The greenest little city in the world

Leslie Carlson

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is on a mission. He’s often stated his plans to make Chicago “America’s greenest city.” Along the way, he hopes to revitalize a polluted, industrial giant of a city into a thriving metropolis that provides high-paying jobs and a high quality of life for all citizens.

Oddly enough, Mayor Daley started with tree planting. Upon becoming mayor in 1989, and upset because the many trees he remembered from his childhood had been cut down or devastated by disease, he decided to plant trees. Not just a few trees, but 400,000 of them. Roundly criticized for his foolishness (he was called the “Martha Stewart of Mayors”), he persisted. But something strange happened, as Barry Burton, a horticulturalist and member of Chicago’s Planning Department relates:

Suddenly life springs up, and there are cafés and people where there were none before. Then it becomes, let’s not just make it attractive but a healthier place. Trees reduce the heat-island effect and clean the air. Landscaping is labor intensive, so we provide a lot of jobs. That has turned into a model of economic development based on green technologies, attracting renewable-energy companies, and creating a sustainable landscaping industry.

Today, Mayor Daley has plans to make all new public buildings green (there are 1,300 such buildings in the pipeline), he’s created support for the construction of more eco-roofs (including one on top of Chicago’s City Hall) and he’s put a $100 million into a green building fund. Most importantly, however, he’s recognized the link between sustainability and economic development, creating the Chicago Center for Green Technology.

Of course, there’s another city—tucked into the rainy Northwest corner of the country—that also has a reputation for being green. This city, while much smaller than Chicago, boasts the most green buildings in the country, hundreds of businesses who run their operations in a sustainable manner and an aware, committed citizenry who recycle more and buy more hybrid cars per capita than any other municipality in the country.

This is a city that could show the country how you can combine an environmental ethos with a thriving, successful economy—what’s often called sustainable development. Yet for some unknown reason, this city isn’t doing it. It’s not going head-to-head with Chicago to become America’s greenest city.

This city, of course, is Portland.

Don’t get me wrong. There are a number of people who are working to make Portland (and Oregon) more sustainable. These include Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who’s turned the Portland Office of Sustainable Development into one of the most successful agencies of its kind. There’s also Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, who runs the Oregon Sustainability Board.

Most importantly, there are the local private companies who are making money with a business model infused with sustainability; companies like Intel, Nike, Rejuvenation House Parts, Neil Kelly, Collins Pine and Hot Lips Pizza.

We just aren’t acting in any cohesive and strategic way to transform ourselves into a city that combines a sustainable ethos with economic success. Why? First, and probably foremost, it’s a controversial idea. The political leaders who move forward like Mayor Daley have to be ready to take the heat of a hot, hot kitchen.

Second, it requires us to approach economic development in a new way. But what’s the alternative? That we continue to compete for jobs with the likes of Mississippi, Mexico and Singapore? Give more and more tax breaks to companies who, when faced with a market downturn, pull up stakes for somewhere else? I’d argue that our success as city and a state should be more closely modeled on the likes of places like Chicago and the Netherlands—the places who I think will be selling the green technologies and products of the future to the rest of us.

So what’s needed? Well, we first need to re-shape the City’s economic development model, run primarily by the Portland Development Commission, into one that focuses on sustainable companies with a strong business model and the ability to provide high quality jobs. The strategic plan for the City--currently being developed by the Mayor--should have explicit sustainability goals in it, goals that reflect a focus on integrating the economy, the environment and social equity among citizens.

Our Mayor and City Council members are at a disadvantage, of course, since in Portland's Commission form of government you need three votes to make things happen. Chicago has a “strong mayor” system, which allows Mayor Daley to make decisions on his own that our Commissioners can't.

But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen, or that it isn't imperative that we change with the times. "The end of the human race is that it will eventually die of civilization," Ralph Waldo Emerson once said. Let's hope he isn't right.

By Leslie Carlson Jan. 31, 2005