The name of the project says it all: Sustainable Shelby Final Report July 2008 & Sustainable Shelby Citizen Survey Presentation
On March 7, 2008, more than 130 people met at Memphis Botanic Garden at the request of Mayor A C Wharton to accept his challenge to consider the choices in our community’s future and to develop its first sustainability agenda. It was an ambitious – if not audacious – goal, not only because of the complexity of the issues, but because the schedule to achieve it was only four months. And yet, that’s exactly what seven committees of the Sustainable Shelby did.
The
Sustainable Shelby agenda is a breakthrough in process as well as outcome. The final agenda was set in a unique process that gave equal weight to the opinions of the committees and the public. Using wireless keypad technology at the FedEx Institute of Technology at University of Memphis, the committees rated each recommendation, but in addition, the public’s votes were cast using opinions gathered in a scientific poll.
The context for the work of
Sustainable Shelby came from two major sources – the State of Oregon’s definition of sustainability and the vision of sustainable urbanism advanced by Doug Farr, architect and urban designer. According to Oregon, “Sustainability means using, developing, and protecting resources at a rate and in a manner that enables people to meet their current needs and also provides that future generations can meet their own needs. Sustainability requires simultaneously meeting environmental, economic, and community needs.”
In addition, Mr. Farr’s seminal book,
Sustainable Urbanism, framed up the issues for the committees and suggested potential strategies for the future. In the July 8, 2008, presentation of this agenda to the community, Mr. Farr urged the Shelby County region to become leaders in the new movement to create walkable neighborhoods, transit-served urbanism, high-performance buildings, and high performance infrastructure. He emphasized that the consequences of past choices are just now becoming understood through lower life expectancy rates, higher obesity rates, environmental harm, and infrastructure costs bequeathed to our children and grandchildren.
This is especially true in Shelby County according to Mayor Wharton, who called the present course unsustainable on the basis of public finances, environment and land use, disposable neighborhoods, deteriorating heath, and declining quality of life.
To combat these disturbing trends, he organized
Sustainable Shelby around seven committees – transportation and traffic, public buildings and public purchasing, neighborhood rebirth, public incentives, building codes, and land use and development.
To emphasize the economic benefits that can result from new thinking on these issues, Portland economist Joe Cortright pointed out at the
Sustainable Shelby kick-off that if residents of the Memphis region only reduced their average daily mileage by 1.6 miles, it would generate $260 million in annual savings that could stimulate the local economy.
The
Sustainable Shelby agenda is a first for our community, but it means nothing if it is not implemented, and to that end, Mayor Wharton pledged that plans for implementation will be developed within 90 days. As creator of Sustainable Shelby, he said: “I created this process to develop an agenda that is both philosophical and practical. I asked for it to be translated into a vision and values. That has been done, and now, we need to engage every person in our community to become part of this new movement. In the end, Sustainable Shelby must not be government’s agenda, but the agenda of the people.”
This then is our community’s call to action.