Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
and the 2014 one in Washington DC, as well as sponsoring EcoDistrict incubators,
essentially 3 day workshops of executive training, that are described as follows:
the incubator includes a powerful mix of one-on-one technical assistance, expert facilita-
tion, tours, interactive plenary presentations and working sessions with leading experts in
stakeholder engagement, sustainability, urban design, real estate development, infrastruc-
ture, and civic entrepreneurism (ED).
Although the meetings include presentations, workshops and advice from experts,
the description shows the way in which the movement is not only designed as a
top-down exercise to improve sustainability. Instead there is an emphasis on the
need to improve community participation and leadership, while in content terms
it goes beyond issues of design and infrastructure to promote local entrepreneur-
ship and real estate development, showing a private enterprise focus in addition to
public governance. The ideas developed from the five initial EcoDistrict projects,
parts of community areas in Portland, that led to reports about how the areas could
be improved. By 2013 they were used as guides to create 16 similar projects in
various American cities, in addition to one each in Mexico and Canada. Despite the
emphasis upon local stakeholder engagement the EcoDistrict approach does seem
to provide a more directed, assertive, even self-promotional approach than seen in
the Transition Town movement which stresses the need for local groups to find their
own
way to debate and formulate ideas. This can be seen by the EcoDistrict's De-
cember 2013 web message asking for charitable contributions to their programme
that pointedly states the programme will be developing a
global standard for district scale development'… (and will)… create a world class pro-
gramme for urban development professionals (ED2).
This self-defined, rather boosterism-type objective is very different to the rather
self-effacing descriptions used in Transition Town publications. Moreover, despite
their emphasis upon grass-roots engagement, the neighbourhood assessment re-
ports completed to date seem to be initially created by experts in local and sustain-
able development, not ordinary citizens, as can be seen in the report for the neigh-
bourhood of Gateway in Portland, where nine sectors of the area were identified
as needing attention, and various recommendations for improvement were made
(Table
7.3
).
The Gateway community contains almost 19,000 people, with 12 % of the popu-
lation Hispanic. It is mainly a mixed area, primarily middle to low income, with a
medium household annual income of $ 52,000, although 20 % are over $ 100,000
and 10 % are below $ 25,000, with a slight majority (54 %) in the owner-occupied
housing category. Given the experience of the professionals involved, the assess-
ment report for the area was completed quickly, within 4 months, showing that it
is not the work of amateurs finding their way. It first explored the background to
the nine sectors, identifying various metrics or community indicators that can be
used to measure their current characteristics, ranging from physical issues, such as
water use, to social issues such as defining local identity. A set of strategies for im-
provement to create carbon-neutral districts were recommended by the researchers,
