Staff Blog News
Wednesday, May 1st, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#8 Energy Efficiency in Pilsen, a Chicago neighborhood
The next few posts in our series celebrating CNT’s 35 years of innovation are about energy. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, energy was the word on everyone’s lips. Enron was being Enron (before it went Enron), and talk of fuel cells was all the rage. CNT was interested in the community-level impacts of energy trends, especially on improving energy efficiency and reliability, but needed a catalyst.
The spark, so to speak, came when a series of electricity blackouts that had been plaguing the neighborhoods finally hit Chicago’s Loop.
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Tuesday, April 30th, 2013
Laying the foundations for long-term, sustainable economic development will require adopting innovative policy solutions to overcome obstacles to growth. Unfortunately, implementing new policy is often politically unpopular, especially when the change involves levying a new charge or increasing taxes to fund investment or influence behavior.
A case in point was illustrated in a presentation given by Dr. Jonas Eliasson of Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology at a recent Earth Day event in Chicago. Like most major metropolitan areas, the Swedish capital had long suffered from acute traffic congestion and all of the economic and environmental problems associated with it. Beginning in the early 1990’s, academics and policy experts had discussed the potential solution offered by “congestion pricing,” whereby drivers pay a fee for use of the city’s roads, the level of which depends upon the time of day and the “zone” of the city in which the driver is traveling.
Advocates of the system argued that putting a price on road use would discourage discretionary motorists from driving into the center of the city, leaving the roads less congested at peak times for drivers who had no choice but to drive. Congestion pricing could also encourage people to explore different commuting options like public transit or cycling, as well as provide a potential revenue stream to pay for road maintenance and investment in transit services.
Supporters of congestion pricing soon learned that developing effective solutions is not enough. Transforming ideas into actual implemented policies required a concerted effort to educate the voting public. As Dr. Eliasson described, early public opinion was predictably hostile to any plan to charge drivers for something that was thought of as “free.” However, with a combination of effective public education campaign and some bold political decision making during the early implementation phase in 2006, residents of Stockholm and the surrounding metro area came to see the benefits of the congestion price.
The public education campaign focused on the idea that the charge wasn’t a tax on driving. Instead, it was a fee that reduced traffic congestion. It reminded commuters that traffic-clogged streets are not “free” to use, and that congestion has costs: wasted time, wasted fuel and damage to the environment.
Residents realized that the congestion charge allowed for better traffic management without the need for expensive and disruptive new road building. Public support for the system, which hovered around 30 percent before the 2006 trial is now at close to 70 percent.
The Stockholm example teaches a number of crucial lessons for those interested in public policy. First, well-designed policy solutions can be practically effective in improving peoples’ lives if implemented and managed in a transparent and competent way. Second, the initial unpopularity of controversial ideas shouldn’t dissuade politicians from embracing bold solutions if they truly believe in them. People will notice the improvement and the system’s popularity will increase. Third, the public will support paying for real investment in improving infrastructure if the benefits are explained clearly and the results are visible.
Residents in cities like Stockholm and Singapore, which also has an effective road-pricing system, saw the positive effects of congestion pricing with their own eyes and were won around to the idea. Voters in Los Angeles and Denver supported the creation of dedicated revenue streams to fund transit expansion and improvement and are already beginning to enjoy the benefit of increased choice and reduced road traffic. There’s no reason to believe that the same wouldn’t be true for the voters of Chicago and Cook County.
What do you think? What type of fee or tax to support an expansion of transit and/or reduction in congestion could you support in your community?
Posted in Going Places, Staff Blog, Transportation and Community Development | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#7 Feral Dogs and Community Development
Feral dogs. Not exactly what you think of when you think “Center for Neighborhood Technology,” right? Well…
To be fair, this story predates CNT by just a bit, but you might say it was a catalyst of sorts. Here’s how it goes:
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Wednesday, April 17th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#6 Neighborhood Early Warning System (NEWS)
In 1984, the CNT-initiated Housing Abandonment Task Force issued over 30 recommendations for conserving Chicago’s affordable housing, yielding programs and organizations that addressed equity financing, energy conservation financing, housing cooperatives and public access to housing information. As members of the task force, CNT took on some of these recommendations; the Neighborhood Early Warning System (NEWS) was developed to address the lack of transparent information on housing and building conditions.
NEWS was created as an alert system for residents where they could see “at risk” buildings in their area. As housing was being abandoned and buildings were being demolished, NEWS provided a way for community organizations and citizens to be aware of underlying information about buildings in their community. Read more »
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Wednesday, April 10th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#5 Chicago Recycling Coalition
When most people think about recycling, they think about the good feeling of separating glass, plastic, paper, etc., from their waste so that new materials and products can be created from old ones. It’s a pretty clean process, and one that can, in many homes, be done without much thought at all.
Recycling has certainly evolved. In Chicago, recycling is still a work in progress, but it—like the organizations that advocate for it—has come a long way.
The Chicago Recycling Coalition (CRC) is one organization that has been at the forefront of championing how recyclables are handled in the City of Chicago. In fact, before CRC was CRC, it was CAWD (Coalition for Appropriate Waste Disposal), and it worked on some pretty dirty projects. CNT was right there with them. Read more »
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Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#4 Solar Greenhouses
Growing tomatoes in a hydroponic greenhouse on a rooftop in West Garfield Park. It was audacious—and caught the attention of the New York Times, resulting in CNT’s first national press story (NYT subscription required).
