Kent Portney's "Our Green Cities" Blog

Congratulations to Elinor Ostrom!

I just wanted to post my heartiest congratulations to Elinor Ostrom from Indiana University upon winning the Nobel Prize in Economics.  As you may know, Lin is not an economist, she is a political scientist.  So that makes the award all the more pleasing to those of us in political science but who work at the intersection with economics.

Our Tisch College at Tufts had Lin to campus last spring to receive the 2009 Tisch Civic Engagement Research Prize.  Not quite the Nobel Prize, this award nonetheless is designed to recognize the outstanding research contributions to understanding civic engagement.  Of course, Ostrom's work on common pool resource issues, especially water-related issues, is just outstanding. Over the last few years, in working with colleagues around the University, including engineers and public health scholars, on issues of water policies, I have come to see how extremely important Lin's work has become outside of the confines of political science.

My personal interest in Lin's work comes from trying to understand the relationship between civic engagement and participation and cities' pursuit of sustainability policies.  Some of my recent research (available soon on the Our Green Cities web site) shows that there is a tendency for cities with residents who are more civically and politically engaged are more likely to adopt and implement sustainability policies. Ostrom's work provides the theoretical and empirical foundation for this exploration.

New Book on Sustainable Development in Cities coming out

My friend and colleague Joan Fitzgerald, from Northeastern University, has a new book coming out with Oxford University Press.  The book is called "Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development," ( isn't Emerald Cities a great title?) and represents an excellent effort to develop case studies of what cities are doing to link economic development to sustainability.  She has lots of examples, and really provides the foundation for building a national green jobs strategy.  I recommend that you take a look at this book when it becomes available. Go to the Oxford University web site to see the pre-release description.

Dow Sustainability Student Award Event

I'm very happy to be representing Tufts University at the Dow Sustainability Student Challenge Recognition ceremony on October 19, 2009, at the University of Michigan.

This is an award program created by Dow to recognize the graduate student research that is relevant to sustainability.  Three graduate students at Tufts received awards, so that makes it all the more interesting for me to attend. To learn more about this Dow program or other similar programs, go to this part of the Dow web site.

An Overview of Toronto's Sustainability Efforts

I was in Toronto at the end of August and beginning of September, and I marvel at the progress that city has made toward trying to become more sustainable.  It is a big vibrant city that seemingly continues to grow, but it's growth seem more managed and "smart" than in most other North American cities.  I did a review of Toronto's sustainable economic development policies for the OECD, and I thought I should post it here. I post a revised version of this report here.  Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions for improvement.  Download Toronto Sustainable Development.june2008

Workshop on Climate Change and Governance in Cities

I was fortunate to have been invited to participate in a Workshop on Climate Change and Governance in Cities held the week before Labor Day (2009) at Ryerson University in Toronto.  Chris Gore from Ryerson organized the workshop, which included Chris, Pamela Robinson from the Planning Dept at Ryerson, Dan Mazmanian from USC, Stacy Van Deveer from the University of New Hampshire, Matt Hoffman from the University of Toronto, Megan Jamieson, Director of ICLEI's Canada Office, and others.  It was a terrific opportunity to hear from a stellar group of researchers and practitioners. If you'd like to learn more about this workshop, contact Chris Gore at Ryerson University.

I was asked to do a presentation at the start of the workshop, and presented information about what US cities are doing in their local public policies to try to promote climate protection.  Of course, many cities have signed on to either th ICLEI or U.S. Conference of Mayors programs, or both. But I am interested in the specific actions or policies that cities adopt and implement.  Check other posts here to see some of these policies in action in specific cities.

East River Turbines in NYC

You may have seen reports of the experiment under way in NYC's East River to installed under water turbines to generate electricity.  Zach Cuttler sent along a link to the story about the effort.  Check out the East River Turbine story.

