Creating Resilient Neighborhoods by Jan Spencer
Note - The October River Road Community Organization program that featured Creating Resileint Neighborhoods drew close to 100 people. People are concerned with safety and security, for many reasons.
Presentation on Creating Neighborhood Resilience at the Eugene Home Show, Sunday January 24
Won’t You Be My Green Neighbor?
"Safer Neighborhoods through Sustainability" - From neighborhood Watch to Community Emergency Response Teams, Permaculture and Neighborhood Program [title will be something like that]
Sunday, Jan. 24th - 2pm, Lane County Fairgrounds - "The Good Earth Home Show"
Contents
Essay - Creating More Resilient Neighborhoods
Expanded Thoughts - Ideas into Action
Foto Gallery Further Below - Images relating to resilience
If you ask many residents of Eugene “What is your ideal neighborhood”, most will reply – feeling safe and knowing their neighbors.
Several programs in Eugene already help bring about safer places to live. Neighborhood Watch, Emergency Preparedness and Permaculture all actively play a role creating safer neighborhoods. Given the sobering trends of the day, how would each program's effectiveness multiply if the complimentary aspects of each were presented together with support from Eugene's neighborhood organizations?
Neighborhood Watch is a nationwide program, with both the City of Eugene and Lane County offering assistance in setting up Watch Groups in neighborhoods. Typically, a Watch Group is for mutual support in helping neighbors look after each others' safety and properties. Phone trees, personal connections, meetings and socials all help create cooperative relationships between neighbors.
Emergency Preparedness is about planning for, preventing and mitigating natural disasters and emergencies that present a threat to lives and property. An important part of Emergency Preparedness is Community Emergency Response Team or CERT training. CERT teaches citizen volunteers about the basics of emergency management including light search and rescue, basic medical operations, organizing immediate citizen volunteers and providing assistance to professional first responders. CERT members can also assist with non emergency projects that improve public safety.
Permaculture is a holistic approach to designing practical systems for taking care of human needs by working with nature. Permaculture is a unique and valuable tool for building community resilience. Renewable energy, natural building, local economies, personal empowerment, food security and a culture of living more cooperatively all fit under Permaculture's umbrella.
One can recognize a great deal of overlap in these three programs. They all include a cooperative approach to looking after people and property at the neighborhood level. They all include a component of adapting to unplanned circumstances ranging from theft of property to disruption of familiar daily needs such as food and energy from either natural or human causes. They all imply living more thoughtfully in terms of the resources we use.
How can these programs support each other and how can insightful planning make where we live safer and more resilient? Here is an example.
Imagine part of a grassy front yard turned into a garden or planted with edible landscaping. Taking care of that garden and landscaping would mean being out front along the neighborhood street. That creates safety because someone is outside with a view up and down the street. Its a simple way to look out for others nearby.
Growing food contributes to personal health. Fresh fruit and vegetables are good for us! Home grown is less dependent on transportation, less affected by disruptions either natural or human caused. That food producing front yard will attract attention. Passers by will ask questions and neighbors will be curious, especially if you tell them what you are doing and why. This is a great way to make friends, build community and expand a timely idea. That's Neighborhood Watch.
Others will want to do likewise. Invite them over to show them how. Plan a work party to put in a new garden nearby. People will make friends and learn important new skills. This adds to neighborhood safety and building community. Then someone suggests, what about rain water catchment? Someone builds a rainwater system that can store several thousand gallons of water. This water could be very useful if water supplies were disrupted. That's Disaster Preparedness.
How about adding a sun room for passive solar heat? Consider learning useful design techniques to make even more effective use of a property – sun, water, soil, creativity - that's Permaculture. Think of the workshops and work parties as opportunities to meet neighbors, involve young people and work together to learn basic skills such as first responding, food preservation, seed saving, green building and more. That's creating a more resilient neighborhood. An anonymous street can become a welcoming place where people care for and look out for each other.
Each set of classes or workshops for these programs would invite experts in the other two programs as guest teachers. They would add the best from their sector with further training available for those students who would like to learn even more about the others. Each participant would have a far more expansive knowledge for helping create community resilience and could share that knowledge at school, church, with friends, at work and play.
