Ruminations on Sustainable Pittsburgh's Smart Growth Conference 2010

I was lucky enough to sit in on the SP Smart Growth Conference. Although this is my first conference, many of these concepts have been discussed and presented over the last ten to fifteen years. The keynote address by Peter Calthorpe, an architect and planner who helped found the New Urbanism movement, was very thorough and loaded with actual facts and figures to support the claims. Secretary Hanger’s afternoon discussion struck a defensive tone, delivering a laundry list all of accomplishments by the Rendell Administration in dealing with Marcellus shale drilling and other environmental threats.

The declaration of the Tipping Points of Sustainability winner, the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, was wholly disappointing to those of us that look beyond buildings as the drivers of sustainability. I had high hopes for what they might feature as an agent of change of regional sustainability, but I think they missed the big picture with this selection. I genuinely intended to submit an entry reframing the idea to be about people instead of events, though my impending wedding at the time didn’t allow me to complete the submission.

As I mentioned, the concepts are not new, and I feel that we’ve been talking about smart growth for years with little noticeable change in Pennsylvania. Perhaps we’ve reached the point where we need to stop speaking in such grandiose terms, roll up our sleeves, and get to work figuring out how to turn all of these great ideas into policy and planning changes in some of the 2,500+ municipalities in PA. Perhaps we need to apply much more pressure to local and state politicians to champion new initiatives. Perhaps it’s more aggressive leadership we need.

Whatever it is, clearly something is still missing from this puzzle that has stymied our efforts so far. We need to be critical of what we have and haven’t accomplished, identify our barriers to success, and be thoughtful about how we will execute the smart growth agenda. This might beg the question, “Is the agenda clear?” It would seem that the several hundred on-hand in the Spirit of Pittsburgh Ballroom are in agreement on the agenda, but what about everyone else? I propose we turn this forum of ideas into a true marketing campaign, complete with slick branding and advertisements. Make it modern, make it sexy. Make it a brand that everyday people want to be associated with, like the Toyota Prius.

The change we need won’t happen overnight, but will be an ongoing change in ethos that will be decades in the making. Like most culture shifts this starts with the youth, who are not yet set in their ways or have their lives mapped out. We need to target 16-24 year olds, who are still defining their idea of place and home. Smart growth should not just be for middle-aged white people anymore; case in point, the audience at the Smarth Growth Conference.

It’s time to move.