“Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.” 

It was a throwaway line in Bob Seger’s 1980 ballad “Against the Wind,” a reflection on innocence and regret. Although he felt the line sounded odd and thought it was grammatically incorrect, Seger kept it in because the people around him liked it. The line has since inspired other artists to offer their own interpretations. It inspires me as an invitation to learn, providing a frame for reflection on unintended consequences and letting us imagine how we might have done things differently. It’s particularly apt in the context of our current national affordable housing crisis.  

For four decades I directed and studied the use of public, private, and philanthropic funding to produce affordable housing and provide decent shelter for low-income families since the Great Depression. Lots of big ideas were discussed, many of them implemented. Most of those implemented did not deliver the expected results, but they all delivered unintended consequences. What can we learn from these 20th-century missteps—and more to the point, what are we willing to learn?  

The federal government has struggled for more than eight decades to meet the basic commitments it made in the U.S. Housing Acts of 1937 and 1949: “a decent home and a suitable living environment for all Americans.” The acts committed significant subsidies to build new public housing and eradicate slums. They promised new jobs, modernized cities, and better housing for those who needed it. Because the Housing Acts proposed to benefit all Americans, they attracted broad public support.

When implementation time came, most public housing authorities aimed to provide housing for those in the lower half of the income distribution—a politically popular decision. To maintain the new housing stock, rents were set to cover buildings’ operating expenses. But as the buildings aged, operating expenses increased, and rents increased along with them. By the late 1960s, lower income tenants were getting priced out—paying upwards of 60 percent of their income to keep a roof over their heads.

Senator Edward Brooke (R-MA) remedied the situation by sponsoring an amendment to the Housing Acts in 1969, which capped rents at 25 percent of tenants’ incomes. The federal government covered operating shortfalls with subsidies. For reduced rents to be set, tenants had to disclose their incomes. It soon became apparent that public housing was not serving the poorest families with the greatest housing needs. In 1981, Congress acted again, reserving public housing for families earning half of the median income and reserving 40 percent of the units for families earning less than 30 percent of the median.  

The deterioration of the buildings was accelerating. This was because federal operating subsidies did not cover capital expenses and major systems (heating, lighting, elevators) began to fail. The federal fiscal austerity of the 1980s compounded problems by reducing operating subsidies. By the end of the decade the only reasonable response to the national crisis in public housing was widespread demolition.  

As the subsidies declined and our aging housing stock failed, a counternarrative emerged through which the residents themselves were blamed. The “culture of poverty” and “learned helplessness” became dominant memes. Poverty was viewed as a communicable disease rather than a symptom. The poor became convenient scapegoats bearing responsibility for the failure of their own shelter, as if any renters, poor or not, are expected to take responsibility for maintenance of their buildings. By concentrating the poor in public housing, we reinforced bad habits and transmitted values that perpetuated poverty across generations. This was supported by another dominant meme of the 1980s—the perils of big government. Big government was sloppy and inefficient, this narrative went (and still goes); the decline of public housing was the government’s fault.  

In the “HOPE” programs that followed—Homeownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere—many public housing projects were replaced with low-rise, mixed-income developments, typically replacing one affordable unit for three that were demolished. To stimulate additional rental housing production, the federal government created the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) in 1986. The program offered private investors a decade’s worth of tax credits in exchange for upfront equity investments—typically the hardest money to find—for housing production. States had authority over how to allocate the credits, and regulations mandated long-term affordability of the housing.

Importantly, the LIHTC program promised to overcome the two biggest failings of public housing. By attracting private investment, the efficiencies of the private sector would overcome dependence on inefficient big government. Second, location decisions could be delegated to state and local governments who could ensure that the housing production did not concentrate poverty. Moreover, competition for the tax credits would reduce their cost to taxpayers and eventually, the private sector would produce affordable housing without the need for subsidies.  

Some pundits consider the LIHTC program extraordinarily successful. Over three decades, more than 2.5 million units of housing were built. But through that period, we lost more affordable units from the national housing stock than we produced. Moreover, the promised private sector cost efficiencies never materialized. Depending on the year and the market, production of LIHTC units was estimated to cost 20 to 50 percent more than similar unsubsidized units. This does not even count the estimated $100 million spent annually to administer the program. 

Tax credits for equity from private investors came at credit card rates to taxpayers. And the costs went up when public capital was cheapest. During the Great Recession, tax credits were yielding average after-tax returns of 12 to 14 percent to investors when the federal funds rate was near zero and the 10-year Treasury yield was around 2 percent. The private sector never was weaned from subsidy dependence. Today, virtually no affordable rental production happens without tax credits. Finally, disappointingly, it is universally accepted that the production of tax credit housing exacerbated the concentration of poverty.  

How can the largest housing production program in the history of the nation, with broad bipartisan support, produce such disappointment? There are a lot of things I wish I didn’t know now that I (and we) didn’t know then—in 1999, in 1979, even in 1949.  

I wish I didn’t know that as good as we are at identifying big challenges and announcing ambitious responses, our commitment rarely survives economic challenges. We know now that simply building affordable housing is not sufficient for providing a decent home and a suitable living environment. One needs a sustainable model that maintains the buildings and preserves their affordability over time and builds where we need to—close to good jobs and schools.  

I wish I didn’t know that political support is evanescent, and memories are short. Ensuring that scarce subsidy reaches those who need it most is reasonable, but only if the subsidy is protected. The neediest are politically weak and not likely to marshal support to defend their entitlements. And when they try, they are easy to scapegoat.  

I wish I didn’t know that we spent tens of millions of dollars evaluating housing programs, but we haven’t learned very much. We counted units, acting as if the number produced is the only important measure of impact. Twenty years ago, one in four families who qualified for housing assistance received it. Today, it is one in five families. While the general wisdom says housing costs that exceed 30 percent of income are unsustainable for families, about half of renters pay more than 30 percent of their pretax income for rent, with 20 percent handing over more than half of their income.  

