The Present
Question 1: There is no over-arching vision for our long-term future. Policies and planning are frequently at odds with future realities we will be facing. There is no broad citizen participation in visioning and planning. It’s my impression that the general populace isn’t seriously considered and included as a “Stakeholder” in planning processes, which are driven largely by big-money interests.
Question 2: The Food Bank is aware of our food security vulnerabilities and is actively working to promote food security through its community garden and outreach programs. Sustainable Tucson and Transition Pima are working to raise awareness throughout the community and influence policy changes. Other community groups that contribute to the movement are the Permaculture Guild, Watershed Management Group, and the University of Arizona’s Institute for Environment and Society, which conducts research in this area. The City of Tucson’s ordinances in support of gray-water and reclaimed water use for landscape watering and requiring new commercial buildings to utilize rainwater for 50% of their landscaping water use are concrete and positive steps in recognition of our water vulnerabilities. Much more needs to be done.
Question 3: Currently-planned widenings of Grant Road and Houghton Road run counter to what we should be planning for the future. The I-10 widening is already in the works, but no new roads or major enlargements should be built—including any future I-10 bypass. Other at-odds practices that come to mind are: land-use policies restricting mixed-uses; continuing reliance on the growth paradigm; continued allowance of large house footprints, more golf courses, artificial lakes, or other wasteful water features. These are just a few.
The Vision
Question 1: The benefit of becoming sustainable in policy & urban planning is that we might have a chance to continue living in the Sonora Desert region. If we don’t become sustainable—and soon—we most certainly will be unable to survive here for much longer.
Question 2: Activities, businesses, practices that don’t exist but might support greater sustainability are:
Practical Steps
Beginning serious plans for relocalizing Tucson into a community of urban eco-villages, each made up of a cluster of neighborhoods within easy (walking, biking) access of a commercial/service/ social center
Beginning planning for transportation alternatives to individual automobiles: van-pools, jitneys, car-sharing, increased bus routes & schedules
Modifying existing roadways to allow for increased use and safety of bicycles; perhaps devoting a complete car lane to bicycle use, keeping in mind adult tricycles, bikes with trailers, etc.; create safe and attractive pedestrian pathways along all existing roadways
Retrofitting of all existing buildings for greater energy efficiency
Promoting neighborhood farmer’s markets or home-grown food exchanges
Forming a community group to begin examining the city charter and codes for unsustainable policies, practices, regulations that should be changed
Establishing a permanent citizen’s group to examine city charter annually and suggest modifications as needed and to consider residents’ suggestions
Creating new K-12 curricula that would teach our children the many skills for survival that have been lost
Businesses
Giving preferential options to local, sustainable businesses that provide essential goods, services
Streamline permit processes for new local, sustainable businesses
Provide micro loans to promote small cottage industries or businesses
Begin working with existing business to help them adopt sustainable practices
Begin a serious attempt to influence conversion of Raytheon from armament manufacturing to human-needs manufacturing
Always utilizing local businesses/ providers for our needs
Practices or Regulations
Creating a valid definition of sustainability to guide all policies, practices, and regulations
Modifying the city charter to:
+ grant basic rights to nature–including humans;
+ institute sustainability as a basic ideological framework for all policies and activities;
+ establish democracy as the governing framework;
+ guarantee fair and honest elections
+ grant self-determination to eco-villages, within the framework of the city charter
+ eliminate/modify city codes that run counter to sustainable practices
3. Implementing a progressive regional carbon tax as soon as possible to discourage fossil-fuel usage
Using the resulting revenue to help subsidize retrofitting of buildings for greater energy efficiency
Promoting the Freecycle network and making free space available for periodic Freecycle Swap Meets
Implementing a city-sponsored green-waste composting program; making the compost available to home gardeners at no or little cost
Mandating universal rooftop rainwater and gray-water harvesting for all buildings by a given date
Making idle city/county land available to residents who want to plant food.
Creating deadlines for developing idle private land, after which condemnation action can be initiated, allowing it to be used for growing food
Assisting all residents in growing
Gardens
Working with area High Schools and Pima Community College to develop training programs for new green jobs
Question 3: Realistic projects to spearhead in the next few years:
Work with government to expand mass transit,especially, bus hours of service, outreach network and peak load capacity.
Develop financial incentives for Dial-A-Ride Car Pool expansion.
Work to develop intra-neighborhood and regional neighborhood mobility enhancements: sidewalks,bike lanes, and local shuttles using “golf cart” and green vehicles.
Work with areas to develop neighborhood and regional development and reconfiguration plans to include:traffic calming, encourage alternative to car use, and traffic safety.
Activity # 1 – Take Tres English’s existing urban village design and begin aggressively marketing it to City Council and neighborhoods.
Activity # 6 – The Urban Policy group might be able to do this like the group in Portland, Oregon.
Activity # 8 – Could be started by a Sustainable Tucson Education focus group
Practice # 1 – Use Dave Ewoldt’s definition and incorporate it in this Sketch Plan.
Practices # 3-12 – We should begin lobbying for these items starting asap. They could be incorporated in a proposed Sustainable Tucson Proposed Actions document and disseminated to the Mayor and all City Council members.
Question 4:
The projects and activities listed in the table above address Tucson’s core problems of food and water vulnerability; help reduce fossil fuel use; help stem resource depletion; would lead to the creation of many new “green” jobs; and would enhance quality of life by promoting and facilitating community-building and values of sharing and cooperation.
UVC
Tucson should focus on making itself a more convenient, accessible and affordable community, rather than a more mobile one. With Tucsonans already driving the equivalent of more than 1000 times around the earth every day and spending roughly $3 billion per year to do it, we are already way too mobile.
Tucson needs an Untransport plan which will insure that almost everyone has many of the necessities of daily life within easy biking or shuttle bus distance, has excellent transit access to much of the city, and lives in beautiful neighborhoods that are pleasant to walk, bike and recreate in.
The core of an Untransport plan is landuse and business development policies that will allow Tucson to recreate itself as a network of 60-80 Urban Village Centers (about 2-3 miles apart) built out of existing commercial centers — such as Crossroads Festival and the other commercial areas surrounding Swan & Grant. These commercial/civic centers would be linked to nearby neighborhoods with excellent pedestrian and bike facilities, local dial-a-ride shuttle buses, and home package delivery service. This will allow everyone in Tucson to live within easy biking or shuttle distance of many of the jobs and services they need for their daily lives, and allow for a highly efficient transit system, without requiring significant changes in surrounding neighborhoods.
Initial steps to re-creating Tucson as a city with many human-scale centers, rather than one, distant and little used commercial center, include:
Make neighborhoods beautiful, walkable/bikeable places with many amenities so that people will be willing to get out and walk or bike.
Connect Urban Village Centers with an excellent express bus service, so that people arriving at their nearby prototype UVC will be able to travel to jobs and service, even if there are initially few at the nearest UVC.
Provide matching public funds to encourage major property owners to invest in amenities that will attract customers from nearby neighborhoods.
Change business license fee structure so that businesses are encouraged to relocate to UVCs where they will be closer to their customers, and provide other services to encourage such relocation, such as a gap analysis for inadequate commercial services.
Change zoning laws and building codes to allow for high density development along corridors with abandoned strip malls.
Expand the express bus capacity between UVCs by developing a local industry to transform retired buses into articulated bus trailers and boost the power of the lead bus to handle the added load.
