In October 2009 the 6th in the Gaining Ground Summit series attracted 600 people to Vancouver to learn, talk about, and build connections around the theme of "Resilient Cities." Communities in Transition Information Resource editor hanspetermeyer talked to Tim Pringle of the Real Estate Foundation of BC shortly after the conference about his impressions of GGRC09. What follows is an edited transcription of that conversation. An audio version is available here on the CITinfoResource blog. Tim is Director of Special Programs with the Foundation, and has participated in a number of the Gaining Ground events. The Real Estate Foundation has been one of the partners in the series for several years.
hanspetermeyer: Tim, you were there for pretty much the full three days of Resilient Cities, plus some shoulder events is that right?
Tim Pringle: Yes, I attended all of the plenary sessions which were the morning part of the program and then a couple of the afternoon workshops.
hpm: What were your overall impressions of this event?
TP: This is the 6th Gaining Ground summit. Three in Victoria since 2006, and two in Calgary. Now Resilient Cities this year in Vancouver is the sixth one. I think that it continues to build and really support a community of interest around the theme of settlement change that is more sustainable or holistic. That was certainly one of the themes that came out of the conference: to present a holistic perspective where a number of view points and roles of players or actors have to be integrated.
hpm: Give me an example. What kind of range did you see?
TP: Our cities are made up of a lot of players that do things that shape what happens on the ground. On one side you have the development interest, land owners developers, and the people who finance that process. You also have the local approving authorities: regional governments plus provincial authorities that approve what form development may take. And then you have the stewardship and conservation sector, the community and people at large who are concerned about how their places change. The best outcomes are the ones that get all of those actors involved in the process, at stages so there is a conversation about change, so values can be expressed and outcomes are better aligned with what the community feels is appropriate for its place.
hpm: Who was representing the development perspective at the Gaining Ground Resilient Cities?
TP: John Knott was there for example. He is from a family that has more than 100 years of involvement in the building trades and the craft of building. He is currently working on a large project called Noisset in North Charleston, South Carolina. He made a few comments which I thought were very telling. He talked about his company being in the "human habitat business."
hpm: "Human habitat business." Sounds like a bit of marketing talk there.
TP: Not in this case. He also feels that they are in the "community development business" so he definitely doesn't think of their work as only real estate focused. He makes the point by noting that in the case of Noisset what he is trying to create is social durability. They have a place in Noisset which is quite a large area of North Charleston, originally settled in the late 1700's. It has gone through several remakes and has been derelict for a number of years. The history is notable because they have a Frederick Law Olmstead plan for parks.
hpm: He's one of the big names in 19th century park planning?
TP: Yes. Also, another one of the great urban designers helped lay out the plan for this part of Noisette. I can't remember his name right now. The point is that Knott's company had significant heritage to work with. They took that into account and started with that as the key form maker for the way that they would re-develop or re-new. They did a master plan and gave that to the City of North Charleston. That was their contribution, in part, to the public or to the commons. Under that master plan, once it was approved and amended, then various developers have taken roles in re-developing and re-furbishing certain areas. John Knott's company itself, the way they have expressed their commitment to the social or community building, is that they are not only doing the development; they have established a conservancy, a foundation, and a sustainability institute. Each has a role: with non-profits, with people, with the physical heritage and the environmental heritage of the place. All of the development that takes place in this project in North Charleston provides some revenue that goes into these non-profits. This is evidence of a respect for the commons and an active role for the commons in helping re-make the place.
hpm: So, John Knott represents a pretty progressive type of development contractor. Were there any developers from BC presenting?
TP: There was another one in the plenary session, and that was regarding the Elkington Forest near Shaunigan Lake on Vancouver Island. Doug Makaroff made that presentation. It's an example of what he called "conservation development." The idea is that the natural features of the place and the ecological value shape the extent and kind of development that might take place. The housing development is there for the purpose of generating enough revenue to maintain these values over time, to conserve, steward the value of the Elkington Forest. I believe the total area is about 1100 acres. A small portion of this is developed and those revenues are used to establish a trust that will support the stewardship and conservation of the remaining area.
hpm: We've got some progressive development content then at GGRC09. What about local government? What kind of presentations moved you from local government or from that kind of perspective?
