Welcome! The following is the text and images for Jan Spencer’s presentation at the 2006 Citizens State of the City in Eugene, January 10, 2006.
Click image thumbnails for full-size pictures. Images are presented in the same order they appeared at the CSOC event. Note, for more details on this topic, Jan’s self published book Global Trends-Local Choices, Towards an Eco-Humanist New Culture takes most of the topics mentioned here and expands considerably. If you are interested in a copy, contact Jan at spencerj at efn.org. Copies are $15 if sent by post. Ask Jan for details. To see images of Jan’s Suburban Renewal Project, punch here.
To see what is up with the Eugene Permaculture Guild, punch here. I include
Current events have always fascinated me. They are history in the making and can teach us a great deal. In 2005 we witnessed a record breaking hurricane season
increasingly erratic energy costs, accumulating national debt and trade deficit and the darker side of our national leadership.
Katrina> Further afield, China and India’s growing economic importance in world affairs is another big story. Widening populist movements, particularly in South America, reveal a deepening resistence to US lead free trade initiatives. Iraq is more than we bargained for while
Muslim Jihadists show extraordinary determination to oppose Western encroachment on their turf. What are the common denominators to these stories? What are the trends? Here is a brief perspective. Human impacts on planet earth are mounting at an accelerating rate. Too many humans are making too many demands on what planet earth can provide leading to climate change,
and resource depletion.
of excess production capacity. The rainy-day backup is nearly gone. This is not running out of oil. What the graph shows is that demand is now nearly equal to supply. As demand exceeds supply, growth dependent economies will compete much more vigorously for what is available. That is why the US is in Iraq.>
shaped curve. Drilling in ANWR would not even show up on this graph. US peaked in 1970. In the 50’s, the US was the world’s leading oil EXPORTER>
or troops are stationed near or on location to oil resource areas. The Carter Doctrine states any threat to the Mid East is a threat to the vital interests of the US and the US will defend its interest.> [Citizens State of the City continues] political instabilities, eroding civil liberties and runaway military budgetsSustainablilty has become a frequently, if overused word, revealing a growing recognition that human demands on Planet Earth as we know them cannot be maintained. Still, with 5% of the world’s population, the US consumes some 25% of the world’s resources. The US now imports over 60% of its oil while it is near the top in global per capita output of green house gases. By nearly every measure of product, energy and resource consumption, the US leads the world.
about 1/4 of the world’s oil>
Chart courtesy World Watch Institute
If one were to assess the American economy, one could conclude a huge chunk of that consumption takes place in suburbia; the cars, the roads, the malls, the oversized houses and practically everything inside them. US military doctrine is quite clear as to the purpose of our armed forces. They are to force, if necessary, access to the resources American affluence requires. Our vice president is on record as stating “The American way of life is non-negotiable.” He was not talking about people living under bridges. Suburbia and the cheap oil economy depend on the US military for their continued existence.
More of the same economic growth, suburbia and affluence will propel the US on its collision course with climate change, domestic political represssion and rivals for diminishing resources. US foreign policy, designed to protect our resource intensive way of life, has helped create growing resistence to American interests in many parts of the world. This is a hard nut to crack but it is necessary to understand that American affluence, driven by the need for cheap oil, is a first tier reason why the world is not at peace, the environment is severely degraded, the climate is out of whack and we are in a resource war in Iraq. We use too much. A term I have recently come across is “the psychology of previous investment.” What it means is that we keep doing what we have always done by inertia and reflex, even as evidence mounts that we urgently need
to make near 180 degree different choices. We have made ourselves hostage to the culture of automobile dependence and all that goes with it to such a level we can’t imagine anything different. Thre ARE other choices and we need to have a look at them. Mass consumption, in the short term, is good for the economy. It also creates millions of jobs repairing its own damage to the environment, public health and international relations. Imagine if what we spend on avoidable public health costs, avoidable military budgets, avoidable auto dependency and avoidable misguided land use were applied to social uplift and global cooperation. There is no shortage of money,
there is a shortage of vision and integrity by the people who control it. Lamentable as this circumstance is, it does include profound and timely opportunity. Never has there been so much information available to arrive at reasoned and thoughtful culture changing strategies. Never has there been such potent access to communications to create humane responses to dealing with our many local and global challenges. Never have so many people begun to question the basic assumptions
of a culture based on oil and excess and are willing to do something about it. Eugene has its own unique opportunities. We already have a green lean to our community. We can combine enlightened local self interest with being responsible global citizens. At the same time, we can restore our local environment
to health, create a green economy and move towards a green way of life. We can make choices to look closer to where
we live to satisfy more of our own needs. We can collaborate in many positive ways with our neighbors both rural and urban in western Oregon. Urban redesign offers the single most comprehensive opportunity we have in terms of bringing about social, economic, environmental and global benefits. In Permaculture terms, urban redesign is a “key leveragepoint”, a place where well considered input brings a seeming disproportionate amount and variety of desired results. We urgently need urban redesign where the places we live are much more walking, transit and bike accessible to where we work and the goods and services of every day life.
between residential density and VMT. The top of the graph is suburbia. I have read that the average American family spends more money on transportation than food and health care combined. Only shelter is a larger part of a family budget. A VMT map of Eugene shows the further from town the residence, the more trips and more miles originate from that place.
