Manuel Pastor, of the University of Southern California, says climate change planning can have adverse effects on low income and minority communities unless reducing disparities is built into desired outcomes.
A gathering of community leaders who work on equity and environmental justice sparked a passionate and sometimes uncomfortable conversation about a key Metro planning effort.
Sure, the region should reduce carbon emissions. But how do long-term plans for land use and transportation investments relate to people who need help with basic services today?
"The stories of microenterprises and immigrants’ successes are incredible and how can we match those stories to the bigger picture here of what Metro wants to do with cars, trucks and motorcycles?" asked Anselmo Villanueva, of the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon.
Julia Meier, of the Coalition of Communities of Color, questioned whether Metro was too focused on technology solutions to reduce emissions, when enhancing transit service and neighborhood stability would offer more support for underserved communities. And maybe it's too late to have a big impact on Metro's climate change planning, she said.
"I feel like the coalition is jumping into a process that is not quite at the beginning," she said. "It feels actually one or two years down the road and that we're tweaking, in a superficial way, already proposed outcomes and already proposed strategies."
Last year, Metro staff researched what it would take to be able to reduce emissions by 2035 to meet a state requirement. That background work has just recently put the agency in a position to share information with stakeholders and start asking questions, said Kim Ellis, a Metro planner leading the project.
"We don't see this as a one shot deal, but the beginning of a conversation that we know we need to continue having for the next two years," she said. "We have a lot of work to do to get to the end of the process and you're going to, I hope, help get us there."
The concerns came up last week at an equity and environmental justice scorecard workshop, convened at Metro to gather input on how the region should measure the success of plans that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.
The state has required Metro to come up with a way to reduce the region's carbon emissions from cars and light trucks in coming decades. Rather than focusing on just reducing emissions, Metro is gathering community groups and public agencies to discuss what other outcomes the region should achieve. Previous workshops this year delved into health and environmental goals; upcoming events will engage the business community.
Metro Councilor Carlotta Collette attended the entire four-hour equity workshop and started the conversation by acknowledging that the region's planning efforts have raised the quality of life of some people more than others.
Metro Councilor Carlotta Collette asks workshop participants to stay involved to help make the climate project responsive to community concerns.
"We do really good transportation and land use planning here at Metro… but when we look out, and you look out, you’ve probably seen that we've missed the boat in some really important, critical ways," Collette said. "Climate change affects people of color and poor people more than it affects other communities. We don’t want to be making the situation worse, we want to make it better."
Metro planners presented a draft list of equity and environmental justice outcomes that the region should consider in deciding how to reduce emissions. Categories such as public health and safety, affordability, community prosperity and clean water were listed on posters and described in a handout.
What's missing from the handout? Lots of things, participants said.
"The definition of vulnerable populations doesn't include people with disabilities," said Ramsay Weit, of the Community Housing Fund, a Washington County nonprofit.
"You don’t explicitly address neighborhood stability – affordability doesn't necessarily mean it," said Midge Purcell of the Urban League of Portland. "A specific awareness and mitigation against gentrification - I think it's important."
"I'd like to see something about public and private investment," said Nick Sauvie, of ROSE Community Development, of Southeast Portland.
Metro brought in Manuel Pastor, a University of Southern California expert on social equity and the challenges of urban planning, to participate in the workshop and present new demographic data.
"None of those outcomes have the word equity or reducing disparity in them," Pastor said.
For example, instead of just aiming for more prosperity, it could be "an improvement in equitable access" to opportunities, Pastor said. Not just improving our resiliency against environmental hazards and disasters, but also reducing the disparity in the resiliency of the community.
Community leaders who work on equity and environmental justice issues discuss land use and transportation strategies at a workshop held at Metro July 31. They place dots on a poster to indicate high priority strategies.
"There's language you could use that would actually make the reduction of disparities a key, important part of the outcomes that are there," he said.
Without that, strategies that attempt to reduce carbon emissions by increasing public transit use and mixed-use development run the risk of promoting gentrification, he said.
"So unless you have quite consciously had equity built in them, climate planning can have disparities built in," he said.
Through this winter, Metro plans to develop three scenarios, potential future land use and transportation plans that show how the region might reduce emissions. Those would be tested in depth in 2013 by evaluating how well they achieve equity and environmental justice outcomes as well as others before the region adopts one scenario in 2014.
Collette thanked the participants for the frank discussion and asked for their continued involvement in helping make the climate project responsive to their concerns.
"If we get to 2014 with a great plan that reduces greenhouse gas emissions, but increases gentrification or also reduces transit or just misses the boat in your communities, then we've failed," she said. "There's a lot on the line. We don't want to fail but we can't really succeed without you.