TP: The only one from local government was the opening presentation by Gregor Robertson, Mayor of Vancouver and he was presenting the city's action plan for a green economy. He named ten goals – I won't go into them all – but he believes that Vancouver can be a leading green city and would like to see it become recognized as one of the top cities in the world, not only for the physical aspects of green development and ecology, but also for creating jobs in green industries, education that flows from what Vancouver is and what it does, and green building and design technology that's transferable. He is looking at those kinds of things.
hpm: As I understand it, Mayor Robertson's announcement was part of the confluence of interesting and positive things that were part of the Resilient Cities conference. How did people respond to Robertson's ten points?
TP: All I can say is that he recieved enthusiastic applause. I also think there was pretty good press coverage of his plan. Certainly at the conference his announcement was a position that aligned well with what Portland and Seattle are doing. There was a local government team from Portland at the conference, and discussion about the City of Vancouver and the City of Portland looking at a memorandum of understanding to work together on certain things on the theme of being lead green cities in the world and on the west coast.
hpm: Were there any other highlights for you at the conference. It seems to me that the John Knott presentation was a strong one.
TP: Yes, it was very good. The other one was Paul Hawkin. Many people already know Paul Hawkin quite well. He is well known for his work on Natural Capital and his more recent book, Blessed Unrest which I haven't read yet. In Blessed Unrest he talks about the ingenuity of nature and the organisms of the earth to understand there is a need for change and to heal itself. He thinks that humanity is going that way as well. Not a fast program, but he thinks that's the case.
He did make a strong case in his presentation about cities as part of that intuition, that cities are necessary for survival, for lessening the impact on the environment, by giving people the chance to have well-being without necessarily relying on traditional patterns of growth that we have seen. Certainly since North America was settled by Europeans. He believes that the literacy about the environment and ecology needs to be improved tremendously, and there there is a growing interest in that. Hawken made a key point for me when he talked about Gaining Ground and the community of interest around it, that this is where there is a feasible level for action that people can get inspired and can find collaborations to be engaged in and learn how to find information they may want so they can make decisions about where to be involved and how to move ahead.
hpm: Did you see any of that happening?
TP: Yes, there is always a lot of networking at the Gaining Ground events. This one was no exception, and I did hear a number of comments from people, that they found it very useful that way. The Foundation is working with some other organizations around this, and we had a meeting at the shoulder event the day before the conference started. We're looking at an open directory kind of strategy to accelerate the uptake and interest of knowledge about managing settlement change more sustainably. For us Gaining Ground and this kind of strategy represents a place where we can access a community of interest and pursue initiatives together.
hpm: Can you give me a summary as to why I would want to go to a Gaining Ground Summit? What did Resilient Cities inspire in you?
TP: It provides a wide range of view of generally very active people, places, cities that are working on changing for the better. You get a good dose of what they're doing, how they're doing it, what they plan to do next, who they are working with, and the fact that this all takes collaboration. You get usually a very strong message about the Gaining Ground conference. I think for me in this one, the message was that people need to re-connect with the place and feel more rooted. Out of that comes the ability to love your place and the desire to protect it or be a steward or being engaged in making it better. I think the modern North America has been too willing to re-locate when things got difficult, and we have abandoned places that have been messed up, as it were, by our inept city building and urbanism in the past. I can see now that that's changing.
hpm: If you were going to tell me to follow 3 people after the conference, who would they be?
TP: I think in BC it would be Mark Holland of Holland Bars Lanarc because he is a leader in this field, in his work and in his personal convictions. I didn't mentioned it, but he delivered a manifesto at the conference which was a very brave and outstanding document. Very much worth people finding. [editor's note: CITinfoResource will be talking to Mark Holland about posting his "Resilient Cities Manifesto" here.] Paul Hawkenis a thought leader for sure, as are a number of other people. I think if one goes and looks at the program of Resilient Cities online, depending on what you are doing, you might want to follow any of plenary presenters because they are all strong leaders in their particular approach in the issues they are addressing.
hpm: But Tim Pringle's "3 to follow" would be Paul Hawkins, John Knott, and Mark Holland?
TP: Yes.
hpm: Thank you very much Tim. Do you have anything you want to add to this conservation about Resilient Cities?
TP: It's a long conversation Hans, but this is a start on it.
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