SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

In Louisiana, where sea level rise is erasing land each year, relocation of entire cities is an option. 

In early 2021, the state Community Development Department broke ground on a 22.5-acre plot aimed at resettling people from a flood-plagued neighborhood that earned the nickname “Flood City.”

The Advocate newspaper in Baton Rouge reported that the small community of Pecan Acres has flooded 17 times in the past 30 years. 

The state earmarked about $19.4 million for the resettlement effort, funded through a mix of federal and state grants used for disaster and relocation initiatives.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

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“Instead of removing trees to construct — move the trees and/or build around them. Add more nature to your buildings — people in Italy are building vertical forests,” Aida Curtis observed.

“Use more nature-based solutions for flooding: permeable parking lots, invest in the public spaces around your projects and invest in renewable energy for your building.

Create wider sidewalks — permeable to store water, with the ability to support large trees to create shade.”

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

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“We came up with a series of hybrid solutions, nature based — that would add living shorelines, natural breakwaters, near-shore artificial reefs, and raised seawalls. It would add 39 acres of open park land for the citizens of Miami,” said Aida Curtis,

who also generated visuals of how bad the seawall would look — to further the argument for more equitable nature-based solutions.

Inland, Curtis’s landscape architecture and planning encourages development and other rules that truly create a sustainable network through all of Miami’s diverse communities.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

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In Miami, Landscape Architect Aida Curtis, principal of Curtis+Rogers Design Studio, has been immersed in resilient design, decades before the city became synonymous with ground zero for climate disaster — 

both the slow variety from sea level rise and the immediate knockout punch from the killer winds and storm surge of increasingly frequent hurricanes. 

She stresses that mitigation can be beautiful and practical.

After Hurricane Irma, a federally funded study proposed a 10- to 30-foot-high floodwall that would run along the Miami’s picturesque bayfront spanning from downtown Miami, south across the Miami River (with floodgates) and to the Manhattan-like Brickell Area.

 Curtis’ firm was hired to illustrate alternatives to what most saw as a hideous wall.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

USGBC's David Abell said to become LEED certified, cities must assess their green and gray infrastructure and their relationship to equity.

“We help them mine data to ensure decisions are centered around equity. 

We want to ensure that communities historically left behind are addressed in all aspects of quality of life — including infrastructure investment,” he said.

USGBC's Hilari Varnadore said the USBGC also wants to make sure cities are working with diverse groups — so neighborhood solutions are tailored to the needs of the residents, not a top-down approach that often fails. 

The steps to LEED certification also make sure cities are working collaboratively with regional nonprofits and foundations capable of leveraging dollars with grant funding.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

“Houston and Billings, Mont., are very different places with different climates and population scales, but they are in the same group with each other,” 

the United States Green Building Council’s Hilari Varnadore said, noting that winning sustainable land-use, growth and building policies are exportable.

“In Hoboken, N.J., they came in on our pilot program and did major resilience work to mitigate flooding and storms.

They redid their waterfront. 

On the surface, it looks like parks and a beautiful urban space.

Beneath that is an amazing level of infrastructure to maintain their housing, commercial and viability against climate change.”

CELEBRATING MORE THAN 350,000 READERS

 IN LESS THAN A DECADE, THERE HAVE BEEN MORE                                 THAN 350K UNIQUE VISITORS TO THIS BLOG 

We usually observe blog milestones by recounting the disability advocacy essays and town planning articles shared on the site.

The cumulative amount of text on this blog would fill nearly four average-length books.

But today, we want to celebrate the visual storytelling.

When we were required to take a photography course in journalism school, we were almost offended – because we always thought we would earn our daily bread via the printed word.

Fast forward to digital photography, then smart phones with amazing lenses.

And we are storytelling with images as much or more than words.

When we teach at the graduate school level and a major university, we show images of the good, bad and ugly of Universal Design – so students can understand how to create an inclusive built environment.

Sometimes, we simply write about a place we’ve been, a hotel or apartment that was great about hosting us.

These images are from Lisbon Portugal.

We always wanted to get there, but 40 years of adulthood slipped by with the great, hilly city rising from Rio Tejo escaped us till this month.