When do we take an honest reckoning of eight decades of effort to shelter our people? The complexity of housing challenges makes it impossible to learn anything from program evaluations. To learn, we need to reveal and commit to our intended outcomes, share the logic guiding our actions, and reconcile what we actually accomplish with our intentions. This is a learning model that we’ve embraced at the Lincoln Institute and I hope it can be applied more broadly to policy analysis in housing, community development, and philanthropy.  

Providing affordable housing for all is no easy task. The painful truths of eight decades of work are offered not as an indictment, but as an invitation to learn, and to think and act differently. We need to try new things and learn from them. That innovation might take the form of building apartments above public libraries, a trend we explore in this issue. It might mean forging unexpected partnerships, as public utilities and housing advocates are doing in Seattle. It might mean auctioning development rights or otherwise leveraging land value.  

We should aspire to the same ambition of the confident policymakers of 1949, committing to provide “a decent home and a suitable living environment for all Americans.” But we’ll need to try a lot of new things and learn from our mistakes. And if we commit to “searching for shelter again and again,” as Seger sings later in the same song, we just might get it done. 

Have your own example of “wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then”? A policy or program we could have, or should have, learned from? We hope to spotlight a few in an upcoming issue—send yours to publications@lincolninst.edu.

George W. McCarthy is the President and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

In 1879, a delegation of officials from Detroit took a steamship across Lake Erie to Cleveland, where they examined the nation’s first electric streetlights. Three weeks earlier, inventor and engineer Charles Brush had flipped the switch on a dozen “arc lamps” in a public square in the latter city. “Most people seemed struck with admiration,” reported Cleveland’s Plain Dealer newspaper, “both by the novelty and brilliancy of the scene.”  

Detroit quickly embraced the new lighting technology, as did other major cities including San Francisco and Boston. In other places, including Brush’s own Cleveland, leaders debated whether to make the switch from gas lamps. (They were still arguing the point a few years later when Brush hired fellow Cleveland inventor John C. Lincoln to work at his company; the latter went on to found the Lincoln Electric Company and the Lincoln Foundation, which evolved into the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.)

Eventually, of course, electric streetlights became ubiquitous. During the 20th century, streetlight technology evolved gradually, with the carbon rods in Brush’s lamps giving way to Thomas Edison’s incandescent bulbs, then to mercury and sodium bulbs. In the past decade or so, that evolution has accelerated dramatically, thanks to two developments. First is the emergence of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which offer considerable energy savings. Second is the more recent explosion of interest in outfitting streetlights with “smart city” technologies that go well beyond lighting—think everything from surveillance cameras to Wi-Fi hotspots.  

All of this underscores, and complicates, the often-overlooked role of streetlights in planning and land use. “A street lighting system is there for traffic safety, pedestrian safety, and to make people feel safe in cities where there may be high crime,” says Beau Taylor, executive director of Detroit’s Public Lighting Authority (PLA).  

More than a century after it installed those innovative arc lamps, Detroit was essentially forced back to the leading edge of lighting. By 2014, some 40 percent or more of its 88,000 sodium streetlights had become non-functioning at any given time. The city’s lighting infrastructure, spread over 139 square miles, had been designed for a thriving city of 2 million people in the 20th century. Maintaining it had become untenable.  

A $185 million bond funded 65,000 new LED streetlights, making Detroit the first large U.S. city to convert to LEDs. This upgrade was not just a matter of swapping out bulbs. The lighting from LEDs is different—a sodium bulb produces light that gradually tapers, while LEDs produce a more direct shaft that’s twice as bright—and Detroit’s population has shrunk, so planners had to install new poles in a revised configuration.  

Today the agency says the associated energy costs of the new lights are about half what they would have been with conventional lights. And an analysis by the Detroit Greenways Coalition, a policy and advocacy group, found that “pedestrian fatalities in dark, unlighted areas dropped drastically, from 24 in 2014 to just one in 2017,” concluding that the new lights were the primary factor.  

Those are significant outcomes. But there could be more to come: Detroit’s new streetlights are equipped with fixtures that can be retrofit to perform various “smart” functions. And this brings us to the technological revolution that has attached itself to the formerly humble streetlight.  

“When we use the word ‘smart,’ it means connected,” says Dominique Bonte, a vice president at consultancy ABI Research, which forecasts the smart streetlight market will grow 31 percent between 2018 and 2026. Lights that are connected by a network, whether Wi-Fi or fiber-optic cable, can be monitored or controlled remotely. These connections also open new possibilities, particularly as the more robust cellular network technology known as 5G rolls out over the next few years. “Streetlights, in the future, can become more like hubs or platforms,” Bonte continues.  

Streetlights are ideal for this role, as Austin Ashe, general manager for intelligent cities at GE subsidiary Current, explained to engineering trade publication IEEE Spectrum: “They have power, ubiquity, and the perfect elevation—high enough to cover a reasonable radius, low enough to capture a lot of important data.”  

This notion has already captured the imagination of cities around the world: if streetlights are already on every block, why not figure out what else they can do?  

A study by research firm IoT Analytics estimates the total number of connected streetlights in North America will reach as high as 14.4 million over the next five years, naming Miami as the city with the most extensive deployment of connected LED streetlights, with nearly 500,000. In Los Angeles, 165,000 networked streetlights are designed to serve as a kind of backbone for the deployment of other technologies, such as noise-detection sensors that monitor gunshots and other sounds. San Diego has tested streetlights outfitted with audio and visual surveillance technology, plus sensors that monitor temperature and humidity. In Kansas City, a new 2.2-mile downtown streetcar line is dotted with wi-fi kiosks, traffic sensors, and LED streetlights with security cameras attached, all linked by fiber-optic cable. And Cleveland is embarking on a $35 million effort to replace 61,000 fixtures with smart camera-enabled LED streetlights. Similar efforts are underway in Paris, Madrid, Jakarta, and other cities around the world.  

But as these experiments play out, concerns are coming into view. The ACLU and others take issue with the idea of camera-enabled streetlights watching the public’s every move, calling for government oversight to ensure that “smart cities” don’t become “surveillance cities.” As municipal enthusiasm for new technologies outpaces their regulation, some leaders are considering caution: “Technology is advancing at a rapid pace,” a San Diego City Council member told the Los Angeles Times. “As elected officials, we have to not only keep up with the increasing developments, but also ensure that the civil rights and civil liberties of our residents are protected.”  

