Archive for Sustainability
Friday Reading
Posted by: | CommentsWhy cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development race. – via @sandymaxey on the Twitter.
Decline Radio has a list of 10 things that could have finally put Asheville on the national music map – via Mtn. X.
“Asheville’s East End Circa 1968,” a historical photography exhibition by Asheville artist Andrea Clark, is on view through February 26 in UNC Asheville’s Blowers Gallery” – via Ashvegas
There was a terrible wreck on Riverview Drive this week, and Felicity at Hangover Journals had a front row seat. Since then, I’ve been getting contacted asking for traffic calming measures on that street, which unfortunately connects Haywood Road to Amboy Road. I’ve asked for the traffic study data for the road, and I’ll update the neighborhood as soon as I know more.
Dr. Dan Eichenbaum, Republican candidate for Congress, says of the Supreme Court ruling on corporate election spending – “The Constitution and Freedom Wins!” – via Thunder Pig’s Twitter feed.
Core values of the The Bountiful Cities Project at Short Street Cakes.
Thinking Outside The Service Economy Box
Posted by: | CommentsFrom the Citizen-Times January 14:
$800,000 in stimulus funds go to Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministries to help train 600 workers for green jobs
Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministries will get $800,000 in federal stimulus funds to help train up to 600 workers for jobs weatherizing homes, installing solar panels and helping produce biodiesel fuel.
The jobs could pay $9 to $14 an hour. Sounds great. Now, show me the jobs and show me the money.
Everyone wants to transform the economy with “green” jobs. But so far the term is mostly a trendy, feel-good catchphrase. Few people can tell you what a green job is, how to count them, or what makes one job green and not another.
The Christian Science Monitor asks, “Are all workers at an automaker green if a few of them make hybrid cars? Does the janitor’s position at a wind-turbine factory count as a green job? What about the urban planner who designs a mass transit system one year and a strip mall the next?” The problem is, the Des Moines Register notes, “There is no national definition of green jobs.” For Ashevillians, a green job means installing weather stripping or solar panels, as the AC-T lede suggests. So, that’s it?
Green Infrastructure – Stream Buffers
Posted by: | CommentsComing up to the January 12th meeting of Asheville City Council, you’re going to start hearing more about stream buffers and how wide they ought to be. Stream buffers help to mitigate the negative effects of stormwater runoff. Pull on your learnin’ cap, and follow me down a fascinating path that has profound implications for Asheville’s future.
Who Remembers George Santayana Anyway?
Posted by: | CommentsOr Reagan, Bush (I & II), Clinton, Heritage, Cato, Hudson, Manhattan, and Gramm–Leach–Bliley, for that matter?
From this morning’s Washington Post:
The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times, a sharp reversal from a long period of prosperity that is leading economists and policymakers to fundamentally rethink the underpinnings of the nation’s growth.
It was, according to a wide range of data, a lost decade for American workers. The decade began in a moment of triumphalism — there was a current of thought among economists in 1999 that recessions were a thing of the past. By the end, there were two, bookends to a debt-driven expansion that was neither robust nor sustainable.
There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well.
That pretty much sums it up. Nothing that WNC can’t solve by building a few more hotels and McMansions. That’s worked out pretty well so far, hasn’t it?
Stimulus Money Creates Lasting Savings in Asheville
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If you didn’t catch David Nash’s presentation at the Council meeting, then you missed hearing about the profound transformation happening in Asheville’s public housing. Check out these numbers:
Stimulus money awarded to Housing Authority of the City of Asheville (HACA) -
$5.9 million
Anticipated Energy Performance Contract Extension in 2010 -
$3.6 million
Eleven new employees on Modernization Crew
Number of windows to be replaced in public housing developments -
3,000 in Pisgah View
2,200 in Hillcrest
1,250 in Deaverview
To be done under contract extension -
313 new dual flush toilets
970 lower flow toilet retrofits
3,600+ lower flow aerators and shower heads
970,000 square feet of living space weatherized
Guaranteed Annual Energy Savings -
680,000 kWh of electricity
180,000 therms of natural gas
41 million gallons of water
$757,000 per year of guaranteed energy cost savings
[This is what's guaranteed, so you can count on it being a lowball estimate]
Annual Carbon Dioxide Reduction -
490 metric tons re: electricity reduction
900 metric tons re: natural gas reduction
Will Somebody Please Revive WNC’s Manufacturing Economy?
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s almost time again for the annual Homecoming Jobs Fair at Biltmore Square Mall (Tuesday, December 29, 2009
10 a.m. – 3 p.m.) sponsored by the Economic Development Coalition and the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce. When I went last year, cars were backed up down the exit onto I-26. Two thousand people attended. Only a few of the 56 booths held manufacturers, and only a handful of jobs were actually available. It made national news. And the economy wasn’t as bad then as it is now.
So thanks go out to John Boyle for his piece in the paper today highlighting the ins and outs of North Carolina’s economic incentives in business development. Materials Innovation Technologies (MIT) will expand its operation in Florence County, SC rather than in Buncombe County, growing 120 jobs there instead of here.
Boyle’s articles highlight the problems North Carolina has in competing with economic incentives packages South Carolina is able to offer. Scott Hamilton of Advantage West notes that SC has more flexibility for offering tax incentives. Jim Stike, president of MIT said this:
“You do a spreadsheet analytic, a cost-benefit analysis and look at the bottom line,” Stike said. “If it would have been close — and you figure in the love of your town, you don’t have to travel, you care about your community — you could do it here. But when it’s not even in the ballpark, when it’s two times, three times or even four times what (North Carolina) can offer, only a crazy businessman wouldn’t go for it.”
Ray Denny, vice president of economic development with the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce commenting on the MIT deal said, “We were not successful in matching it or even being very competitive.”
Sustainable Las Vegas
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I was recently on the floor of the Luxor walking in between craps and blackjack tables when I seemed to have gotten the most absurd idea in my head: Sustainable Las Vegas. I thought about whether there might be an organization advocating for a more sustainable way of doing things in the Sin City. But the mere juxtaposition of the word sustainable with Las Vegas made me burst into seemingly uncontrollable laughter. Since I was by myself and there were at least a hundred people around me, I tried to regain my composure. As I did I thought, “Well, if the idea doesn’t pass the laugh test, that means my gut is telling me that this whole place is going the way of The Sands1, and probably sooner than later.” Is that the case?
I think of Las Vegas as living off of three major resources. These are oil, water, and illusion. While the last is virtually inexhaustible, the first two are finite and currently buckling under increasing pressure to supply a growing and resource intensive population worldwide. So let me first deal with illusion.
An illusion will appears after the jump… Read More→