largest and most mass produced subdivision in its time but there were many others not quite as large. Suburban style development was given a huge boost in the 1930’s thanks to government housing policy. Part of that policy to stimulate the housing industry and its many jobs during the Depression. In a very real sense, suburbia came into being as a program to create jobs. And it STILL is. The land use form is massively subsidized by cheap energy and government policy.
house 2000.>
is gone. Instead, both front and back yard is mostly in food production, also 2 water features/small habitats, many fruit trees including apple, pear, peach, fig, english walnut, cherry, kumquat, manderquat, small olive, brambles, grapes. Driveway is removed, over 3000 gallons of rainwater storage. Passive solar redesign of the house. Carport converted into living space.Old shed being replaced by a passive solar bungalow. [see below] Much more of the site’s assets have been put into use. Suburbia can be put to better use and we should quit building more of it.> [CSOC continues] Urban redevelopment needs to focus on already impacted urban space such as brownfields and parking lots .
lot. 2 days before xmas. This site is prime real estate. Imagine mixed-use redevelopment along the River.>
Building on good farm land and unique natural assets is a great mistake.
where the proposed West Eugene “Porkway” would bisect the West Eugene Wetlands. The proposed highway would parallel the rail tracks [lower left to upper right] 50 yards towards the top of the foto> Downtown deserves to be the focus of both site appropriate commercial and residential development.
Bus Rapid Transit and other bus routes should catalyze Transit Oriented Development in places like River Road, Bethel and Oakway Center to create site appropriate mixed use urban villages.
Consider the parking lot at the Red Apple in Whiteaker.
This acre of chronically unused pavement can be reinvented
as shops below and residential above with a green, solar
oriented, kid friendly courtyard complete with edible landscaping tucked in.Consider Block Planning, an exciting approach for redesigning entire residential
structures. Purple, garages into other use.> or commercial blocks in a far more creative and people/eco-friendly way. When a Block Plan is adopted, the usual zoning and code regulations can become far more flexible. Redesigning blocks can create more open space, greater safety for kids; transform unused nooks and crannies into gardens
garden was a parking lot. Cluster parking of cars elsewhere and less than average car ownership at this housing co-op freed up this space for better use. Block Planning can facilitate these benefits or turn garages into granny flats for new income. The increased density
suburban density. Jan Spencer’s passive solar bungalow under construction> can support new businesses where goods and services are closer to people who need them along with new employment opportunites and more convenient transit schedules. A consistent, well publicised and popular Community Redesign Plan, supported by a public education campaign, can attract local investment with multiple benefits for the community including jobs that advance community goals and contribute to our regional security. New Green jobs can help replace the inevitable loss of jobs that depend on poor use of resources. Over time, money not spent on gasoline, car repairs and new roads, time saved not stuck in traffic, cleaner air and water from driving less will add to our quality of life, economic security, local food production and contribute to improved public health.Government occupies an essential position in going green but Citizens should take initiatives whenever
Road has helped build community in River Road such as a garden tour, creek cleanup, filbert grove pruning, Day of Culture and more. In my opinion, the number one item preventing much greater positive culture change is cheap gasoline.> possible. Individuals, civic networks and neighborhoods can all be points of departure for making green
Power> changes independent of city, state or federal control. Eugene should not be alone in going green. We should begin dialogue,
via official, business, public health, education, agricultural and informal channels with our rural neighbors and other towns and cities in the region to make best use of existing western Oregon assets in manufacturing,
education, forestry, the coast and agriculture. Finally, a Civic Sustainability Task Force, modelled after the SBI but with expanded scope and mandate, can begin work on an ambitious public information/education campaign to advocate for a green Eugene. A well organized community strategy for building a green Eugene will attract youth,
Community garden with Kennedy Middle School kids> elderly, faith communities, people with backgrounds in business, education, community organizing and health. We all have much to offer and a compelling call to community service can transform latent potential into green action and bring out the best in who we are. Every day, our news is full of stories we should be learning from. Today’s trends and current events will not take a break just because we as individuals and as a community are not paying attention. The painful challenges they present are unprecedented and so are the opportunities.Here is a very reasonable list of high value civic intitatives, some to be city lead, others not.
- Create a Civic Sustainability Task Force modeled after the SBI but with an expanded mandate and scope, to focus on an eco logical public information campaign.
- Inventory “Green” assets we aleady have and identify the strategic goods and services we don’t have that we need.
- Upgrade, up budget, elevate the scope of the city’s Neighborhood Program into a virtual “house of representatives” to assist city staff and advise the public information campaign.
- Create course work in public schools in environmental literacy. Also new curriculum with practical instruction in wood working, basic electricity, metal working, food production and “green civics.”
- Encourage local food security and urban agriculture.
- Lobby in Salem for gas tax money to be used for purposes other than road building.
- Phase out use of toxic materials on city property and local golf courses.
- Lobby in Salem for serious upgrades in rail transportation in Oregon.
- Eugene initiate regional planning concepts as agenda items for regional multi jurisdictional orgainzations.
- Coordinate a clearing house in Eugene for volunteer opportunities in education, environment, culture.
- Limit the size of big box stores and their green field locations