Martin J. Walsh nació y creció en el barrio obrero de Dorchester, en Boston. En su segundo mandato como 54.º alcalde de Boston, se centra en escuelas, viviendas asequibles e inmigración, y muchos otros asuntos. También se convirtió en líder internacional de la respuesta al cambio climático y la construcción de resiliencia, al haber sido anfitrión de una importante cumbre climática en 2018 y formar una coalición de alcaldes dedicados a trabajar en energías renovables y otras estrategias. Juró lograr neutralidad en las emisiones de carbono en Boston para 2050 y lideró Imagine Boston 2030, el primer plan cabal de toda la ciudad en medio siglo, además de la iniciativa Resilient Boston Harbor. Se hizo un tiempo para hablar con Anthony Flint, miembro sénior, y reflexionar sobre su posición de alcalde en medio de la crisis climática actual.

Anthony Flint: Ha sido uno de los alcaldes más activos del país en el apremiante problema del cambio climático. Cuéntenos acerca de sus últimas labores para coordinar acciones. ¿Cómo se siente acerca de que todo este trabajo se haga a nivel local, sin una iniciativa federal?

Marty Walsh: Por primera vez, fuimos anfitriones de una cumbre climática, y trabajamos con alcaldes de todo el país. Fui electo copresidente de América del Norte de C40 [la red global de ciudades dedicadas a abordar el cambio climático], antes de que el presidente Trump se retirara del acuerdo climático de París. Trabajamos con el alcalde [Eric] Garcetti de Los Ángeles y otros para asegurarnos de que las ciudades renueven el compromiso con ese acuerdo. Este es un tema muy importante para el país y para Boston, y es muy importante contar con dedicación y liderazgo. Es una lástima que no hayamos contado con un socio [federal] en los últimos años. Pero seguiremos enfrentando las dificultades y seguiremos pensando en la próxima generación. Lo que deseo es que terminemos por tener un socio federal, y cuando llegue ese momento, no empezaremos de cero.

AF: Hablemos primero de la mitigación. ¿Cuáles son las formas más importantes en que las ciudades pueden ayudar a reducir las emisiones de carbono? ¿Deberían exigir modernizaciones en los edificios más antiguos, por ejemplo, para que sean más eficientes en el consumo de energía?

MW: Tenemos un programa llamado Renew Boston Trust, que identifica ahorros de energía en edificios que pertenecen a la ciudad. Es importante saber que comenzamos en nuestro propio patio trasero. Ahora hay 14 edificios que se están modernizando: bibliotecas, centros comunitarios, y estaciones de policía y bomberos. Segundo, estamos evaluando la posibilidad de electrificar algunos vehículos. La tercera parte es observar las modernizaciones y las nuevas construcciones, asegurarnos de que lo nuevo se construya bajo mayores estándares de rendimiento, con menos emisiones de carbono. A fin de cuentas, si pensamos en reducir las emisiones de carbono, se trata de 85.000 edificios en la ciudad . . . si queremos llegar a carbono cero para 2050, debemos modernizar esos edificios, los pequeños y los grandes. Y luego está el transporte: que el sistema de transporte sea más limpio y ecológico. Aunque tuviéramos una política nacional más fuerte, son las ciudades quienes al final deben ejecutar las reducciones.

AF: Aunque detuviéramos todas las emisiones de carbono mañana, el planeta aún debería gestionar un importante aumento del nivel del mar, inundaciones, clima volátil, incendios y más, debido a que las temperaturas aumentarán inexorablemente. ¿Cuáles son las labores más prometedoras aquí y en el país para construir resiliencia?

MW: Para Boston, las ciudades de la Costa Este y las propiedades frente al mar, el plan Resilient Boston Harbor establece algunas estrategias buenas. Tenemos 75 kilómetros de costa, y ríos que atraviesan y rodean la ciudad. Hemos observado lo que pasó con la supertormenta Sandy [el huracán en el Atlántico en 2012] y lo que ocurrió en Houston [por el huracán Harvey en 2017], en términos de proteger a la gente ante grandes inundaciones. Tenemos un plan grande para el puerto, pero hay otros vecindarios donde debemos asegurarnos de estar preparados. Estamos haciendo estudios de planificación en todas esas áreas [bajo la iniciativa Climate Ready Boston] para lidiar con el aumento del nivel del mar. Con el tiempo, será un plan ambiental.

Es un asunto de seguridad pública. Se trata de calidad de vida y del futuro de nuestra ciudad. En el pasado, los alcaldes se centraron en desarrollo económico, transporte y educación. Hoy, el cambio climático, la resiliencia y la preparación son parte de la conversación como no lo eran hace 25 años.

AF: En el Instituto Lincoln, estamos convencidos de que se debe con la naturaleza mediante a infraestructura verde e hídrica, y crear nuevas formas de pagarla. ¿También es fanático de este enfoque, desarrollado por los holandeses y otros?

MW: En realidad, Resilient Boston Harbor es un plan de infraestructura verde. Un proyecto que encara eso es Martin’s Park, que lleva el nombre de Martin Richard [la víctima más joven del bombardeo en la maratón de Boston de 2013]. Elevamos partes del parque para evitar que las inundaciones avancen, e instalamos mini pilas y mantos con vegetación reforzados con piedra para evitar la erosión de las mareas altas. Estamos analizando hacer algo parecido en todo el puerto interior. Gastaremos US$ 2 millones en Joe Moakley Park, que es el punto de acceso de las inundaciones a varios vecindarios . . . intentamos reducir todo lo posible los daños a propiedades y la manera en que las inundaciones alteran la vida de las personas. Los terraplenes y otras barreras pueden ayudar a mantener el agua a raya . . . pero hay oportunidades para dejarla pasar y que no se acumule, si ocurre una tormenta muy fuerte.

AF: Además de los nuevos impuestos que se propusieron, ¿apoyaría una disposición de captura de valor por la cual el sector privado contribuya más con este tipo de inversiones públicas masivas?

MW: Además de la inversión privada (necesitaremos más de ella), estamos trabajando con organizaciones filantrópicas para ver si más de ese dinero puede llegar a ese tipo de proyectos. En el presupuesto de este año, dedicamos un 10 por ciento de presupuesto capital a la resiliencia. También estamos pensando en tomar parte de la renta dedicada y llevarla a la resiliencia. Por ejemplo, aumentamos las multas y penalizaciones de estacionamiento. Eso volverá directamente al transporte y la resiliencia, como elevar las calles. Ese es un comienzo. Con el tiempo, dedicaremos más del proyecto a esto. Ojalá en algún momento invierta el gobierno federal. Ahora, están pagando millones y millones en asistencia ante catástrofes. En vez de presentarse luego de que ocurra el evento y la tragedia, yo espero que querrán hacer inversiones antes de tiempo.

AF: Según las proyecciones de que grandes franjas de Boston estarán bajo agua antes de que termine el siglo, ¿puede hacer una reflexión personal sobre esta amenaza a la ciudad que hoy lidera? ¿Cómo llamaría a un mayor apremio por abordar este problema?

MW: Ese es nuestro trabajo. Nuestro trabajo es gobernar en el presente, y gestionar todas las operaciones cotidianas, pero también es establecer las bases de lo que será nuestra ciudad en el futuro. La infraestructura que construyamos estará aquí en los próximos 50 a 60 años. El plan Resilient Boston Harbor está [diseñado] para lidiar con el aumento del nivel del mar en los próximos 40 o 50 años. Estamos construyendo todo eso con la expectativa de conservar y proteger a los residentes de la ciudad. Espero que, cuando ya no sea el alcalde, el siguiente venga y también quiera invertir. Este es el legado de la ciudad (no diría necesariamente que es el mío): mirar hacia atrás dentro de varios años, que los residentes recuerden el pasado y estén agradecidos por las inversiones y el tiempo que se tomaron los dirigentes en 2017, 2018 y 2019.

