sufficiency • Bringing Business Back Downtown

6. Nurturing Environmentally Responsible Industry • “Active support and recruitment of nonpolluting, environmentally friendly industries, especially those that manufacture nontoxic or recyclable products or that have comprehensive environmental programs or controls in place”

7. Nurturing Environmentally Responsible Industry • Welcoming the Appropriate Mix of Activity • Determine appropriate mix for your region • Proactive business recruitment • Address regional environmental and quality-of-life issues • Education • Tax and fiscal analysis • Regulatory reform • Local efforts to improve community health

8. Nurturing Environmentally Responsible Industry • Environmentally Protective and Restorative Development • Sustainable community seeks to develop and promote economic base that has minimal impact on environment and is ideally restorative of it. • Sustainable economic development activities characterized by: • Low or no pollution emissions • Low energy consumption • Products that contain few toxics, are designed for natural decomposition, and use sustainable materials • Closed-loop production process for durable goods

9. Nurturing Environmentally Responsible Industry • Eco-Industrial Parks • “Waste Equals Food” • Waste becomes useful input to some other economic activity • Obstacles: • Challenge of assembling right mix of companies and industrial activities • Businesses operate as if resources and ability of environment to accommodate waste are unlimited • View that protecting environment increases costs • Fear of disclosing trade secrets and losing autonomy • Fear that company will be legally liable for waste it provides to other companies

10. Nurturing Environmentally Responsible Industry • Companies taking measures to enhance sustainability of employee actions • Reduction of commuter traffic • Lack of willingness to carpool • Interest in working longer hours to have extra day at home • Removal of gas-guzzling vehicles • Recycling

11. Nurturing Environmentally Responsible Industry • Conservation-based Development • Recognizes economic well-being tied to health of ecosystem • In regions rich in natural resources but declining in jobs, goal is to add value to resources harvest as opposed to shipping raw materials out of the region • Ecotrust’s Approach: • “supporting small businesses that create new markets for socially and environmentally responsible goods and services builds the consumer base for these products, which in turn creates demand for more goods produced in a sustainable manner”

12. Fostering Local Self-Sufficiency • Importance of sound and diverse local economic base in maintaining long-term sustainability • Ongoing investment in local labor, products, and services, including consumption of locally grown produce and other agricultural products

13. Fostering Local Self-Sufficiency • Investing in Local Labor, Products, and Services • Diversification of local economies away from dependence on one industry • Requires ongoing investment in education, skills, and talents of local labor force, as well as supportive community network, affordable housing, and healthy environment

14. Fostering Local Self-Sufficiency • “The most potentially strengthening approaches to local economic development should come from local labor and businesses, rather than companies whose profits go elsewhere.” • Survival of local merchants preserves community character • Access to credit is determining factor in ensuring the initiation and long-term survival of small business

15. Fostering Local Self-Sufficiency • Supporting Local and Sustainable Agriculture • “’Rural development’ becomes a bump-and-grind hustle to lure refugee businesses looking for a high-productivity, low-wage workforce, communities that will concede taxes in return for jobs, and state governance that will wink at regulatory infractions.”

16. Fostering Local Self-Sufficiency • Organic Produce Market • Ironically, successes provide incentive for big businesses to move in, stimulating interstate and international activity • Threat that corporate interests will drive out family organic farmers, just like conventional family farms • Outdoor Recreation Activities • Entertainment farming or agri-tourism

17. Fostering Local Self-Sufficiency • Recognizing Environmental Amenities and Cultural Heritage as Economic Assets • “For purposes beyond recreation and tourism, communities pursuing sustainable economic development would do well to protect and provide the parks, trails, waterways, waterfronts, historic districts, and other assets that constitute incentives for individuals and businesses with an appreciation for that community’s heritage to locate there.”

18. Fostering Local Self-Sufficiency • Heritage Tourism • Besides providing revenue dollars, heritage tourism provides incentive for appreciating and protecting local heritage • Establishment of heritage trails • With regard to sustainability, community must decide on desired level of tourist activity • Gift shops, fast-food restaurants, amusements • Measures taken to protect environment and provide affordable housing and other necessities for locals

19. Bringing Business Back Downtown • Development of state and interstate highways has lured commercial activity to fringes of town; also edge cities • Suburb-to-suburb commuting rather than suburb-to-city • Downtown economic activity more likely to encourage sense of place and long-term investment in community

20. Bringing Business Back Downtown • “Big Boxes” and the Mall • Not the same as downtown • Generally managed by one developer that controls all activity • Little opportunity for local ownership and none of “organic” nature of downtown business activity • Not subject to local market forces • Profits not returned to local community • Common gathering space a creation of developer, not community • Mall atmosphere not conducive to spontaneous public gathering • Environmental impacts = impermeable parking lots • Disconnected and inaccessible: car required • Biggest appeal is low prices, but citizens needing lower prices can’t get there for lack of transportation

21. Bringing Business Back Downtown • The Mall Moves Downtown • Shift in consumer demand • Stores enticed by possibility of not paying mall overhead • Chain stores locate on main streets of affluent suburban towns • Mill Avenue in Tempe, Arizona • The Pedestrian Mall • Close streets to lure people away from suburban malls

22. Bringing Business Back Downtown • Breathing New Life into Downtown • Along with business recruitment, attention to street and storefront design, tenant mix, and access to transit and parking are necessary • Some cities with declining downtowns make decision not to compete with mall and other retail activities • Instead, focus energies in another direction, such as becoming regional entertainment center • Public-Private Partnerships • Seek or encourage private investment into public improvements

23. Bringing Business Back Downtown • The 24-hour City • Maximize economic potential by being constant “center of attention” • Reduce crime • Tool of implementation: • Substantial mixture of housing options in downtown area • Obstacle to 24-hour city: • Outmoded zoning regulations not allowing mixed uses

24. Bringing Business Back Downtown • The Telecommuting Dilemma • Helps reduce suburb-to-suburb traffic • Doesn’t have to encourage low-density development or detract from existing urban centers, but does give reason for many to avoid downtown all together • Reduction in population mass required to keep downtown alive

25. Conclusions • “Economic principles can be implemented to protect the environment.” • “A healthy environment can stimulate a stronger economy.” • “Gradual recognition of the importance and potential of a return to downtown as the center of commercial activity and of an active community life, not to mention the primary antidote to urban sprawl”