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A recent blog of mine posted on Groundswell Stories describes two case examples of developers using Opportunity Zones to advance an equitable clean economy.  This is an opportunity not to be missed.  

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I am pleased to have co-written this GreenBiz article with Graham Richard on how opportunity zones could boost clean economy and how clean energy could contribute to community benefit in opportunity zone neighborhoods. This is an immediate and important opportunity.   #opportunityzones  #cleanenergy #sustainability

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Opportunity Zones and Clean Economy

It is possible to leverage the new federal Opportunity Zones program to produce a significant bump in equitable clean economy investment that reduces resident energy costs, increases local resilience, and produces jobs and new enterprise for low- and moderate-income residents in Opportunity Zones. Opportunity fund investors, local developers, and intermediaries are piloting investments in clean economy in affordable housing, brownfields redevelopment, deal mall and vacant building redevelopment, broadband access (which is increasingly essential to enabling smart city improvements and microgrids. They are finding ways to provide new capital to clean energy developers that work in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and are supporting the development of new clean energy businesses owned by women and people of color. To take full advantage of the opportunity, there must be investment and capacity building both to generate supply and demand and to ensure that residents gain assets and other benefits. I am trying to launch a design meeting to bring together stakeholders to flesh out models and figure out how to scale them.     

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We need a shared understanding of our history before we can address the disparities that continue today.  Work that Urban Sustainability Directors Network members are pursuing has begun with building a common understanding.   

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USDN 2018 Equity Leaders Program

I am pleased to have played a role in developing and delivering the USDN 2018 Equity Leaders Program, which already has involved almost 100 cities. Components include an Equity Innovation Advisory Committee;  Equity Foundations training; one on one equity coaching; collective action on centering equity in climate action planning; Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Summer Fellows, and Equity Impact Small Grants for USDN’s equity leaders. These programs are in addition to the Partners for Places matching grants available to all cities that are working to advance equity in collaboration with local foundations.  

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The D.C. Bridge Park project is chock full of features to avoid displacement caused by an exciting development project.  

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We can’t achieve equity without allocating resources. Small business investment in underinvested communities is a key step.  But there have been many failed small business investment efforts over generations.  It is exciting to see a set of cities stepping up.  I look forward to learning how to do it right.  

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I am pleased to see the Partners for Places Equity Pilot that I helped design helping city governments across the nation to bring an equity lens to their urban sustainability portfolios.   

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Chicago’s Smart Lighting Project will generate significant electricity cost savings that will be utilized to pay for the modernization. As important, the project advances equity in four ways: 

1.  The smart lighting grid management system will eliminate reliance on 311 calls about street lights that are out. Complaint based systems tend to disadvantage immigrant and low income communities.  

2. More than half of the light fixtures will be assembled at a plant in the City of Chicago.

3.  Ameresco has committed to using City residents to perform at least 50 percent of the work on the project.

4. For the first year, streetlight fixture replacement will be focused in those neighborhoods with heightened public safety concerns, primarily on the west and south sides. 

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In November 2017, Detroit voters approved a groundbreaking ordinance that will require developers of the city’s biggest taxpayer-supported projects to sign a city-negotiated community benefits agreement (CBA) before a shovel goes into the ground. This kind of CBA ordinance could make pursuing greater equity in development easier.  

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Hiring community liaisons from historically underrepresented neighborhoods builds long-term relationships, allows local government to take care of problems residents already have, and increases willingness to participate in planning processes when city government needs it.  

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“Real equity,” meaningful engagement of marginalized people in planning includes translation, meeting times when they can meet, babysitting, training on technical issues, and specific opportunities to share their views with other stakeholders, A good summary in this article of what it takes. Seattle took a step forward with targeted outreach and is ready to learn from what did not work.   

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Delta Institute, where I serve as board chair, recently issued its annual report. Take a look. It is inspiring at a time when we need it.  

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What I like about this approach is that it focuses on serious work to uncover barriers over time and add features that address them.  It is hard to know all the barriers up front.  There has to be a commitment to on-going change.  

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Great reports that explain how government helped create racial wealth gaps and how it might reduce them.  Includes a recommendation for Individual Development Accounts for all newborns.  IDAs have been around a long time, but not scaled.  Cap and Dividend is a proposal Peter Barnes worked on to use carbon fees to fund IDAs.  Could it all come together someday?  Sounds good to me.  

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See a great video about Delta Institute’s participation in Chicago Artisan Grain Collaborative.  Perennial wheat for all!! (I am on the board. but I have tasted the bread and now I am a fan.) 

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In the wake of unrest after Freddie Gray’s death in police custody, Baltimore universities and companies got together quickly to launch a jobs program aimed at economic disparities. Leveraging $10 million from Johns Hopkins has resulted in, Reiner says, $644 million in development in the 10 neighborhoods and a 53 percent reduction in vacant properties.  Other cities also have launched such initiatives, including Knoxville, which received a Partners for Places equity pilot grant.