Christian Action Ministry (CAM) was a faith-based community development organization on Chicago’s West Side. CAM ran a range of programs, including preschool and job training. For the late 1970s, they were on the cutting edge. When Scott Bernstein proposed building a rooftop greenhouse on their building at West Madison between Homan and Pulaski to increase local access to fresh fruits and vegetables, they embraced the idea enthusiastically.
A skeptical Christian Science Monitor took note, as well, observing that “this kind of urban self-help agriculture is very new. There is much excitement about the possibilities, but little proof of how things will work out.” Read more »
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Monday, April 1st, 2013
One of the strongest arguments in favor of investment in public transit is the role it plays in mitigating traffic congestion. The logic is simple: more train and bus commuters mean fewer car commuters and fewer cars on the road. A recently released working paper from University of California scholar Michael Anderson provides some real data to back this up. In 2003, employees of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority went on strike, shutting down the cities bus and train services.
The strike, lasting 35 days, provided an ideal natural experiment demonstrating what one of the countries busiest metro areas would look like without transit services. Anderson found that during peak periods, delays caused by traffic on L.A’s major freeways increased by 47 percent or 0.19 minutes per mile. The delays were more pronounced on freeways that parallel major transit lines reinforcing the idea that transit provides a real alternative to car travel for millions of commuters. The working paper estimates that the benefit of transit in terms of traffic reduction for Los Angeles ranges from $1.2 billion to $4.1 billion per year.
These findings should cause anyone who argues that transit receives a disproportionate amount of transportation funding to think again. Of course, congestion mitigation is just one of the reasons to invest in train and bus services. Transit offers and affordable alternative to families and individuals who can’t afford to own a car. It connects communities to job centers strengthening the economy. It reduces greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. If we’re serious about setting the country back on the path of sustainable and broad based economic growth, building and expanding our transit infrastructure will have to play a central role.
Posted in Going Places, National, Regional, Staff Blog, Transit Expansion, Transit Policy, Transit Ridership, Transit-Oriented Development | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#3 Deep Tunnel
Maybe we were just ahead of our time. In the late 1970s, the early days of CNT, we had the radical notion that multiple, smaller investments in infrastructure were better than a gargantuan, one-size-fits-all approach. It’s a concept that’s certainly more in vogue now, in fields from planning to engineering to fundraising. (Heck, just ask a certain former CNT board member about the impact of thousands of small donations…)
Back then, though, we were attempting to advocate our position as relative Davids in the face of a Goliath called “Deep Tunnel.” This time, David didn’t fare as well.
Photo: Chicago Tribune (Oct. 9, 1980)
The Deep Tunnel Project, officially known as the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP), was commissioned in the mid-1970s and billed as a solution to reduce flooding in the Chicago region and curtail the flow of raw sewage into Lake Michigan. As civil engineering projects go, Deep Tunnel was in a league of its own: a megaproject.
CNT was part of a larger coalition of organizations and individuals called the TARP Impacts Project (TIP), which initially came together over the proposed price tag of Deep Tunnel relative to its projected impact. The $7.3 billion budget translated to $4,000 per Chicago-area household, or over $100 million per neighborhood in the region. TIP, and CNT, believed that smaller, more affordable, and more direct actions could work as well or better than the pricy Deep Tunnel. Read more »
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Wednesday, March 20th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#2 The Neighborhood Works
They were the days of disco. Saturday Night Fever was #1 at the box office. The BeeGees had two of Billboard’s Top 10 singles. Jimmy Carter, while not so “disco,” was president. Inflation was on the rise, and the U.S. was creeping towards the precipice of an unprecedented energy crisis. It was January, 1978.
In Chicago, a team of community activists led by Scott Bernstein, Jesse Auerbach, and Kathy Tholin launched an information service, in print form. It was designed to help neighborhood organizations, economic development groups, and individuals take action to improve the viability and health of communities. They called it The Neighborhood Works, and its spirit and influence are felt yet today.
The founding editors (Scott, Jesse, and Kathy) opened the inaugural issue with a welcome, a bit of a mission statement, and a definition of what “neighborhood technology” meant at the time and how it could be developed. In a way, it was the Google Reader or news aggregator of its time, compiling news stories, scientific research and DIY tips on topics from food to energy to housing to jobs.
Over the years, several committed individuals served as volunteers, artists, advisors, and editors. Their efforts were widely appreciated and remembered fondly. Mary Fran Riley, Vice President of Development & Communications at Accion Chicago, described how, “In days before the Internet, The Neighborhood Works was an invaluable source of information for those of us working in community development.” Read more »
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Wednesday, March 13th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#1 Scott Bernstein – Champion of Cities
Scott Bernstein started working in Chicago’s West Garfield Park neighborhood in the ‘70s and envisioned innovative strategies that could turn around this community. In 1978, he, along with Stan Hallett, co-founded the organization that would become CNT to stimulate creative solutions to neighborhood problems. CNT began with three projects: community greenhouses, opposition to the Deep Tunnel and the publication of The Neighborhood Works. Read more »
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