Now we dream of narrow alleys, azulejo-adorned facades, great seafood, excellent wine, kind people, 300 days of sunshine and Mediterranean climate less hostile than Miami’s global warming and sea level rise-imperiled climate.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

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The United States Green Building Council’s David Abell said Louisville, Ky., has worked with the National Institutes of Health to study how greenspace improves public health. 

The Green Heart Louisville initiative, also supported by The Nature Conservancy, looks at trees as medicine.

USGBC's Hilari Varnadore said the LEED for Cities program allows diverse cities and counties to share best practices for mitigating heat, flooding, storms and related climate issues while also tackling issues of socioeconomic and other inequalities.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

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“The southwest is an area looking at heat,” said David Abell, senior manager, LEED for Cities at USGBC.

“One thing I’ve seen is a lot more urban tree master plans. 

In Phoenix [a LEED certified city,] they are planning a tree/ shade inventory. 

Cities are investing in sidewalks, shelters, connectivity — things people need to get to transit.”

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

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David Abell, senior manager, LEED for Cities at USGBC, said climate response can be as simple as adding more street trees and adding shaded bus shelters to make transit use more comfortable in extreme heat. 

He noted that Miami-Dade County, which has LEED Cities Gold certification, has a full-time heat officer to address issues in an area where the number of extreme heat days increases each year.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

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The United States Green Building Council’s Hilari Varnadore said Orange County, Fla., which includes Orlando, has done an excellent job of color coding its areas of need.

She said the coding helps prioritize everything from economic intervention to infrastructure spending to focusing on climate adaptation in vulnerable areas.

“The countywide or citywide report identifies strengths and weaknesses. It helps steer land-use policy. 

Compact, mixed-use, transit-oriented development helps a community to be resilient against flooding and storms,” she said. 

“The LEED city accreditation process encourages reclaiming brownfields and measuring the energy performance of buildings — which can make a city more sustainable while addressing inequity.”

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

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“We require local governments to collect performance indicators: median household income, educational attainment, many other factors. 

They feed that and other data to see how they are doing. 

Then they analyze the socioeconomic data and map it out,” said Hilari Varnadore, USGBC’s vice president for Cities. 

“On a map it’s so obvious to see disparity and disinvestment.”

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) promotes sustainability through its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green rating for everything from buildings to entire cities. 

The nonprofit’s LEED for Cities program encourages sustainable and resilient communities.

Hilari Varnadore, vice president for Cities, heads the USGBC’s efforts to certify entire cities, or counties, as LEED rated. 

More than 160 U.S. cities have qualified and one dozen international cities have gone through the process.

DISABILITY VISABILITY

IT’S A THING

Multiple U.S.  federal agencies have documented that one in four persons in America has some type of disability.

Never have so many tens of millions been so invisible.

“I never see anybody in those accessible parking spaces”

“We shouldn’t do away with steps into a building for a special interest.”

“Why should we make our restaurant/shop accessible to a tiny fraction of people?”

I’ve heard these and far worse 10,000 times and counting.

All are wrong headed and mean spirited.

First off, people with disabilities and their families represent one of the biggest buying power blocs in the nation.

Second, why are people who would NEVER dismiss the rights and validation of people of a race/religion/gender/orientation different from their own – be so willing to be totally dismissive of people with disabilities and trample their rights?

I don’t know the answer, but I think its’ because for some common character flaw in the non-disabled, people with disabilities are all but invisible.

That why, this year I’m going to publish lots of images of people with disabilities immersed in everyday city life.

It will prove the need for wheelchair access for subways, parks, restaurants, offices, universities, buses, sidewalks and everything else everyday people immerse themselves in.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

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The Congress for New Urbanism advocates for walkable, compact, mixed-used, transit-oriented communities. 

An article in its Public Square online magazine summarized the environmental benefits of walkable places, adapted from the “Cities Alive” report by Arup, a multinational engineering and design firm. 

The sustainable/resilient benefits include: reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, improving water management and urban microclimates, encouraging transportation that isn’t automobile-dependent and minimizing land use — 

because it is easier to focus adaptation infrastructure on compact development versus sprawl.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

“Should I elevate my home? 