This effort involves installing a large number, perhaps as many as 300, specially designed and built turbines to take advantage of the rapid flow of the East River and a form of hydro-electric generation.  The first attempts didn't turn out too well because the East River current ended up being so powerful that it destoyed the direct turbines installed.  As of late September, a newer, stronger model has been in place and apparently generating lots of electricity.  As of this is part of NYC's effort to try to become more sustainable.  Check the most recent story.

Survey of Local Officials Under Way

My colleague Jeff Berry and I have been working with some students (Katie Bond and Kelli Farrington) over the last few months on a very ambitious project to conduct a survey of local public officials to get their views of sustainability, green jobs, and many related issues.  The focus of this project is on 50 of the largest 54 cities in the US.

We have already surveyed all of the city councilors in these cities -- there are currently about 541 such councilors -- sometimes also called aldermen or commissioners -- and we have heard from 170 of them so far.  Four cities have proven to be much less responsive to our survey than the others -- none of the councilors in Sacramento and Santa Ana, California, Miami, FL, and Columbus, OH.  If you know any councilors in those cities, perhaps you could convince them to fill out the questionnaire either on paper or online.

The project also includes surveys of all major city administrators and managers -- mostly department heads -- as well as the leaders of local nonprofit groups working on issues of economic development and sustainability.  In total, we have distributed around 3000 questionnaires.

We have just completed some analysis of the city councilors' responses that we have received so far, and have written a paper that will be presented at the American Political Science Association conference in Toronto over Labor Day weekend. Check back in a few weeks and I'll post this paper here on th"Our Green Cities" blog and web site.

Corky Overmyer Leaves Sustainability Post in Grand Rapids

I got a nice note a few weeks ago from Corky Overmyer, who recently left his position as director of sustainability in Grand Rapids.  Corky has been a real innovator for sustainability in the city.  I know that his departure seems to have been at least in part a product of the tough economic times.  Grand Rapids had a unique mechanism for funding this position -- it was actually funded by a water company with which the city had a contract.  When the city elected not to renew the contract with that company, the funding for the position basically went away.  I haven't heard much of anything about what this might imply for the serious sustainability efforts that have been under way in Grand Rapids, so if you have some ideas, insights, or knowledge about this, please let us know here.

New Sustainability Director for Philadelphia

Mayor Michael Nutter recently appointed a new Director of Sustainability for Philadelphia, replacing the first director, Mark Alan Hughes, who recently left that position to take a position at the University of Pennsylvania. 

The new Director is Katherine Gajewski who had been an official in the Nutter administration.  She served as Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff in the Mayor’s Office since January 2008 where she managed a number of major citywide projects including the Philly Spring Cleanup which, in its first year, was recognized as the largest citywide clean-up in U.S. history.  She worked closely with Mayor Nutter to appoint many Boards and Commissions, identifying candidates, making recommendations to the Mayor, and setting the direction and focus for these entities. Katherine has also led a number of the Nutter Administration’s community outreach efforts, playing a major role in the public engagement during this year’s budget process.  She worked with community organizations across the city to organize eight town hall meetings last year that were attended by thousands of people.

There is an interesting July 30, 2009, interview with Hughes as he departed his city office. A print version of the interview is available online on Jargon etc.  Hughes, of course, has been the principle architect of the Greenworks Philadelphia sustainability plan, which is very ambitious and creative.  I would be very interested to hear your reactions to the appointment of Gajewski, or to the interview with Hughes.  Everything I see going on in Philly looks very impressive to me, and I'd like to see if there are others who share this view.

Update on Sustainable Greensboro

I posted a note a few weeks ago about the recent sustainability efforts in Greensboro NC.  The organization Sustainable Greensboro has joined forces with the local Chamber of Commerce to engage the business community in starting the process of designing a sustainability plan, a draft of which was presented at a public meeting on July 22.  Apparently about 100 people attended this meeting, which is pretty impressive by most standards.  To read more, see the story in the Greensboro News-Record.