And then there are the economics of it all. Streetlights can eat up to 40 percent of municipal energy bills, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, so basic efficiency upgrades tend to pay off over time. But as ABI’s Bonte points out, the return on investment for more elaborate projects isn’t always clear, and realizing the benefits can take decades.  

Looking ahead, Taylor of the Detroit PLA says his agency is tracking the experiments underway in other cities and participating in efforts to figure out which smart products or services might actually benefit the people of Detroit. If the city decides to, for example, add more public wi-fi to parks or other spaces, retrofitting the streetlights is an option. But that’s in the future. “Smart city technology is more of a multiplier effect for a street lighting system,” he says. “Our primary focus was getting the lights back on.”  

Even that comparatively cautious approach came with risks: In a frustrating development, the PLA found that lights supplied by one of its vendors are burning out far more quickly than they should. The city now has to swap out those lights, at a cost of around $9 million, and has sued the supplier.  

No wonder Taylor seems happy to wait and watch as others experiment. The last thing a city wants, given the pace of technology, is to have to overhaul its “smart” system a decade from now. “It’s not about getting it all done up front,” he says. “It’s about keeping options open.”

Rob Walker is a journalist covering design, technology, and other subjects. His book The Art of Noticing was published in May 2019.

Photograph: The new generation of streetlights can do everything from monitor the weather to listen for gunshots. Many city officials view this as a boon, but some civil rights organizations are calling for strict regulations. Credit: Coolfire Solutions.

In 2001, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared Seattle’s lower Duwamish River, a major industrial waterway flowing into Puget Sound, a Superfund Site. Later studies of health outcomes for the adjacent low-income South Park and Georgetown neighborhoods confirmed what residents had known for years — in a city known for its commitment to sustainability, industrial pollutants and other social and environmental factors are reducing both life expectancy and quality of life.

The city has taken an aggressive approach to cleanup, especially in the last few years, investing in projects to remove toxic waste from the river and help reduce pollution in the future. Most recently, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) announced plans to invest upwards of $100 million in stormwater management and water quality infrastructure in South Park in the next decade to address sea level rise. But as Seattle contends with an unprecedented housing crunch brought on by an influx of tech-industry companies and their employees, new tensions are arising.

Recognizing that South Park is one of the last remaining affordable enclaves in the country’s fastest-growing city and that the planned infrastructure could increase its desirability and put long-term residents at risk of displacement, SPU has taken on an uncommon agenda for a public utility. With the help of Connect Capital, an initiative of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s Center for Community Investment, representatives from SPU have formed an unlikely partnership with the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition (DRCC), local housing coalitions, the city’s office of economic development and sustainability, and the Seattle Foundation. These groups are prioritizing and coordinating investments in order to preserve and produce affordable housing, build climate resilience in the area, and debunk the notion that environmental improvements inevitably lead to displacement.

The South Park community is one of six teams, grappling with issues from affordable housing to job creation, selected for Connect Capital, a national program to help communities attract and invest money with an emphasis on equity. A team in Milwaukee is also looking at new ways to leverage utility investments in flood management to benefit disinvested neighborhoods; the other teams are in central Appalachia; Coachella Valley, California; Miami, Florida; and Richmond, Virginia. Over the course of two years, cross-sector groups are receiving coaching, facilitated peer learning, and a $200,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to fund a local staff position.

“The Connect Capital work marks the first time that we’re working with housing groups at the nexus of water, health, equity, and climate,” said Ann Grodnik-Nagle, the project lead on SPU’s South Park investments. “It is very common for drainage and wastewater utilities to consider green infrastructure, but the next frontier is aligning drainage infrastructure with affordable housing solutions and open space. I think it is unique to have a utility leadership thinking about affordable housing in concert with planning for our capital projects.” 

Resilience in South Park

South Park is the city’s most diverse neighborhood — 37 percent of the 4,000 residents identify as Hispanic and almost half are foreign-born. It’s also unique for its mix of residential (predominantly single-family homes), commercial (450 businesses), and industrial tenants. Though most industrial activity takes place on the outskirts, some streets feature industrial buildings and housing side by side.

This square-mile neighborhood sits five miles south of Seattle’s downtown and hovers over the city limits, a position that has combined with other factors to leave residents historically ignored. Since South Park was settled in the mid-1850s, activism has become central to the neighborhood’s character, highlighted by a successful effort in the early 1900s to briefly become its own town. Over the years, local organizers have addressed environmental justice catastrophes, public safety issues, and the lack of basic services even with no audience to hear their concerns. Only in recent years have residents started to see attention from the city.

SPU’s water infrastructure work is one such effort — scheduled for construction from 2019 to 2024, the updates will confront sea level rise in Seattle’s only riverside neighborhood which is expected to experience daily flooding by 2104. “It is like a bath tub,” Grodnik-Nagle said. “Currently, [on some streets] there is no formal drainage infrastructure. It is surprising that this can be found in the city of Seattle.”

The pump station and water quality facility, which will treat polluted stormwater from the drainage system, will work in concert to treat stormwater from the drainage system before it flows into the Duwamish. A stormwater collection and conveyance system in South Park’s neighborhoods will run through streets without formal drainage. SPU is also working on a series of smaller initiatives. A GSI project at one of the neighborhood’s main intersections will treat dirty runoff from a major arterial and fix a flooding problem that impacts local businesses. SPU recently received funding from King County to improve the central riverside park, the Duwamish Waterway Park, to increase access to the water, improve a critical public gathering space, and build opportunities for salmon habitat and flooding mitigation.

Coupled with the EPA’s ongoing $342 million river cleanup plan, SPU’s investments will dramatically improve the resilience of the neighborhood—and amplify concerns about displacement: “You start to see that there is a lot of cleanup and basic infrastructure being put in here that will lift up the basic health standards of the neighborhood and the attractiveness of the area as a place that people want to live,” Robin Schwartz, communications manager at the DRCC, said.