Should I move away?

Should I vote for city bonds to elevate levies, to harden infrastructure? 

This helps shift climate change discussion from the emotional to the ‘what’s the cost of no action vs. the cost of action?’” said CoreLogic’s Tom Larsen.. 

“We can work for better building codes, micro levies, growth patterns. 

Analytics can help put climate science into the balance sheet — there’s a big loss coming from climate change, so how do we reduce that loss?”

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

“There are two levels of risk. Risk today and what that analysis projects — the incremental risk in the near future,” said CoreLogic’s Tom Larsen. 

“Risk varies block by block and varies whether you are on low ground, near a canal, river, or lake. Miami is at ground zero with flooding and California has increased risk from wildfires, but the risk is increasing everywhere.

In Ohio, you have spring floods, more severe storms, more ice forming dams in rivers — that can put many more at risk.”

Larsen noted skyrocketing insurance rates in Florida (due to storms and flooding) and in California (due to wildfires). 

He said data can help property owners to perform a sound cost-benefit analysis.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

Tom Larsen, senior director of Content Strategy at CoreLogic Inc., participated in the NAR climate summit. 

CoreLogic provides proprietary information to clients.

He noted there are more than 120 million homes in the United States and all need to be more aware of the risk of climate change and what sustainability practices can protect them.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

“Our primary mission is making this data available to people who don’t have access to these resources,” First Street Foundation’s Jeremy Porter said.

“Climate impact is applicable across the country and there is risk to residential and commercial real estate and the communities they are in.”

Porter said FloodFactor can help individuals to demand that their communities do not build in places that are not safe. 

He noted many cities and counties have not dedicated resources to analyze flooding data so they can plan for resiliency.

“Even if your home is relatively safe, if your power station is at risk, if your government buildings and facilities are at risk, your community may not be sustainable,” he said.

“This can impact your tax base, supply chain, access to essential goods and the ability to recruit employees and employers.”

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

“We are saying ‘don’t worry about 2100, this is happening now,’” said First Street Foundation’s Jeremy Porter. 

“There are historic signals now: tidal flooding and 100-year storms are happening more frequently, there’s more water in the streets and property values aren’t appreciating in some flood-prone areas.”

Porter is aware that climate science, predictions of doom and the high cost of addressing it can tempt many to bury their head in the sand.

So, First Street and its partnerships aim to make science more accessible and digestible.

PUBLIC SERVICE IS A NOBLE CALLING

MY WIFE HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

HAS HEEDED IT FOR NEARLY FOUR DECADES

My wife Heidi, celebrates her birthday today.

I am proud of her lifelong career as a public servant.

When she was in law school at Ohio State University, she interned at a state agency in our native Ohio.

Even in undergrad, she volunteered on a campus programing board that served the state of Ohio at Kent State University.

She practiced law her first decade out of law school, for a pair of state agencies in Ohio.

After we moved to Miami in 2000, Heidi became the first full-time Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Coordinator for the City of Miami Beach.

She was in her first decade as a proud public servant there when Miami-Dade County – one of the largest (in population and land mass) government bodies in the U.S. – did a nationwide, high-level candidate search for the next person to guide its ADA department.

Heidi has now proudly served Miami-Dade for a decade and a half. She has endured the late 2009-2010 financial crisis that saw virtually all of her staff laid off or forced into early retirement.

ADA was abolished as a department under some of the worst mayoral “leadership” this county has ever known. A mayor who filled the county with cronies cared not a moment about people with disabilities.

Now, under Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, the ADA office has at least regained about one third the level of staffing that it traditionally had for decades.

Heidi and her hand-picked group of expert pros are now empowered to ensure that Miami-Dade’s vast facilities and programs are accessible to all.

There are still great hurdles. Miami-Dade could use tens of thousands of affordable, accessible housing units.

People with disabilities are by far the most under and unemployed of all minority groups.

The face an impossible reality of less than 1 percent of all U.S. housing being move-in ready for wheelchair users.

Some housing bureaucrats still push back mightily on the idea that even a few units (required by federal law) should be move-in ready for people with disabilities.