Creo que como país no estamos donde debemos estar. Los holandeses y otros países de Europa están adelantados. Entonces, estamos intentando alcanzarlos. Y no vamos a esperar a que la próxima generación intente resolver el problema.

Anthony Flint s miembro sénior del Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo y editor colaborador de Land Lines.

Fotografía: El alcalde de Boston, Marty Walsh, habla en los premios anuales Greenovate, que reconocen a los líderes del clima y la sostenibilidad en la comunidad. Crédito: John Wilcox, cortesía de la Alcaldía de la Ciudad de Boston.

During the last two decades, the population of Fort Collins, Colorado, expanded from 100,000 to 170,000. According to the city’s newly adopted comprehensive plan, that total is expected to swell to 240,000 by 2040. As one of the fastest-growing cities in one of the fastest-growing states in the country, Fort Collins has identified priorities for managing its future that range from increasing affordable housing to embracing clean energy with the goal of becoming a carbon-neutral community. Among its action steps: reducing water consumption in new and existing buildings as part of an effort to “ensure that water is used wisely and our community is prepared for a changing climate.”

For Fort Collins and other communities across the West, the dual pressures of rapid development and climate change are making water an increasingly precious commodity—and an increasingly hot topic. As these communities are discovering, planning for the future requires thinking differently about how and where to build, how much water to allocate to new and existing developments, and how to balance water needs with available supply. To help facilitate this shift, the Sonoran Institute and Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy have developed a multiday workshop that helps community leaders communicate, collaborate, and take action.

Growing Water Smart: Integrated Water and Land Use Planning Workshop, which won an award from the Colorado chapter of the American Planning Association in September 2019, helps land planners and water managers explore how land use and climatic trends impact water supply and demand at the state and local level. Building on the momentum created by the adoption of Colorado’s first statewide water plan in 2015, it also introduces communities to strategies and tools that can help them integrate water and land use planning to better adapt to change and uncertainty.

“When we heard about the Growing Water Smart program, we saw it as an opportunity to build better partnerships with the planning community,” said Fort Collins Water Conservation Program Manager Liesel Hans. “We knew we needed to be thinking about water and land use planning more strategically.”

The city put together a team that included a member of the city council, the head of its planning agency, and water resources managers including Hans. “We got people in a room who don’t typically get together,” Hans said.

Nurturing that kind of collaboration is exactly the point, said Jeremy Stapleton, director of Resilient Communities and Watersheds at the Sonoran Institute. “Water is one of our biggest challenges,” said Stapleton, who leads the Growing Water Smart program. “If we don’t get the water problem solved, there will be cascading effects. And solving it is going to take relationships and collaboration at a scale greater than we’ve seen.”

Ultimately, the goal of the program is to promote the idea of being “water smart from the start,” Stapleton said. Noting that water needs are often factored in after development projects receive approval, he said it benefits developers, residents, and community leaders alike to address this critical issue far earlier in the planning process: “It makes sense to make water-smart development the easiest type to build.”

To be selected for the workshop, potential participants must submit an application that describes their water supply and demand policies and practices, community awareness and acceptance of water-related forecasts and figures, issues they hope to address, and the current level of readiness and collaboration among various departments. They assemble a team of five to seven people who work closely with assigned facilitators during the three-day training. Members might include elected officials, water managers, representatives of municipal departments such as economic development or public works, and partners from the nonprofit and consulting sectors. The teams can hail from a single community, a county, or a multijurisdictional region. Their goal: to emerge with a one-year action plan.

“Each session is a progression,” said Faith Sternlieb, who manages Growing Water Smart for the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy and has facilitated community teams at several workshops. “Sometimes team members don’t know each other, even when they work in the same office. They start to share resources, data, and information, and explore how they can work together to achieve the goals identified in their application. They end up with an action plan for the year, and we encourage them to make it as specific as possible: if they’re going to have a meeting, who needs to be there, who will invite them, where and when will it be held, what is the goal, who is going to present, what are they going to present? It can be a hard and painful process, but you see collaboration and decision-making unfold before your eyes.”

Torie Jarvis, a lawyer and former rafting guide who works as a consultant for the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG) Water Quality and Quantity Committee, has also been a facilitator at the workshop. “The great thing about the program is that the level of sophistication for jurisdictions varies widely, yet the format still works for everyone,” Jarvis said. She said participants have ranged from large cities with progressive approaches to water management to tiny towns on the Western Slope—a region that sends more than half of the water from some of its river basins across the Rocky Mountains to Front Range communities to the east—that are grappling with how to pay for basic infrastructure. “The model works no matter where you are in the process,” she said.

Fellow NWCCOG member Will Dujardin attended a workshop as a representative of the Crested Butte Town Council, taking his place on a team that included representatives from three municipalities within Gunnison County and from the county government. “We are all facing similar challenges, and the workshop helped us get to the same baseline,” said Dujardin, who was recently appointed mayor pro tem. Now back at their respective desks, the team members continue to connect regularly, and are considering follow-up activities including a local workshop and speaker series. “The fact that we’re still making headway shows how useful the program is,” Dujardin said. “Growing Water Smart acted as a catalyst for us.”

To make follow-up projects possible, Growing Water Smart invites participating communities to apply for up to $10,000 in technical assistance funds. The Fort Collins team took advantage of this opportunity to conduct meetings and planning exercises focused on how to assign water to new types of development such as mixed-use projects and townhouses.

Tangible outcomes in other communities have included formal Intergovernmental Agreements and MOUs, collaborations between agencies, and case studies, Stapleton said; a workbook produced by the Sonoran Institute also guides communities through the nuances of integrated water and land use planning.

During the three years since it began, the Growing Water Smart program—which has flourished with additional support from the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the Gates Family Foundation—has worked with more than 34 jurisdictions that are home to an estimated 50 percent of Colorado residents, Stapleton said. The program has just expanded to Arizona, tailoring its methods and messaging for a state that is facing similar water-related challenges, but in different political and geographic contexts.

Efforts are also underway to introduce the program in California. The Sacramento-based Local Government Commission (LGC)—a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that convenes leaders with the goal of advancing policy and creating more livable communities—is partnering with the Sonoran Institute and Babbitt Center to adapt the curriculum for communities there. LGC’s program areas include a focus on the water-land nexus, and Growing Water Smart “meets all the needs we are identifying in California” in terms of education and capacity-building, said Danielle Dolan of LGC. After attending one of the Colorado workshops, Dolan began working with LGC colleague Atley Keller to draft a California-focused curriculum that reflects the fact that the natural and political landscape of the state is, as Keller puts it, “complicated and constantly changing.”

Dolan is now working with Stapleton to secure funding for a potential California pilot that would begin building the capacity of individuals and agencies to collaborate, which she says is critical in the face of development pressure, limited natural resources, and encroaching climate change. “Everyone is working frenetically in their own little bubbles without coordinating, and they are going to make decisions that are counterproductive,” she said. Dolan believes Growing Water Smart, if widely adopted, “holds tremendous potential for shaping the future growth of the state.”

As far as Stapleton is concerned, the more bridges the program can help build among water managers, elected officials, and planners in the rapidly developing West, the better. “A lot of communities don’t have the water they need for the growth they are having or aspire to have,” he explained. “The communities that are going to thrive are the ones that are having these conversations now.”