This fear of “green gentrification” is not unfounded: New York City’s High Line has become the poster child for this phenomenon, though many smaller scale examples have led to similar outcomes. And as sea levels have risen, so have the stakes—neighborhoods on higher ground and those designed with the infrastructure to manage flooding are increasingly in demand.

In recent years, recognizing South Park’s status as one of the Seattle’s last affordable outposts, the city has begun to test anti-displacement approaches there. In 2016, the City’s Office of Sustainability and Environment convened an interdepartmental team comprised of 18 city departments, the Duwamish River Valley Action Team, to work closely with the community to outline a roadmap (the Duwamish Valley Action Plan) for the region. 

To address housing, the Latina-led Duwamish Valley Affordable Housing Coalition developed a short- and long-term plan to preserve existing affordable stock and produce new affordable housing and community spaces. According to Schwartz, who sits on the coalition, the group is looking for funding to buy existing properties to keep them affordable and to eventually create a multi-use community space.

However, in a hot-market region, the city’s interventions are not as straightforward as they seem, especially when multiple ideas for equitable improvements are seemingly at odds.

Housing or Parks?

Only two years since the publication of the Duwamish Valley Action Plan, housing pressures have intensified. While the community expressed interest in the conversion of the South Park Plaza, which most recently served as a staging area for the construction of the new South Park bridge, into open green space at the time of the Plan’s writing, today, many residents are more interested in using the land for affordable housing.

“The community cares so much about staying in their neighborhood that they are willing to cannibalize a park to achieve that,” Grodnik-Nagle said. “This is a wake-up call for the city.”

As part of an Urban Land Institute Resilience Panel focused on South Park in 2015, a panelist emphasized that while flooding is on residents’ minds, food, transportation, pollution, and housing were higher priorities. “It was the observation of the group that they should absolutely be planning for eventualities, but they shouldn’t forget the day-to-day resilience.”

Through the Connect Capital discussions, partners like SPU have become more aware of the reality of this balancing act. “We have a very short runway to get the housing question right,” Grodnik-Nagle said. “We need to deliver wins on affordable housing soon and then we can start looking to things like climate adaptation.”

And, community members, familiar with the ins and outs of South Park, have had a chance to publicly share their priorities, with an emphasis on housing, and the improvements they have already made. At the Grantmakers in Health Conference in June, Paulina Lopez, executive director of DRCC, coled a tour of her neighborhood for funders dealing with similar challenges: “Most of them were impressed with the capacity the community has now,” she said. 

So far, in Seattle, the Connect Capital discussions have resulted in a proposal for a resilience district, a community-run governance structure that would build community capacity and ownership of initiatives related to equitable development and environmental justice. While the structure hasn’t yet been fleshed out, as currently envisioned, the body would provide a pathway to local land ownership and serve as an intermediary for various funding sources, including federal, state, and local governments and foundations, which would be allocated to community-based sustainability activities.

Finding Common Solutions in A Resilience District

One of the more well-known examples of such a district can be found in New Orleans’ diverse, middle-class Gentilly neighborhood. Using the $141 million it received through HUD’s National Disaster Resilience Competition, New Orleans is concentrating proven water and land management practices in one area with the idea that this colocation will create greater community benefits, though the city has been the subject of some criticism for insufficient community outreach.

In Portland’s Cully neighborhood, Living Cully, a coalition of area nonprofits spearheaded by local nonprofit Verde, rejects the idea that the goals of sustainability and anti-displacement are at odds, and “re-interprets sustainability as an anti-poverty strategy.” An ongoing affordable housing project shows how this idea is possible — after buying a former strip club for conversion into affordable housing, the coalition trained and hired residents to build green roofs and walls, install solar panels and water reuse systems, and develop stormwater infrastructure and sustainable landscaping.

“We are at a place now, where — as a nation — we can no longer make an environmental investment without social and environmental justice outcomes,” Tony DeFalco, Verde’s executive director said. “What we’ve been able to do here at a smaller scale is basically to demonstrate how you do that.”

Connect Capital participants are still learning from these examples and working out the details of a district or coalition that would fit the specific needs of South Park. Questions on the table include: How can Seattle and the city flip the resilience district concept into community ownership? How does Seattle support capacity building in the community so there is an entity that can acquire and develop land in the neighborhood, so that assets are ultimately held by the community, not by the city? Will this district make land-use policy?

South Park’s already strong leadership lays a promising groundwork for such a model — for instance, a version of Living Cully’s environmental stewardship model already exists in Lopez’s Duwamish Valley Youth Corps Program. Youth learn about the health impacts of the river cleanup and other social and environmental justice issues and engage in projects such as building rain gardens. The proposed district may also include a workforce development program.

While the group fleshes out the details of the plan and waits for city leaders to approve it, participants are already benefiting from an emphasis on community involvement and a better understanding of cross-sector perspectives in their own work.

SPU has taken steps to involve the community in its visioning process for the pump station, inviting input at an open design forum. And in all of its projects, it’s thinking through a more holistic lens. “The climate resilience piece is a big long-term challenge in the Duwamish Valley that is unlike any other neighborhood in the city, and it’s forcing us to think strategically about where we develop housing, and how we might pair it with green space that could also serve to mitigate sea level rise flooding,” said Grodnik-Nagle.

“Team members have come to understand the importance of thinking at a systems level rather than at a project level,” Omar Carrillo Tinajero, assistant director of programs, Connect Capital, said. “That is, rather than starting with a particular project in mind, the team has shifted its energy to bring to fruition a community-level result. This has required a shift in approach that includes a pipeline of projects and a series of policies and practices that will enable them to achieve their result.”

Emma Zehner is communications and publications editor at the Lincoln Institute.

Photographs in order of appearance: 

Paulina Lopez, executive director of the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, talks to funders as part of a tour of the South Park neighborhood during the Grantmakers in Health conference in June. Credit: Omar Carrillo Tinajero.

A Seattle Public Utilities sign shows where the planned stormwater management infrastructure will be located. Credit: Seattle Public Utilities.