They insanely plot to pass adaptation costs on to impoverished people with disabilities.

Those clueless policies cause homelessness and worse.

Hopefully, Mayor Levine Cava will get another term and continue to empower Heidi to influence other departments – from airport to seaport to parks, transit and housing – to follow federal law by making 100 percent of buildings and programs accessible to all.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

First Street Foundation’s Jeremy Porter said FEMA flood hazard maps help flood plain managers and planners, but they don’t take individual property risk — from multiple impacts of climate change — into account.

“For most, a home is the largest purchase in their life, so we developed crucial information at a property level and made it publicly accessible,” said Porter, noting that First Street has partnered with REALTOR.com to share information.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

“Imagine being able to access data that used to cost a small fortune for big companies.

Now people can access state of the art flood model information for free at FloodFactor,” said Jeremy Porter, chief research officer of the nonprofit First Street Foundation.

“We built a model partnering with more than 80 universities and experts looking at storm surge, tidal flooding, precipitation and riverine flooding.”

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

Jeff Young, CEO and general manager of RPR, says RPR is adding this layer of information for REALTORS® to identify climate risks and be able to suggest simple ways to adapt properties so they are more resilient to extreme weather hazards

The First Street Foundation has compiled invaluable data to create FloodFactor.com — a powerful free tool for folks to see historic, present and future risks to the home, business, farm, etc.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

Realtors Property Resource® (RPR®) a nationwide, property database available only to members of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, delivers parcel-level data to REALTORS® to share with their clients and customers, assisting them in the process of buying, selling or leasing of both residential and commercial real estate. 

RPR recently announced a partnership to provide REALTORS® with access to the ClimateCheck platform, which started mid-April 2022. 

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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

The feature, powered by ClimateCheck, displays the risk of flood, heat, fire, drought and storms by individual address, zip code and city. 

A Redfin report found nearly 50 percent who plan to move in the next year are relocating because of extreme temperatures or natural disasters and 80 percent of those surveyed are hesitant to buy a home in places with increased natural disasters.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

Whether it is learning the information needed to urge public officials to invest in resiliency, or simply finding out what the risks are to your individual property — and which combination of insurance and construction can mitigate a huge loss — individuals need data.

Redfin, the national real estate brokerage with a huge online presence that allows homeowners to get an estimate of exactly what their home is worth, while accessing tons of other free data, has added climate risk information to its home listings.

CELEBRATING MORE THAN 3,500 BLOG POSTS

COVERING PLANNING, URBAN DESIGN, MOBILITY, TRAVEL, PHOTOGRAPHY, ADVOCACY FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES AND MORE

This blog started a decade ago.

Social media was big, but not nearly as big as it is now.

We might not even have owned a modern smart phone when we first started marrying images to words within a template on Blogger.

We have had more than 333,333 unique visitors to these pages.

We have gotten to share advocacy writing on planning, urban design and mobility from Planning Magazine, On Common Ground Magazine, Strong Towns, CNU Public Square and the Miami New Times to name a few.

We have shared disability-positive profiles and research stories from United Spinal, New Mobility, Designs 4 Living and a host of online publications.

In 2022, we have posted links to more than a half dozen podcast appearances.

We’ve also posted live from key speeches given to packed audiences at the American Planning Association National Conference in San Diego and the International Making Cities Livable event in Paris.

Each year, we post more than 400 high quality urbanism photos taken from our extensive travels to promote Universal Design.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

START WITH ASSESSING THE RISK TO YOUR OWN PROPERTY/COMMUNITY

NOAA’s Adam Smith said one silver lining from the extremes of 2021 was that large-scale, years-long flood mitigation investment was tested and did well. 

The $15-billion levee and pumping system that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built around New Orleans was tested by Hurricane Ida, and the city fared better than areas outside it with older levees and no mitigation infrastructure.

“California recently decided to invest heavily in hardening its power grid to mitigate wildfire impacts. 

This is an investment that will almost certainly pay off in the years ahead given the increased intensity of wildfire seasons,” he said.

“The Texas power grid issues from the mid-February 2021 cold wave was also an example where additional resilience of the power system would have saved billions of dollars in damage.