Katharine Wroth is the editor of Land Lines.

Photographs in order of appearance

In the three years since its creation, the Growing Water Smart workshop series has guided representatives from more than 30 Colorado jurisdictions through a strategic, collaborative process focused on the intersection of water and land use planning. This month, the program expands to Arizona. Credit: Courtesy of the Sonoran Institute.

“Everything was fine until it wasn’t,” reads the first line of these notes from a recent Growing Water Smart workshop. The program encourages municipalities to plan for a swiftly changing, resource-constrained future. Credit: Courtesy of the Sonoran Institute.

I’m still recovering from studying graduate-level economics, where the going wisdom was that certain challenges are insoluble. An early lesson, for example, was that no voting system can reliably reach the “right decision” that satisfies a set of basic principles. Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow showed that no voting method is fair, and that the only voting method that isn’t flawed is dictatorship. I learned through the apocryphal tale of the Tragedy of the Commons that ungov­erned access to common resources will always end in the overuse and destruction of those resources. I also learned that collective action to produce public good could not succeed if it involved more than seven people. I’m not kidding.

As I recover, I’ve detected a flaw in the sequence adopted by economists to break down problems. We look first to theory to frame our response, then seek to apply the theoretical structure to resolve the challenge. We begin with seemingly reasonable assumptions about rational human behavior, e.g., people always prefer more rather than less of a good thing; if a voter prefers candidate A over candidate B and candidate B over candidate C, then the voter must prefer candidate A over candidate C (transitivity). We then construct the challenge itself as a set of choices made by rational agents.

Inevitably, theory tells us that some challenges are insurmountable, and optimal resolution is impossible. No matter how we tally votes, we can always find a case where voters will collectively violate transitivity. Because more is better, pastoralists will overgraze and destroy shared grazing commons by increasing the size of their herds.

But the words of two more practical 20th-century philosophers have helped me see things differently: “In theory, there is no difference between practice and theory. In practice, there is” (attributed to Yogi Berra); and, “A resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory” (commonly known as Ostrom’s Law). Berra was a short, stocky baseball catcher who would swing at anything thrown near him—and almost never struck out. He was voted league MVP three times and played on more world champion teams than any other player. Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, spent a career showing how large groups of individuals who use a common resource, like a fishery, find ways to steward the resource sustainably.

As it turns out, many of the challenges eschewed by economists as insoluble are also existential. Maybe the best way to solve them is to try things out until we find something that works. One of the best and most effective examples of taking action before all the theoreti­cal nuts and bolts were firmly in place—and a potential model for addressing other complex global issues—is the Montreal Protocol.

In the 1970s, people started noticing that the ozone layer of the upper atmosphere was thinning out over the poles—especially over Antarctica. The ozone layer makes the sky blue. It also makes life on earth possible by absorbing harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. After a little more than a decade, scientists concluded that the culprit was the release of chlorofluoro­carbons and other ozone-depleting substances (ODS), artificial compounds used as refrigerants, aerosol propellants, and inputs in the production of plastics like Styrofoam. ODS use was ubiqui­tous and growing, and the chemical industry did not have—and was not particularly willing to develop—alternatives. It became clear that action on a global scale would be required to address the ozone crisis, motivating industry to find alternatives to these harmful chemicals, persuading as many countries as possible to ban their use and enforce the bans, and collecting and replacing ODS in existing refrigerators and industrial stocks.

The obstacles seemed insurmountable. Industry spokespeople popularized “ozone denial”: “How do propellants from my deodorant, sprayed at sea level, get to altitudes of 50,000 feet?” “How do ODS released in Topeka make it to the poles?” Scientists produced compelling, but not definitive, answers to these questions, in the form of things like thunderstorms and global circulation. But as public concern grew, something extraordinary happened: even without scientific certainty, policy makers, environmen­talists, scientists, and industry leaders decided that the risks posed by ozone depletion were severe enough to warrant precaution.

In 1987, 46 countries signed the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production and consumption of ODS. It took effect two years later, and its implementa­tion was adaptive and practical. Because the science was emerging, signatories decided to base future policy decisions on periodic assessments by panels of worldwide experts in science, the environment, and economics. To get the other 151 countries in the world to join, signatories agreed to trade only with other signatories. It didn’t take long before all countries signed on.

For lower-income countries without the resources needed to replace ODS, compliance enforcement was non-punitive. Wayward countries were asked to work with a UN agency to prepare action plans to get back into compliance. In 1991, the Multilateral Fund was established, with wealthier countries providing around $4 billion to help lower-income countries meet their commit­ments. By 2010, all 142 developing country signatories had completely phased out ODS.

The Montreal Protocol was the first UN treaty in history to achieve universal ratification. It proves that, economic theory to the contrary, collective solutions to seemingly insurmountable challenges are possible. It also proves something especially critical for our current times: we can effectively and comprehensively tackle our most complex global environmental challenges. Concerns over ozone depletion evolved from a fringe environmental issue to a driver of unprece­dented national and international cooperation. As of this year, 98 percent of ODS contained in nearly 100 hazardous chemicals worldwide have been phased out. All 197 signatories are in compliance. Projections show that the ozone layer will return to 1980 levels between 2045 and 2065.

One unanticipated benefit of the Montreal Protocol is the climate protection that it has already achieved. By removing some of the most powerful greenhouse gases from the atmos­phere, the treaty’s contribution to climate change mitigation is larger than the first global reduction target of the climate-focused Kyoto Protocol. The latter was an extension of a global framework established in 1992 to prevent “dangerous” human interference with the climate system. That framework, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), proposed a simple goal: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. Like the Montreal Protocol, it has been ratified by 197 countries and relies on an expert research panel to guide and adjust policy responses. But climate change is far more challenging and contentious than protecting the ozone layer. So far, this framework has not been nearly as effective as the Montreal Protocol; it remains to be seen whether increasing public concern or shifting political winds will change that.

In 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, global Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were established for all member states. The declaration stated that all people have the right to freedom, equality, and a basic standard of living that includes freedom from hunger and violence. The MDGs established eight specific targets to be achieved by 2015 for poverty reduction in all countries, and met with some success: member states achieved three of the eight targets, and made significant progress on four of the other five. To help less developed countries achieve the goals, developed countries agreed to cancel around $50 billion of debt for heavily indebted poor countries.

In 2015, the UN developed a set of Sustaina­ble Development Goals (SDGs) to succeed the MDGs. The SDGs, the most complex global policy framework to date, include 17 global goals designed to “achieve a better and more sustain­able future for all.” A reporting framework binds the 193 ratifying member states to report on progress on 169 targets and 232 approved indicators. The SDGs reveal ever more ambitious efforts to work collectively to address global challenges.

Though these global policy frameworks have attained varying levels of success, they share important common elements: recognition of the problem; general agreement on causes and remedies; lofty but specific goals; an onus on developed countries to lead the way (sometimes with resources); monitoring and evaluation structures; and, in the best cases, binding agreements that define compliance and include mandatory reporting.

Thank goodness economists didn’t take the lead in the design of these frameworks. We would still be waiting for a theoretical frame­work for our collective efforts before we could begin implementation. Luckily, more pragmatic people realized that finding a structural solution that satisfies a set of predetermined principles is less important than taking action to overcome an existential challenge, addressing obstacles when they are encountered.