A medida que la lluvia se acumulaba sobre el techo de 14.000 metros cuadrados de un centro de tránsito en uno de los vecindarios más inundables de Worcester, Massachusetts, el panorama se hacía nefasto. Pero, en vez de transformarse en una amenaza, esa agua pluvial se escurrió en un revoltijo de equináceas moradas, eupatorias púrpuras, salvias rusas y otras plantas tolerantes a inundaciones y sequías que crecen entre el complejo y la avenida Quinsigamond, que está cerca de allí.

El centro de tránsito, construido sobre un terreno abandonado acondicionado, representa una inversión de US$ 90 millones para esta pequeña ciudad. Los elementos de infraestructura verde, como ese jardín de biofiltración que absorbe agua de lluvia, se consideraron necesarios, dice William Lehtola, presidente del comité asesor de la Autoridad Regional de Tránsito en Worcester: “Queremos ofrecer el mejor ambiente posible para la ciudad, nuestros clientes y empleados”, dijo. “No solo en los autobuses, sino también en las instalaciones”.

Con la labor continua y agotadora de recuperarse de las graves pérdidas económicas y de población que Worcester y su vecina Providence, Rhode Island, sufrieron desde su auge como fabricantes, el enfoque ecológico toma impulso en estas antiguas ciudades industriales pequeñas. A pesar de los desafíos, que van desde las restricciones financieras hasta la infraestructura deteriorada, muchas de estas ciudades se dieron cuenta de que invertir en infraestructura verde (y a veces forzarla) ofrece múltiples beneficios. Algunos proyectos, como jardines pluviales o de biofiltración, agricultura urbana y plantación de árboles, ya sean introducidos a pequeña escala o implementados en toda la ciudad, son una forma efectiva de revitalizar espacios públicos, gestionar agua pluvial, mejorar la salud pública y lidiar con los impactos del cambio climático, desde el aumento de las temperaturas hasta las inundaciones.

“La infraestructura verde puede abordar muchos desafíos, y también ofrecer servicios”, dice el profesor Robert Ryan, presidente del Departamento de Arquitectura Paisajística y Planificación Regional de la Universidad de Massachusetts, Amherst. Ryan ha liderado cursos sobre antiguas ciudades industriales, como Worcester. “Las ciudades como Worcester y Providence son lugares ideales para este enfoque”. Cultivar este cambio no siempre es sencillo. Si bien los nuevos códigos, las normativas y la conciencia ambientales aumentaron la frecuencia de los proyectos de infraestructura verde, suelen seguir coexistiendo con estructuras y partes de la calle de una época anterior, cuando las vías fluviales cercanas eran cloacas de hecho y el asfalto era la elección predilecta para las mejoras urbanas.

A medida que las antiguas ciudades industriales del país implementan proyectos y estrategias de infraestructura verde, lidian con una realidad importante: no se pueden volver a crear así como así. Sin embargo, sí pueden adaptarse y evolucionar.

Nueva Inglaterra como nueva

Worcester se encuentra en una zona de colinas en el centro de Massachusetts y alberga unas 185.000 personas. El pico de población fue en 1950, con 203.486 personas, y cayó a unas 161.000 en 1980.

Worcester siempre fue el centro económico del condado de Worcester, donde se encuentra. Pero se ganó el apodo de “Corazón del territorio autónomo” gracias a las conexiones con Boston (por tren en 1835) y con Providence (por el canal Blackstone en 1828 y el tren Providence & Worcester Railroad, a fines de la década de 1840); así, adquirió importancia como centro industrial y de transporte. Se hizo conocida por las máquinas-herramientas, productos trefilados y telares mecánicos.

Providence, ubicada a orillas del río Providence, en el cabo de la bahía Narragansett, siguió un camino similar, pero en un entorno diferente. La ciudad costera alberga unas 180.000 personas. Es más que el récord mínimo del s. XX, de 156.000 en 1980, pero mucho menos que su pico, de más de 252.000, en 1940. Providence es la capital del estado y se convirtió en el centro neurálgico de fabricación luego de la Guerra de Independencia, con fábricas que producían en masa joyas, textiles, objetos de plata y maquinarias, y los enviaban desde el puerto. En un punto, fue una de las ciudades más ricas del país.

En ambas ciudades, la actividad industrial y la población terminaron por menguar y, junto con la suburbanización, dejaron secciones vacías que antes eran bulliciosos centros urbanos (ver Figura 1). Pero, tal como sucede con muchas antiguas ciudades industriales, poco a poco la gente redescubre los recursos que ofrecen estas comunidades. Como explican Alan Mallach y Lavea Brachman en el informe Regenerating America’s Legacy Cities (Regenerar las antiguas ciudades industriales de Estados Unidos) del Instituto Lincoln, algunos de estos recursos son bases de empleo en el centro, vecindarios estables, redes de transporte multimodal, facultades y universidades, tiendas locales, edificios y zonas históricos, e instalaciones para arte, cultura y entretenimiento (Mallach 2013).

Por ejemplo, Providence es sede de la Universidad Brown, la Escuela de Diseño de Rhode Island, la Universidad de Rhode Island y Johnson & Wales. Worcester alberga más de una decena de instituciones de educación superior, como la Universidad Clark, el College of the Holy Cross, el Instituto Politécnico de Worcester y la Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Massachusetts. Ambas ciudades poseen hospitales importantes y espacios para espectáculos. Y ambas ciudades han revitalizado sus centros con proyectos distintivos.

Providence logró renovar su imagen como centro artístico y cultural a principios de los 90. En una labor masiva de infraestructura verde, exhumó el río Providence, nacido de la confluencia de los ríos Woonasquatucket y Moshassuck, que hacía mucho tiempo habían sido enterrados bajo estacionamientos y vías de tren, y sus orillas bordeadas con parques y senderos peatonales. El alcalde de ese entonces, Vincent “Buddy” Cianci Jr., dijo: “El río debe ser una parte integral de la ciudad. No lo tapen, no lo bloqueen, no lo contaminen. Celébrenlo y úsenlo”. Este trabajo masivo cambió la personalidad del centro, que pronto comenzó a atraer nuevos proyectos de desarrollo, como renovaciones ambiciosas de molinos vacíos, y también nuevos residentes y empresas.