At the Lincoln Institute, we have adopted a similar approach to achieve our global mission. The guiding framework, our Pathways to Impact, illustrates our strategy for addressing six global social, environmental, and economic challenges using land policy. We have articulated medium-term objectives and will soon identify a set of benchmarks through which we can track our success. In the coming months, we will align our objectives and benchmarks with the appropriate SDGs. This will show both our commitment and our contribution to a better and more sustainable future for all. We also recognize that our work on the ground won’t always align with even the most well-crafted strategic goals, and we are working to remain flexible enough to meet obstacles as they arise. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that practice makes theory imperfect—and that’s a good thing.

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

Photograph: The Montreal Protocol is an effective global policy framework that has led197 nations to address threats to the ozone layer. Here, representatives gather for the opening session of the 28th meeting of the parties to the protocol in 2016.  Credit: Ministry of Environment, Rwanda/Flickr CC BY 2.0.

The national dialogue about rising waters tends to focus on coastal states like Florida and New York, with inland states largely absent from the conversation. But residents in Michigan, which has one of the longest coastlines in the continental U.S., are also contending with changes that are leading local officials to reexamine their coastal management policies. As climate change amplifies Lake Michigan’s natural fluctuations and brings increased storminess, communities are beginning to plan for an uncertain future.

Historically, for every decade or so residents have endured high waters, the next has brought retreating levels—and a wave of new lakeside development. This seesawing system, which can involve differences of up to six feet in water levels over the course of a few years, is masking a more gradual pattern of coastal erosion, according to Richard Norton, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan. The focus on extremes, he said, has sidelined action on coastal management.

In 2014, Norton and a team of researchers started working with the City of Grand Haven and the Charter Township of Grand Haven, neighboring communities on the southeast perimeter of the lake, to think beyond current conditions and discuss best coastal management practices for the long term. At the center of their approach is a method called scenario planning.

Scenario planning allows communities to plan for an unpredictable future by exploring multiple possibilities of what could happen. The framework—which the Consortium for Scenario Planning, an initiative of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, promotes through technical assistance, educational resources, and a network of practitioners—has shown potential in these jurisdictions, which sit in one of the most politically conservative counties in the state and whose residents have varying views about the risks of climate change.

The Role of Local Planning

Local governments have a unique opportunity to help shape the future of coastal areas. While the National Flood Insurance Program influences private development, local governments make the majority of “public decisions that shape private development in high-risk coastal zones,” Norton and his coauthors write in a new article published in the Journal of the American Planning Association (Norton et al 2019).

However, few jurisdictions are fully embracing the role—about 40 percent of master plans from 60 Michigan Great Lakes communities studied didn’t include any discussion of coastal area management issues, according to research by Norton in the mid-2000s. At the time, three quarters of the plans hadn’t adopted any meaningful coastal area management policies.

A multi-disciplinary and multi-university team of researchers led by Norton wanted to see if scenario planning, a notoriously technical process, could be simplified and adapted to the context of municipalities that lack the technology and capacity to conduct extensive analyses. Funding for the project came from the Michigan Coastal Zone Management Program of the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy and is supported through a grant under the National Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972. The project was also supported by the nonprofit planning firm Land Information Access Association, which provides technical assistance to local leaders through its Resilient Michigan program.

Coastal management concerns are often edged out by factors including other planning issues, the role of coastal properties in providing property tax revenues, emotional attachments to properties, and resistance to government regulation, Norton said.

A few years ago, the team reached out to several towns, including the City of Grand Haven and Grand Haven Charter Township, to discuss the possibility of embarking on a consultant-led scenario-planning process. At the time, both communities were in the middle of updating their master plans. Like most of the state’s 122 jurisdictions on Lake Michigan, the two communities have small populations with limited staff capacity.

An extended planning process ensued. From 2014 to 2016, local officials, planning commissions, city council and township board, and residents from the two places took part in over 20 working meetings and presentations.

Weighing Scenarios

Norton discussed the details of the project at the annual conference of the Consortium for Scenario Planning. Central to the process was the identification of three “climate futures.” Researchers created the scenarios, based on a 20- to 50-year planning horizon, by using easily available data, including historic water level data and FEMA maps, and basic GIS analysis. In the “lucky” future, water levels remain low and the community experiences one 50-year storm (as classified by FEMA). The “expected” future assumes average water levels and one 100-year storm. The “perfect storm” scenario is characterized by high water levels and a 500-year storm.

“The process helped people understand that we weren’t just looking at the worst-case scenario,” Jennifer Howland, community development manager for the City of Grand Haven, said.

As a next step, the cross-sector team drew on a variety of off-the-shelf data related to planning and development to outline three options for how the local governments could respond in each climate future. In one scenario, the governments maintained existing structures. In a second, residents were permitted to build out based on what current zoning allows. A third option incorporated a series of best management practices (BMPs), ranging from setbacks in nearshore zones to restrictions on building within wetlands. Combining the climate futures and management options, the researchers presented nine scenarios for local officials and residents to consider. They shared the fiscal, environmental, and land use impacts of each scenario.

In the City of Grand Haven’s “lucky” future, for example, if residents continue to build out under current zoning regulations, 207 structures will be damaged. If residents adopt BMPs, this number falls to 59.

A “lucky” future in which the Township builds out under the current zoning regulations results in $11.6 million in potential damages in areas that currently house properties bringing in $194,015 in net annual revenue. In the “perfect storm” scenario, building out under current zoning regulations results in $89 million in potential damages in areas that hold properties bringing in $358,000 in annual tax revenue.

Researchers also calculated the discrepancy between the land area designated as high-risk erosion areas by the state and the land area that they calculated would be inundated in the three climate futures. The land area identified by the state was much smaller than the land area identified as high-risk areas by researchers, highlighting the important role these local governments can play in filling the gap.

“When we first presented the materials, there were looks of shock and surprise, but once people processed the information and understood that these are reasonable futures we should be thinking about, there was less opposition,” Norton said. “If we had just gone straight to announcing setbacks, that would have been hugely controversial.”

Local officials also used other strategies to help the conversations along. Howland emphasized that science-based maps and aerial images of historic shorelines made the analysis more poignant for residents. Stacey Fedewa, community development director for Grand Haven Charter Township, said focusing on the weather-related impacts of climate change was an effective way to bring the global issue to the local level.

“If we flood from a big storm, we will be without power, the roads will be flooded, the businesses will be shut down,” Fedewa said. “Trucks wouldn’t be able to enter. If we are able to bounce back faster by being resilient, businesses shut down less, employees come back to work sooner than they would have otherwise.”

The sessions were also important in demonstrating that building close to the shore and using armoring measures such as seawalls and riprap can create long-term damage to natural beaches. This “stop nature” inclination, as Norton calls it, is exacerbating erosion of adjacent beaches and contributing to the annual foot of shoreline erosion in high risk erosion areas.

In their resulting master plans, the two jurisdictions incorporated recommendations from the process to varying degrees. The body of the City of Grand Haven Master Plan includes regulatory and infrastructure policies recommended by the researchers. The city also updated its sensitive areas overlay district and added a beach overlay district based on the aerial images presented by the researchers that show the high water mark changing over time. It created strict rules for armoring lakeward of the line established by the beach overlay district: no shoreline protection measure can be installed within this area, with the exception of specific types of seasonal temporary fencing (City of Grand Haven 2016). A new homeowners guidebook helps property owners understand what they can do and provides alternatives (LIAA 2018).

In the township, the planning director and commission included conceptual overviews and policy recommendations in the body of their plan, but chose to relegate the more detailed analyses to the plan’s appendix out of concern about resistance in the politically conservative community (Grand Haven Charter Township 2016). The township also considered new proposals to prohibit seawalls—which can interrupt natural sediment transport processes, creating larger waves and more erosion that wears down the walls over time—and to increase the setback for new construction to 200 feet from the high ordinary water mark, a significant change from the current 50-foot setback. The proposals did not pass—in part because officials were focused on taking steps to protect homes from record high water levels this fall—and regulatory decisions will remain with the current authority, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.

“Water levels will go back down again,” Norton said. “They always have. So how can we help town officials keep this on the agenda when there is not a crisis?”  

Scaling the Approach

Norton believes scenario planning is a promising tool for local decision making and thinks the fact that these governments incorporated coastal management policies in their master plans is an important step. “The simplicity of the methods is helpful,” he said. “They are focused on decisions: should they adopt setbacks or not?” Norton does acknowledge that even this simplified method typically requires some in-house expertise, such as the ability to manipulate ArcGIS.

He hopes some of the lessons learned, about both scenario planning and shoreline management, can be applied in other communities, ideally with the help of outside consultants who can provide the analysis needed at a reasonable cost or without the need for outside consultants at all. And word does seem to be spreading in the region: Howland has shared the city’s work with neighboring communities along the lake and presented at a dune symposium in East Lansing. Fedewa has encouraged Spring Lake township, north of Grand Haven, to utilize the resources of the Resilient Michigan program.

Norton, who now plans to expand his work to nearby Lake Huron, said scenario planning is an ideal tool to prepare for the uncertainty inherent in an age defined by rising waters, no matter what type. “What we are doing is very applicable in ocean coastal settings too.”

This article was published in the print edition of the July 2020 issue of Land Lines with the title “Great Lakes Communities Use Scenario Planning to Prepare for Rising Waters.”

To learn more about how scenario planning can help communities prepare for the future, read “Scenario Planning in a Pandemic: How to Embrace and Navigate Uncertainty.”

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

Lead Photograph: A house in Grand Haven Charter Township sits precariously close to the shore in December 2019, following several months of intense storms. Credit: Grand Haven Charter Township.

References

City of Grand Haven. 2016. City of Grand Haven 2016 Master Plan. Grand Haven, MI. https://grandhaven.org/residents/grand-havenmaster-plan/.

Grand Haven Charter Township. 2016. Grand Haven Charter Township 2016 Master Plan: Executive Summary. Grand Haven Township, MI. http://www.ght.org/wp-content/uploads/master-plan/ExecutiveSummary.pdf.

LIAA (Land Information Access Association). 2018. Living in Sensitive Areas: A Homeowners Guide for Residents of Grand Haven. Grand Haven, MI: City of Grand Haven. May. https://grandhaven.org/living-in-sensitive-areas-homeowners-guide/.

Norton, Richard K., Stephen Buckman, Guy A. Meadows, and Zachary Rable. 2019. “Using Simple, Decision-Centered, Scenario-Based Planning to Improve Local Coastal Management.” Journal of the American Planning Association. 85 (4): 405–423. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2019.1627237.

Like many coastal cities, Miami is facing a climate future that is already here. Even without a major storm, seawater has been washing over the streets and bubbling up from bathtub drains, a harbinger of what’s to come when a projected two feet of sea-level rise invades the low-lying, porous land of South Florida by mid-century.

The threat is not going unanswered. Based in no small part on the experience of dealing with the region’s notorious hurricanes, planners and political leaders in the metropolitan region have a good idea of what’s necessary to build resilience: a combination of hard barriers and green infrastructure, including the restoration of natural systems to absorb and distribute the inundation.

Two years ago, voters approved a $400 million Miami Forever Bond to help pay for a “stronger, more resilient future,” distributing the money across five categories: flood prevention, parks, roadways, public safety, and affordable housing. Special emphasis has gone to protecting lower-income neighborhoods, as well as the city’s legendary luxury beachfront properties. That juxtaposition—between Little Havana inland, for example, and the ritzy condominium towers of Brickell Bay Drive—has prompted consideration of how the funding could be augmented by those who can afford it most.

At Brickell Bay Drive, which is routinely flooded, a proposed park and seawall redesign incorporating green space and stormwater remediation—which is estimated to cost up to $35 million—will help keep water away from some of the city’s most iconic residential towers. The skyline will soon include two 1,000-foot luxury twin towers that will be the tallest on the East Coast south of New York City, made possible by changes in height restrictions. As such wildly successful private real estate development becomes the primary beneficiary of taxpayer- funded resilience infrastructure, officials are weighing how the private sector might play a greater role in financing the green scheme.

Jane Gilbert, chief resilience officer at Miami’s Office of Resilience and Sustainability, says when it comes to paying for resilience, all options are on the table—including land value capture, also known as land value return, a financing mechanism that recovers a portion of taxpayer-funded investments associated with increases in land values. A mounting body of evidence suggests a clear tie between green infrastructure and increased property values; and indeed, resilience infrastructure won’t just enhance property values, like parks or transit stations have been shown to do. It will allow private developments to continue to exist in the first place.

“Could we do value capture for properties just outside the [proposed] park? Maybe,” Gilbert said. “We’re going to look at every financing vehicle we can.”

Just as climate change is inspiring new paradigms in insurance, home finance, agriculture, transportation, and so many other sectors, it is forcing cities to revisit the fundamental relationship between the infrastructure that government is providing and the real estate that is being protected. The magnitude of the task—communities around the world are spending an estimated $25 billion per year on green infrastructure— necessitates a search for additional funding.

No Choice But to Invest

The relationship between government-provided infrastructure and the private sector has had a long history. Landowners, commerce, and industry have enjoyed most of the benefits of canals, railroads, bridges and tunnels, roadways, and many other facilities since the republic began investing in infrastructure in a meaningful way. Investments in infrastructure have also surged at key moments when cities have faced major problems like disease, overcrowding, and congestion.

By the end of the 19th century, cities were growing fast and trying to accommodate industry and a steady influx of immigrants. “It forced the need to invest,” said Alex Krieger, professor of urban design at Harvard University, principal at architecture and planning firm NBBJ, and author of City on a Hill: Urban Idealism in America from the Puritans to the Present (Belknap Press 2019).

“Boston had to build a subway system because it was facing utter congestion, horse manure in the streets, and a city doubling in size,” he said. The same was true for local projects most residents now consider part of the landscape, like the Charles River dam; the infilling of the city’s Back Bay, now a bustling residential and commercial district; and the creation of Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace, which was designed primarily as a sanitation and flood-control system, as well as a park. “The fear was that things would become completely dysfunctional and unmanageable,” Krieger said. “Things were closer to the boiling point and there was no choice but to invest.”

Cities are at a similar moment today, amid the growing recognition of the havoc that climate change is wreaking. Just as filling in mud flats made Back Bay possible, resilience infrastructure is the key to future urban development—and arguably plays an even greater enabling role, as the climate stakes get ever higher.

The current crisis does not want for solutions. Many of the systems and approaches for dealing with sea-level rise and storm surge are close at hand, according to Billy Fleming, director of The McHarg Center at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the editors of the new Lincoln Institute of Land Policy book Design with Nature Now (Steiner et al. 2019). Fleming helped curate the 25 green and blue infrastructure projects showcased in the book, which honors the ecological design tenets of pioneering landscape architect Ian McHarg.

The interventions featured in the book include a New York City landfill transformed into a park, a wetland in China constructed to filter pollution from a planned city of 50,000 people, and a proposal for built landforms in coastal Norfolk, Virginia, that would absorb stormwater and tides. The fundamental concept behind this approach to resilience, cultivated by the Dutch in particular over the centuries, is to blend dikes, berms, barriers, and floodgates—the “hard” or “gray” infrastructure designed to keep water out—with “soft” systems that replicate nature and let water in, to be absorbed and distributed.