Worcester está reemplazando el fallido centro comercial del centro con el redesarrollo CitySquare de uso mixto, una inversión de US$ 565 millones. Este volverá a conectar el distrito empresarial central con otras partes pujantes de la ciudad, como Washington Square (donde se encuentra la renovada Union Station), los restaurantes de Shrewsbury Street y Canal District, que está de moda. De hecho, el informe Revitalizing America’s Smaller Legacy Cities (Revitalizar las antiguas ciudades industriales más pequeñas de los Estados Unidos) del Instituto Lincoln mencionó a Worcester por su “alto rendimiento” entre otras ciudades del mismo tamaño (Hollingsworth 2017). Algunos factores que incidieron en esta decisión son la cercanía a Boston y el fácil acceso por tren comercial, líderes con energía y habilidades para revitalizar la ciudad y el proyecto CitySquare. Providence no se incluyó en el informe del Instituto Lincoln, pero sus labores de revitalización fueron destacadas por organizaciones como la Asociación Americana de Planificación o The New York Times.

Si bien esta fuerza es prometedora, el cambio climático complica todo. En la región Noroeste, el cambio climático se asocia a eventos extremos más frecuentes, como lluvias fuertes e inundaciones, sequías, aire y temperatura del agua más cálidos, cambios en los patrones de circulación en el océano (e impactos relacionados en el clima y la pesca) y crecida del nivel del mar. La ubicación de Providence la hace vulnerable a inundaciones y daños de las tormentas “Nor’easter” y los huracanes que azotan sus costas. Un informe climático preparado en Worcester alude a impactos pronosticados, como “aumento de temperaturas, días con calor más extremo y cambios en los patrones de precipitación”.

“Cierto grado de cambio climático es inevitable; literalmente, no hay nada que podamos hacer sobre eso ahora”, dice Edward R. Carr, profesor de desarrollo internacional, comunidad y medioambiente en la Universidad Clark, en Worcester. “La pregunta es: cuánto podemos lidiar con eso y cómo será en el futuro”.

Donde se unen la revitalización y la preparación

“La lógica más fundamental al pensar en infraestructura verde es crear utilidades de una acumulación masiva de terrenos vacíos para que no sean una plaga y, con suerte, [tengan] un efecto positivo en el barrio”, dice Alan Mallach. “Históricamente, muchas personas tenían la teoría de que un terreno vacío era inútil, a menos que se construyera algo ahí. Pero eso está cambiando. Hay distintas formas de tomar un terreno vacío y hacerlo valioso para la comunidad, ya sea para fines recreativos, para producir alimentos frescos o para tratar el desborde de las cloacas. Hay formas de abordar los terrenos vacíos que no implican construir viviendas u oficinas nuevas”.

Al evaluar las oportunidades de uso del suelo, las antiguas ciudades industriales suelen carecer de poder político o económico para diseñar soluciones efectivas. Pero hay un área en que estas ciudades tienen una ventaja: buscan reinventarse como lugares más saludables y atractivos para vivir; entonces, suelen estar más dispuestas a aceptar proyectos novedosos y creativos. Amy Cotter, directora adjunta de Programas Urbanos del Instituto Lincoln, dice que esto ayudará en la era del cambio climático.

“Si se piensan formas de preparar a las antiguas ciudades industriales para que tengan una participación crucial en un futuro en que el cambio climático afecta a los grandes centros demográficos, la infraestructura verde podría ser una estrategia de revitalización y preparación para el clima”, dice Cotter. “También puede ayudar a los lugares a revitalizarse y lidiar con lo que, de otro modo, sería la plaga de las propiedades vacías”.

Las antiguas ciudades industriales más grandes de todo el país han adoptado un conjunto de opciones con estos objetivos en mente. En Detroit, una labor cabal de infraestructura verde llevó a que en toda la ciudad broten techos verdes, jardines pluviales y un programa de “callejones ecológicos” por el cual las plantas nativas y el pavimento permeable reemplazan los escombros urbanos y el concreto en callejones que antes estaban abandonados. En Cleveland, el distrito regional de cloacas administra un programa de subsidios para infraestructura verde, y se están concretando planes ambiciosos para un parque que ocupará 8 hectáreas de costanera del río Cuyahoga, que antes era industrial. Filadelfia invierte unos US$ 2.400 millones en financiación pública durante 25 años para hacer desde barriles pluviales hasta humedales urbanos para reducir el desborde combinado de las cloacas.

Las antiguas ciudades industriales más pequeñas, con menos de 200.000 habitantes, no siempre llegan a los titulares ni tienen los recursos y la capacidad de emprender proyectos tan grandes, pero muchas realizan labores similares. Worcester y Providence demuestran cómo la infraestructura verde puede ayudar a estas ciudades (una en la costa y una tierra adentro) a recuperarse de los desafíos del siglo pasado y prepararse para las incertidumbres de las próximas décadas.

“La infraestructura verde no solo es una alternativa ambientalista para los sistemas de agua pluvial tradicionales; también puede ayudar a protegernos de los impactos climáticos, como la isla de calor urbana y la erosión costera, y se puede usar en el diseño de las calles para que sean más seguras para ciclistas y peatones”, dice Leah Bamberger, directora de sustentabilidad de la ciudad de Providence. “Providence es una ciudad progresista, y la infraestructura verde es una oportunidad de invertir en empleos ecológicos y al mismo tiempo construir una comunidad próspera y más saludable”.

Encontrar soluciones para el agua pluvial

En los últimos 80 años, la frecuencia de inundaciones se ha duplicado en Rhode Island y el sur de Nueva Inglaterra, y también ha aumentado la magnitud de dichos eventos, según el informe Resilient Rhody: An Actionable Vision for Addressing the Impacts of Climate Change in Rhode Island (Rhody resiste: una visión factible para abordar los impactos del cambio climático en Rhode Island, estado de Rhode Island 2018). Por desgracia, la infraestructura de la región no está a la altura del desafío.

“Gran parte de la infraestructura estatal para agua pluvial se construyó hace al menos 75 años, y se diseñó para tormentas menos intensas”, dice el informe Resilient Rhody. “El cambio climático desafía aun más la capacidad y el rendimiento de estos sistemas de drenaje”.

Carr dice que esto también sucede en la zona de Worcester, y destaca: “Aquí, sencillamente la infraestructura no está hecha para lidiar . . . con lo que se está convirtiendo en normal”.

“La adaptación al clima es muy específica de cada lugar”, dice Ryan, de la Universidad de Massachusetts, quien coeditó Planning for Climate Change: A Reader in Green Infrastructure and Sustainable Design for Resilient Cities (Planificar para el cambio climático: texto sobre infraestructura verde y diseño sustentable para ciudades con capacidad de recuperación), publicado por Routledge. “Para estas ciudades en particular y cualquier antigua ciudad industrial, la pregunta es cómo ubicar el agua adicional que llega con el aumento del nivel del mar y de las precipitaciones”. Ryan destaca que los patrones de desarrollo de vecindarios tendieron a surgir de la ubicación histórica de viviendas de empleados cerca de fábricas y molinos costeros, y dice que las inundaciones también desatan cuestiones de igualdad: “¿Cómo protegen las ciudades a las poblaciones vulnerables en esas zonas bajas?”

Las entidades públicas y privadas están tomando medidas con esta serie de preocupaciones en mente. La coalición Green Infrastructure Coalition, de Rhode Island, compuesta por más de 40 organizaciones sin fines de lucro, planificadores de ciudades, arquitectos, funcionarios electos y otros, trabaja para promover proyectos de infraestructura verde como forma de reducir los problemas de agua pluvial, como inundaciones y contaminación.

La coalición contrata equipos locales para instalar proyectos de infraestructura verde, como un jardín de biofiltración en un parque local, un techo verde o un jardín pluvial, y capacita sobre el mantenimiento a los empleados de obras públicas y otras partes involucradas. “Por ahora son proyectos pequeños, pero parece que la necesidad y el apetito de ellos están creciendo”, dice John Berard, director estatal en Rhode Island de Clean Water Action, que funciona como organizador de proyecto para la coalición. “Vemos que prevalece cada vez más a medida que las tormentas empeoran, y las ciudades se están dando cuenta de que el agua pluvial es una parte muy importante de la gestión efectiva de la ciudad”.

Mientras tanto, la ciudad de Worcester estableció políticas que ayudan a garantizar una buena gestión del agua pluvial. La ciudad regula la escorrentía cerca de humedales y colectores de fango que drenan directamente a humedales o zonas con recursos hídricos. Además, ningún desarrollo o redesarrollo debe tener un aumento neto de tasas de escorrentía, lo cual suele ver nacer sistemas de gestión de agua pluvial en el mismo sitio de desarrollos grandes.

Por otro lado, la ciudad protege el suelo de su cuenca de manera intensiva, para mejorar la calidad del agua potable y compensar parte del territorio que se perdió con el desarrollo, según indica Phil Guerin, director de operaciones hídricas y de cloacas de la ciudad.

Pero Guerin destaca que, debido a la naturaleza urbanizada de Worcester y su geología, es difícil reducir la cantidad de superficies impermeables. “Hay muchas zonas con lecho rocoso poco profundo, un nivel de agua poco profundo, y es una ciudad bastante urbanizada”, dice Guerin.

Combatir el efecto de isla de calor urbana

Hace algunos años, los científicos de la NASA se propusieron comprender la diferencia entre temperaturas en la superficie de las ciudades del Noreste y las zonas rurales circundantes. En la investigación descubrieron que, en un período de tres años, las temperaturas en la superficie de las ciudades tuvieron un promedio de 7 a 9 grados más que las zonas circundantes. En Providence, las temperaturas de la superficie son unos 12,1 grados más cálidas que en el campo circundante (NASA 2010). El hecho de que Providence es compacta ayudó a este efecto de isla de calor, ocasionado porque los edificios retienen el calor y por la infraestructura urbana, como el asfalto.

Cuando se trata de combatir este efecto, la respuesta es evidente, dice Carr, de la Universidad Clark: “Árboles, árboles, árboles. Hay montones de estudios que indican que los mantos urbanos de árboles hacen una diferencia impresionante en el descenso de las temperaturas, mejoran la calidad del aire y, en cierto sentido, ayudan con las inundaciones”.

Según el Departamento de Agricultura de EE.UU., un árbol saludable de 30 metros de alto puede tomar 41.600 litros de agua del suelo y liberarlos al aire en un solo período de vegetación.

En 1907, la ciudad de Providence registró unos 50.000 árboles en las calles, según indica la asociación local sin fines de lucro Providence Neighborhood Planting Program (PNPP). Hoy, la ciudad tiene apenas la mitad: unos 25.500, según el tablero de sustentabilidad en el sitio web de Sustentabilidad de la ciudad de Providence. Se está realizando un inventario de árboles en toda la ciudad.

Con su plan Trees 2020, Providence pretende aumentar el manto de árboles en un 30 por ciento hacia 2020 y plantar 200 árboles cada año. La ciudad se asoció con PNPP; ofrecen subsidios para plantar árboles, realizar los cortes en las aceras y alcorques, y entregar árboles gratis. Además, PNPP y la ciudad ofrecen el programa Providence Citizen Foresters, que ofrece capacitación técnica centrada en el cuidado de los árboles urbanos jóvenes. Desde 1989, PNPP cofinanció la colocación de más de 13.000 árboles en las calles con más de 620 grupos vecinales.

“Si la gente está involucrada y quiere el árbol, es más probable que lo cuide y lo riegue”, dice Bamberger. “Se pueden plantar árboles todo el día, pero si no hay nadie que los cuide y los riegue, no van a durar mucho”.