The projects in the book and others like them reflect design innovation, experimentation, and some trial and error, and can serve as prototypes for different urban conditions, Fleming said. But in addition to municipal commitments, they need a higher-level organizational framework so successful green infrastructure systems can be scaled up and implemented—on a par with preparing for war, building the interstate highway system, or sending a man to the moon.

“It’s a national problem that needs a national-scale mobilization,” he said. Federal agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers, he said, will have to be set up to administer and fund the best solutions for climate adaptation.

There is always more innovating to do, just as NASA constantly improved the design of its rockets. But the basic engineering solutions, Fleming suggests, are ready to be implemented. To extend the metaphor, green infrastructure solutions are like the aircraft carriers and bombers needed for World War II: proven in terms of getting the job done, they simply needed to be built and deployed. The matter of funding was an assumption in the case of preparing for war; it just hasn’t been resolved in the case of battling climate change.

“If we decided tomorrow that this was as real a problem as cholera was in the 1870s, we would find the money,” said Harvard’s Krieger. “A consensus will only come out of a collectively understood crisis.”

An Approach with Multiple Benefits

The traditional means of financing infrastructure is centered around borrowing at the federal, state, and local levels. As federal funding generally has waned, some cities have explored new bonding mechanisms that clarify how investments in sustainability will pay dividends in the future. In Washington, DC, a green bonds program provides capital for riverways and stormwater and sewage manage­ment based on the measurable performance such efforts produce. The inaugural $350 million issuance, in 2014, was the nation’s first municipal century bond—a 100-year duration—and has become popular for its stability and greater yield.

The rationale for that approach is inherent in the Environmental Impact Bond, which, according to the financial firm Quantified Ventures, provides up-front capital from private investors for environmental projects, either to pilot a new approach whose performance is viewed as uncertain or to scale up a solution that has been tested in a pilot program.

While the most cautious investors view green infrastructure as new and unproven, in fact it is extraordinarily potent. “Green infrastructure delivers multiple benefits to society, including environmental, economic, and health outcomes,” said Eric Letsinger, founder of Quantified Ventures, which focuses on projects with positive social and environmental impact.

Green infrastructure practices can produce positive health outcomes, for example, that translate to reduced costs to local health systems and plans. Letsinger said involving other sectors in paying for resilience would address the “wrong pockets” problem—the economics scenario where one entity bears the cost of an investment that generates benefits for others—that has “historically limited green infrastruc­ture economic beneficiaries, like health part­ners, from paying their share of the implementation costs.”

Similarly, some of the biggest economic beneficiaries are private land and property owners. A 2017 report published by the Urban Land Institute quantified how water management mechanisms using green infrastructure can create value for real estate projects by improving operational efficiency as well as serving as an attractive amenity. One of the key takeaways was that natural resilience systems can enhance financial viability (Burgess 2017).

“We found many examples of thoughtful incorporation of green infrastructure that led to increased property values,” said Katharine Burgess, ULI’s Urban Resilience Program vice president. Green infrastructure, she said, can pay off in terms of operational cost savings. It can be integrated into placemaking and design, contrib­uting amenity and market value, and can provide an ancillary benefit of freeing up developable land to increase yield.

A new matrix for risk assessment and due diligence in real estate, indeed, has climate change at its center. Another ULI survey of investors and developers concluded that factors like climate risk and vulnerability to flooding had become increasingly important for those considering developing, purchasing, or investing in property (Burgess and Rapoport 2019). “It’s definitely a changing atmosphere,” Burgess said.

The bottom line for the development community seems to be what is widely intuitive­ly understood: higher, protected ground is more valuable ground.

“At the end of the day, this isn’t about building codes or insurance or technology—it’s about land use,” and the hazards, shocks, and stresses related to the serviceability of land, said Harvard University professor Jesse Keenan, who led research showing lower-elevation properties in the Miami area gained value at a much slower rate than those places that were high and dry (Keenan 2018).

Keenan coined the term “climate gentrification” to describe how inland neighborhoods in the city, like Little Haiti have become suddenly sought-after. In the absence of resilience infrastructure to protect against rising seas, land that is higher than Miami’s average of six-feet above sea-level is naturally seen as a place of refuge.

Public-Private Collaboration

Is there a way to quantify the benefits of green infrastructure to spread out the responsibility of paying for it? Miami is not the only city giving the concept serious consideration. In Boston, planners have commissioned a study on a section of East Boston waterfront that includes the “potential for value capture from new waterfront development to fund resiliency infrastructure based upon existing and potential future uses” (BPDA 2018).

The study area includes a long stretch of developable land that will be rezoned from industrial and maritime use, ushering in mixed-use development with greater height and density—but that is also directly in the path of anticipated future flooding. “It’s a discussion of equity . . . [potentially having] developers help pay for infrastructure that not only protects them, but also inland,” said Richard McGuinness, deputy director for climate and environmental planning at the Boston Planning and Development Agency, the city’s planning office.

A more modest version of public-private collaboration is unfolding at the Gillette head­quarters alongside Fort Point Channel in Boston, where the company is preparing to provide the right of way for a flood barrier to be funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The project costs will be augmented by funds from the city’s capital budget that have been dedicated to resilience. Ultimately the company’s gesture is an act of self-preservation—the razor factory is right at the water’s edge—but city officials are encouraged by the recognition that building resilience requires businesses and government to work in sync.

Other metropolitan regions in the United States are also exploring how green infrastructure creates value, and they’re creatively harnessing that power. In Pittsburgh, a portion of some 10,000 vacant and tax-delinquent parcels are set for green makeovers—urban farms, community gardens, pocket parks and the like—that could be financed through transfer of development rights. The approach ensures that the parcels aren’t taken off the tax rolls because the development rights will get used in other areas planned for infill redevelopment. At the same time, the parks and community gardens will enhance property values in once-blighted areas, said Roy Kraynyk, a vice president at Allegheny Land Trust (Kraynyk 2017).

Meanwhile, research in South America suggests that well-established land value capture mechanisms in Colombia—which have long been used to support more traditional infrastructure projects related to housing and transit—could feasibly be put into use for resilience. A team of researchers led by Stelios Grafakos, principal economist at the Global Green Growth Institute, assessed the impact of green infrastructure on land values along a river project in Santiago de Cali, Colombia, known as the CAU Cañaveralejo (Grafakos 2019).

The hedonic pricing model the team devel­oped, aided by GIS analysis, “quantitatively demonstrates a useful increase in land values attributable to capital investments in resilience and risk reduction. . . . Land value increases are attributable to investments in resilience measures such as the implementation of sustainable urban drainage systems, green corridors for flood management, restoration of natural floodplains, and multifunctional public space for recreation and stormwater manage­ment.”

All told, the project has resulted in an overall increase in values of $2.2 million across 48 blocks in nine neighborhoods, a boost of about 7 percent. The work, which is still underway, includes tree planting, green spaces, and bicycle and pedestrian pathways.

One of the paper’s coauthors takes the concept a step further, suggesting that green infrastructure’s most tangible benefit may be that it protects against loss. “Financing urban climate adaptation through land value capture, in some respects, requires an inversion of the fundamental premise of the concept: rather than creating value, investments in adaptation serve to preserve value that would otherwise be diminished or paid,” said James Kostaras, senior fellow at the Institute for International Urban Development.

In that framework, Kostaras suggests, “some increment of the land value that is being preserved and protected by climate adaptation interventions is mobilized as a source of funding to mitigate the impact of flooding and other climate-driven events.”