Ryan hace eco de esta idea, que concluye con la investigación en la que ayudó en jardines comunitarios de Boston y Providence. “A veces hay grupos externos que vienen a las ciudades y vecindarios y dicen qué linda es la infraestructura verde. Pero, a menos que la comunidad la quiera, y quiera mantenerla, no se sostiene bien en el tiempo”, dice. “La infraestructura verde necesita verticalidad en ambos sentidos. Un enfoque de abajo hacia arriba parece tener un impacto a mayor plazo en lo que refiere a la administración y a lograr que los proyectos funcionen”.

En Worcester, una labor sólida de plantación de árboles acabó por convertirse en una historia de éxito a nivel estatal. En 2008 se encontraron escarabajos asiáticos de cuernos largos en Worcester, lo que llevó a una labor masiva de erradicación que acabaría con 35.000 árboles en una zona de cuarentena de 285 kilómetros cuadrados en la ciudad y pueblos adyacentes. Cuatro años más tarde, algunos alumnos de la Universidad Clark comenzaron a estudiar el impacto de la pérdida de estos árboles y notaron que el efecto de isla de calor había aumentado —al igual que las cuentas de calefacción y aire acondicionado— en un barrio que había perdido los árboles.

En 2009 se lanzó una ambiciosa labor de reforestación conocida como Worcester Tree Initiative. La ciudad y el Departamento estatal de Conservación y Recreación (DCR, por su sigla en inglés) se unieron para plantar 30.000 árboles en apenas cinco años, en jardines privados, parques y las calles. El programa recluta administradores vecinales de árboles para que los cuiden y los controlen, y cuenta con el programa de verano Jóvenes Adultos Guardabosques para jóvenes en situación de riesgo.

La asociación tuvo tanto éxito que el DCR la expandió a otras ciudades de Massachusetts mediante la iniciativa Greening the Gateway Cities. Este programa se concentra en áreas dentro de ciudades con un manto de árboles inferior, viviendas más antiguas y mayor población arrendataria. El DCR trabaja con asociaciones locales sin fines de lucro y contrata equipos del lugar para plantar árboles y lograr beneficios ambientales y eficiencia energética. Hoy, este programa está activo en Brockton, Chelsea, Chicopee, Fall River, Haverhill, Holyoke, Lawrence, Leominster, Lynn, New Bedford, Pittsfield, Quincy, Revere y Springfield.

“El modelo se instaló en zonas donde se encontraba el escarabajo y ahora es un modelo de éxito en todo el estado”, dice Ken Gooch, director del programa Forest Health Program, del DCR. “Hemos plantado miles y miles de árboles”.

Enfrentar los desafíos

La norma de zonificación en la ciudad de Worcester exige que se planten árboles alrededor del perímetro de un estacionamiento junto a una calle, parque o propiedad residencial que atienda a más de tres moradas residenciales. Además, se exige plantar árboles en el interior en terrenos con más de 16 lugares de estacionamiento, y la Política Completa de Calles del estado, promulgada en marzo de 2018, destaca los árboles en particular como parte importante de la vía pública, dice Stephen Rolle, director asistente de desarrollo de la ciudad.

Pero algunos barrios están menos dispuestos a tener árboles: los servicios, el cableado y las aceras en calles estrechas compiten por el espacio. Sencillamente, en ciudades urbanizadas hay menos lugar para plantar árboles, en especial los que dan mucha sombra y ofrecen más beneficios ambientales. Los jardines pluviales y de biofiltración urbanos a veces deben competir por el espacio con servicios y estacionamientos.

“En el centro, hay espacios asfaltados valiosos, y la gente no está segura de desprenderse de ese estacionamiento para colocar jardines de biofiltración o árboles en la calle”, dice Berard, de Green Infrastructure Coalition.

Rolle destaca otro desafío: el desarrollo de baja intensidad a veces se percibe como más caro, debido a los costos de instalación o los requisitos de mantenimiento. Pero “hay bastante evidencia que sugiere que los beneficios de dichas mejoras en suma superan a los costos”, dice. “Puede ser más barato asfaltarlo, pero eso no significa que sea lo mejor”.

Parte del esfuerzo de Green Infrastructure Coalition es apoyar la financiación de un emprendimiento para agua pluvial con los costos de un servicio. Los dueños de propiedades aportan a esta financiación según la cantidad de superficie impermeable en su terreno, y los fondos se invierten en proyectos que incluyen infraestructura verde. Pero Berard reconoció que es difícil convencerlos. “Como solución de políticas, está bastante aceptado que es la mejor forma de financiar programas”, dice. “Pero políticamente, tiene mal sabor”.

Con vistas al futuro, se están armando más planes en ambas ciudades. Worcester está involucrada en un proceso de plan maestro en toda la ciudad que considerará adaptaciones al cambio climático. La ciudad también recibió un subsidio de U$ 100.000 en 2018 para preparar una evaluación de vulnerabilidad ante el cambio climático.

Además, el departamento de Agua y Cloacas está desarrollando un plan a largo plazo para priorizar inversiones en infraestructura de agua, aguas residuales y agua pluvial en los próximos 50 años. Así, tiene la oportunidad de aumentar la capacidad de absorber agua pluvial mediante infraestructura verde.

La ciudad de Providence, por su parte, ha estado actualizando su Plan de Atenuación de Peligros, con un enfoque principal en preparación para el clima, indica Bamberger. Dice que, con la mayor presión del cambio climático, anticiparse y sembrar las semillas de una ciudad más ecológica serán las claves para la vitalidad.

“Si solo hay un día para prepararse, hay [menos] opciones . . . Tal vez solo se puedan trabar las escotillas”, dice. “Pero tenemos un poco de tiempo para pensar estratégicamente cómo debemos responder a estos impactos. Integrar la naturaleza al diseño urbano y apoyar los sistemas naturales de los cuales dependemos es crucial para crear una ciudad resistente al clima”.

Cyrus Moulton es periodista para Worcester Telegram & Gazette

Fotografía: Los autos navegan en una inundación severa bajo un antiguo puente de Providence & Worcester Railroad. Worcester, julio de 2018. Crédito: Matthew Healey