Properties in Miami that flood or sit near roads that flood have already lost $125 million in value since 2005, according to research compiled in the online Flood IQ education initiative. Future losses will easily double that amount in the next 15 years, and that projection doesn’t include any new properties that become at risk from now through 2033 (First Street).

Seen another way, new private development in any area that is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change creates a burden for the public, because of the people and property in need of protection. As such, private-sector contribu­tions to green infrastructure are more akin to developer extractions or impact fees, which have been charged to builders of conventional suburban development for decades to help pay for the extension of utilities to previously undeveloped areas.

News Ways to Pay for Innovation

In the reconsideration of the relationship between public investments and private development, resilience infrastructure may well become the most critical of city services, alongside police or fire protection, or water, sewer, and power facilities. Keeping water at bay has acquired an outsized importance. “There’s a centrality to it,” said Enrique Silva, director of International and Institute-Wide Initiatives at the Lincoln Institute.

Measuring the benefits of that infrastruc­ture will be complex, Silva said. In most land value capture mechanisms, the impact of public investments is measured in a more linear fashion; for example, the land value “uplift” within a half-mile radius of a new transit station. With green infrastructure, the land value impact is spread across a larger ecosys­tem, potentially producing significant variation in terms of assigning financial obligations. Do the properties closest to the intervention benefit most, or do those a mile down the rivershed enjoy the protections just as much? Or should all land and property within a special “resilience district” be treated the same?

“One could argue it’s less complex with a new metro line,” Silva said. Governments, he said, will “have to make that call—defining the catchment area.”

For others, it’s an open question that natural systems are such a singular driver of increased property values. Miami developer David Martin, principal at the Terra Group, said he would like to see a “fixed funding source for infrastructure that’s not relying on macroeconomic forces that go up and down.” In his view, resilience infra­structure is one of several factors determining land value—others being things like low interest rates or the quality of the local school system.

Such calibrations are an indication of the hard work ahead, but the impetus to find new ways of financing climate action will remain strong. “The infrastructure funding challenges that local governments face are just too great to solve through business-as-usual solutions,” said Letsinger, from Quantified Ventures. “They’ll need to innovate their way up this mountain, and if we’re going to expect them to innovate, then we’ve got to give them new ways to pay for innovation.”

Letsinger and others emphasize both the urgency of building climate resilience and the real-time availability of solutions. “We don’t need to wait,” he said. “Cities now have the tools, the means, and the access to capital today to advance the resilience projects that they need.”

Calculating the Value of Green Infrastructure

Fundamentally a stormwater management tool, green infrastructure also “creates amenities that can raise property values and provide health benefits,” said Robin Hacke, executive director of the Center for Community Investment (CCI) at the Lincoln Institute. CCI works with cities including Miami, Milwaukee, and Seattle to identify and secure funding for resilience projects including green infrastructure and afforda­ble housing. Hacke said land value capture is a “promising approach” that has been part of those conversations. Such discus­sions will likely gain momentum, as a growing body of research indicates that green infrastructure increases value:

• “In Boston, the 1330 Boylston complex . . . saw rent increases of $300 to $500 per month for units overlooking a $112,500 green roof, soon netting about $120,000 a year” (Burgess 2017).
• “High quality green environments can contribute to . . . rental uplifts of up to 20 percent” (UKGBC 2015).
• “. . . the assessed property values of the Menomonee Valley industrial proper­ties were 5.8 percent higher than they otherwise would have been without green infrastructure” (Madison 2013).
• “Hedonic studies show that a reduced risk of flooding can result in a 2 percent to 8 percent increase in property values” (Clements 2013).

With such data emerging, cities seeking buy-in from developers may find that they’re standing on firmer ground. But Hacke offered a word of caution: as values rise, so does the risk of displacement. Cities must prioritize affordability, she said, and invest in projects that “protect the commu­nity’s ability to remain in place.”

References

Bennett, Genevieve and Franziska Ruef. 2016. Alliances for Green Infrastructure: State of Watershed Investment 2016. Washington, DC: Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace (December). https://www.forest-trends.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2016SOWIReport121416.pdf.

BPDA (Boston Planning and Development Agency). 2018. “Implementing District-Scale Solutions for East Boston: Climate Resiliency Financing and Funding Models.” http://www.bostonplans.org/work-with-us/procurement/rfp-listing-page?id=162.

Burgess, Katharine and Elizabeth Rapoport. 2019. Climate Risk and Real Estate Decision-Making. Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute. https://europe.uli.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/127/2019/02/ULI_Heitlman_Climate_Risk_Report_February_2019.pdf.

Burgess, Katharine. 2017. Harvesting the Value of Water: Stormwater, Green Infrastructure, and Real Estate. Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute. https://uli.org/wp-content/uploads/ULI-Documents/HarvestingtheValueofWater.pdf.

City of Miami. 2019. “Parks and Open Spaces.” https://www.miamigov.com/Government/ClimateReadyMiami/Parks-and-Open-Spaces.

Clements, Janet, and Alexis St. Juliana. 2013. The Green Edge: How Commercial Property Investment in Green Infrastructure Supports Value. New York, NY: Natural Resources Defense Council. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/commercial-value-green-infrastructure-report.pdf.

First Street Foundation. “Flood IQ.” https://floodiq.com.

Germán, Lourdes, and Allison Ehrich Bernstein. 2018. “Land Value Capture: Tools to Finance Our Urban Future.” Policy Brief. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Groves, David G., Debra Knopman, Neil Berg, Craig A. Bond, James Syme, and Robert J. Lempert. 2018. Adapting Land Use and Water Management Plans to a Changing Climate in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, Florida. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1932.html.

Grafakos, Stelios, Alexandra Tsatsou, Luca D’Acci, James Kostaras, Adriana Lopez, Nohemi Ramirez and Barbara Summers. 2019. “Exploring the Use of Land Value Capture Instruments for Green Resilient Infrastructure Benefits: A Framework Applied in Cali, Colombia.” Working paper. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Keenan, Jesse M., Thomas Hill, and Anurag Gumber. 2018. “Climate Gentrification: From Theory to Empiricism in Miami-Dade County, Florida.” Environmental Research Letters 13 (5). https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aabb32.

Kraynyk, Roy. 2017. “Using Transfer Development Rights to Facilitate and Sustain Community Green Space and Gardens.” White paper. Pittsburgh, PA: Allegheny Land Trust (September). https://alleghenylandtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/20170919_TDRWhitepaperv2.0.pdf.

Krieger, Alex. 2019. City on a Hill: Urban Idealism in America from the Puritans to the Present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Levy, David, and Rebecca Herst. 2018. Financing Climate Resilience: Mobilizing Resources and Incentives to Protect Boston from Climate Risks. Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Sustainable Solutions Lab (April). https://www.umb.edu/editor_uploads/images/centers_institutes/sustainable_solutions_lab/Financing_Climate_Resilience_April_2018.pdf.

Madison, Catherine. 2013. Impact of Green Infrastructure on Property Values within the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District Planning Area. Milwaukee, WI: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Center for Economic Development (May). https://dc.uwm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=ced_pubs.

Martin, David. 2018. “A Road Map to Regional Resiliency: Solving Climate Change with Capitalism.” Miami Herald, December 16. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article223094850.html.

Morrison, Jim. 2019. “Who Will Pay for the Huge Costs of Holding Back Rising Seas?” Yale Environment 360, August 5. https://e360.yale.edu/features/who-will-pay-for-the-huge-costs-of-holding-back-rising-seas.

Steiner, Frederick, Billy Fleming, Karen M’Closkey, and Richard Weller. 2019. Design with Nature Now. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

UKGBC (UK Green Building Council). 2015. Demystifying Green Infrastructure. London: UK Green Building Council (February). https://www.ukgbc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Demystifying-Green-Infrastructure-report-FINAL.pdf.

ULI (Urban Land Institute Advisory Services Panel). 2019. Waterfront Resilience, Miami, Florida: A ULI Advisory Services Panel Report. Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute (June). https://americas.uli.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/ULI-Documents/ULI-ASP_Report_Miami_FINAL.pdf.

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and a contributing editor to Land Lines.

Photographs (in order of appearance):

The Miami waterfront is a highly developed area vulnerable to flooding and sea-level rise. Credit: Gunther Hagleitner via Flickr CC BY 2.0.

A team of researchers explored the connections between green infrastructure and land value in Cali, Colombia, concluding that “land value increases are attributable to investments in resilience measures.” Credit: “Exploring the Use of Land Value Capture Instruments for Green Resilient Infrastructure Benefits: A Framework Applied in Cali, Colombia.” Stelios Grafakos et al. 2019.

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Ian McHarg’s Design with Nature, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy collaborated with the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design to publish Design with Nature Now, showcasing some of the most advanced ecological design projects in the world today. We asked some of the book’s contributors to weigh in on Ian McHarg’s lasting influence and what will make it possible to design with nature at scale today.

Above: Some of the book’s authors and editors at the Cambridge book launch in October 2019. Front row: Frederick Steiner, Laurel McSherry, Anne Whiston Spirn. Second row: Andrew Revkin, Erle Ellis. Third row: Alan Berger, Emily McKeigue, Jonah Susskind. Fourth row: Maureen Clarke, William Whitaker. 

“I think we need to get serious about regenerative design. Regeneration involves recovery and rebuilding, yes, but also restoration, renewal, and revitalization. Regeneration improves ecosystems by contributing to ecosystem services rather than depleting them. Several of the Design With Nature Now projects illustrate this. For instance, Freshkills Park is more about regeneration than resiliency as it is transforming a huge landfill into a new, healthy landscape.”

— Frederick Steiner, Dean and Paley Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design; Volume Editor and Author of “Green the Earth, Restore the Earth, Heal the Earth,” Design with Nature Now

Above: After operating as a garbage dump for more than 50 years, Staten Island’s FreshKills Landfill was transformed into a public park starting in the early 2010s. The grasslands park, which will stretch over 2,000 acres once it is completed in 2036, will offer spaces for athletics, education, and recreation.

“We need an expansion of McHarg’s methods . . . creatively reimagined to accommodate more complexity and diversity and to design—as much as that is possible—a planetary future with both nature, and human nature, in mind.”

— Andrew Revkin, Director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute Initiative on Communication and Sustainability; Author of “Design as a Quest, Not a Task,” Design with Nature Now

Above: McHarg’s landscape suitability analysis maps, which are widely considered the predicate for Geographic Information Systems (GIS), showed where to locate development and where to leave nature undisturbed.

“I knew nothing about landscape architecture until I read Ian McHarg’s description of the field in the brochure of the Graduate School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania in 1969. McHarg’s text was a call to action. It spoke directly to me, offering the opportunity to join a profession that would give scope to all my disparate interests: landscape, environment, history, art, photography, social action. I decided to switch from Penn’s doctoral program in art history to landscape architecture.”

— Anne Whiston Spirn, Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning; Author of “A Landscape of Ideas and Action: Place, Process, Form, and Language,” Design with Nature Now

Above: Since 1987, Spirn has directed the West Philadelphia Landscape Project, which aims to improve regional water quality and rebuild healthy neighborhoods through environmental and design education. Over the years, staff and residents have transformed vacant urban lots, built community gardens, proposed green infrastructure elements, and developed school curricula about the region’s history. The above photo shows Aspen Farms in June 2018.

“For climate change adaptation, design with nature is already increasingly in demand, in the form of ‘nature-based solutions’ and green infrastructure. To scale these up, one key element is the integration of these solutions into infrastructure standards, such as those guiding urban development and road construction. On the other hand, I fear that efforts to mitigate climate change through green infrastructure, including green roofs and tree planting to store emissions of carbon from fossil fuels, are no better than a fig leaf hiding the much harder ultimate solution to climate change: the need to transition from carbon emitting to clean energy systems.”

— Erle Ellis, Professor of Geography and Environmental Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Author of “Nature as Designer: Emancipating Nonhuman Ecologies in an Increasingly Human World,” Design with Nature Now

Above: Ellis was a keynote speaker at the Design with Nature Now conference hosted by the Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology in June 2019.

“McHarg promoted the understanding of natural systems to avoid damaging the resources humans are dependent upon. In McHarg’s time, he had to understand what was in place and what would be there in the foreseeable future if we learned how to manage it. But now, what is there is moving and changing, so it is even more imperative to try to understand natural systems and their behavior.”

— Ignacio Bunster-Ossa, Vice President at AECOM; Author of “McHarg: The Long View, Shortened,” Design with Nature Now

Above: Bunster-Ossa led the development of the Bethlehem SteelStacks Arts + Cultural Campus in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The project, which transformed the former Bethlehem Steel Plant into an arts, culture, and community space, was awarded the Urban Land Institute’s Global Award of Excellence and Rudy Bruner Award.

“Our challenge, if we are to build something greater out of the detritus that escaped McHarg’s grasp, is to intelligently interpret the systemic thinking brought forth by him to generations of landscape architects and regional planners during the later twentieth century. His model must be implemented both to protect pre-development land, and post-development waste.”

— Alan Berger, Leventhal Professor of Advanced Urbanism and Co-Director of the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism at MIT; Coauthor of “The Planetary Optic and Finding the Real Ground,” Design with Nature Now

Above: As part of the work at MIT’s P-REX lab, Berger, Berger mapped Philadelphia’s “urban void geography.” The project identified hundreds of small vacant lots to determine how they might be combined into bigger lots in a landscape reuse program. The above map shows vacant parcels, retail areas, toxic release sites, and parks.

“I think the thing that makes McHarg’s ideas still so important is that they were not just McHarg’s ideas. The power of his work came, in many ways, from his ability to consistently convene a robust transdisciplinary conversation. His ideas were generated through the deconstruction of silos within and outside of academia.”

— Jonah Susskind, lecturer in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and researcher at the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism; Coauthor of “The Planetary Optic and Finding the Real Ground,” Design with Nature Now 

Above: McHarg on the set of The Mike Douglas Show in 1969 discussing his book.

“In less than 20 years, McHarg … established the place of design in the awakening environmental consciousness. The pessimism (or was it realism?) in his remarks on the Earth Day stage was a call to action, an expression of outrage at the current state of affairs. People were listening and taking action; the environment had become a great unifying force.”

— William Whitaker, Curator and Collections Manager for the Architectural Archives at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design; Author of “Why Do I Have to Be the Man to Bring You the Bad News,” Design with Nature Now

Above: McHarg in 1970 at Independence Mall during the first Earth Week, which was organized by University of Pennsylvania students and faculty.

Photographs (in order of appearance):

Credit: Maggie Janik.

Credit: Alex S. MacLean, Landslides Aerial Photography. 

Credit: University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Arts  Collection, The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania.

Credit: Anne Whiston Spirn.

Credit: University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design.

Credit: Ignacio Bunster-Ossa.

Credit: Alan Berger.

Credit: Ian and Carol McHarg Collection, The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania.

Credit: Courtesy University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design.