Creating neighborhood resilience in this way also mitigates climate change, reduces dependence on fossil fuels and can draw on additional skills and programs – both public and private that already exist. Youth could play a powerful role, perhaps an urban version of Youth Corps. Include seniors who often know many of these skills. Imagine the local economic development and jobs that could be created by a solar retrofits, edible landscape design, rain water catchment and more.
Neighborhood Watch, Emergency Preparedness/CERT Training and Permaculture are made for each other. When they join together and share the best of what they have to offer, we can make a significant move towards creating neighborhoods that are safer, friendlier and more resilient. Find out more, join us October 19 at the RRCO meeting!
Work Party Crew Including Homeowner
Same location three weeks later.
Grass to garden, close up - food happens,,,,,,
Expanded Thoughts on Ideas into Action
Please consider these ideas and what you can add or fill in thats missing.
A point of departure - there are many good people, programs and assets already in place in Eugene for building community resilience - our task is less to invent but rather to recognize the pieces, fit them together and expand on much that is already available.
Here are some ideas starting from simple and becoming more ambitious.
Neighborhood Watch, Emergency Preparedness and Permaculture can provide printed information to the other programs for handing out to their classes and gatherings.
The respective programs can invite representatives from the other programs or related organizations as guest teachers.
Participants and students from each program could be invited by the organizers of the other programs for follow up discussions or tours. Further discussion could expand beyond grass to garden towards more advanced strategies.
Owners of properties in various parts of town with notable elements of "resilient design" could volunteer to become a part of listing that would be made available to those associated with Neighborhood Watch, Emergency Preparedness and Permaculture for educational purposes. Arrangements could be made for participating groups to visit the properties or educational sites.
Other organiztions in the community could become involved in resilience strategies. Neighborhood organizations are perfectly placed to be key allies. School groups and Scouts could help with public service projects. The Extension Service offers a wealth of resiliency skills related to growing and storing food.
School gardens could become centers for learning garden skills, much as Grass Roots Garden already does. The School Garden Project might be an ally, they already have created well over a dozen school gardens.
Churches and other communities of faith could become vital partners for building resilience by converting part of their own properties from grass to garden. St. Thomas Episcopal Church is a great role model. Churches and communities of faith could, in effect, become neighborhood community centers, by making indoor space available for classes related to building resilience. Many have commercial grade kitchens which could be sites for workshops on food preparation and storage. One faith community network already actively supports local farmers with the Thats My Farmer program. Hundreds of people are involved and over a dozen local farms benefit.
Other service groups could help turn grass to garden. The scope of creating resilience in the community could expand into many other skills ranging from green building to eco friendly technology to effective personal communications to public health.
A speakers bureau is a great idea and the Neighborhood Leaders Council Committee on Sustainability already has a speakers bureau with a growing roster of speakers with expertise on a wide range of resilience skills. Its available to the entire community - schools, civic groups, churches, neighborhood groups.
There are numerous organizations and individuals in Eugene that could add many great ideas and contribute many skills for making our town a more resilient, socially, economically and ecologically friendly place to live. They include both public and private sectors.
Important to keep in mind also is building connections with between urban and rural areas in terms of food, fiber and energy. The areas surrounding Eugene are vital to our well being for providing important needs. Networks and working collaborations between urban and rural areas will add to regional resilience as will making mutual support connections with other towns and cities in our region. "Thats Our Farmer" points the way for part of this networking. Another organization named ECOS also has its purpose to create rural to urban food growing partnerships.
A vital part of a more ambitious initiative to build community resilience would be to enlist the help of local media - print, radio, TV government and others to craft a public information campaign to support and encourage people to turn grass into garden and learn other skills related to creating community resilience.
There are many compelling reasons to build greater resilience in Eugene and many of the tools to do that already exist!
A Tour of Eugene Sites with Resilient Features
Jefferson Westside Neighborhood Residence - Garden and 5,000 gallon rainwater catchment tank.
Far West Neighborhood Residence - Bikes - Resilient Transportation
Far West Neighborhood Residence - Media takes interest in grass to garden and passive solar design.
Jefferson Westside Neighborhood Residence - Heiko explains a food forest. This site, a one time grassy front yard, now planted with perennials - will provide both food and medicine.
River Road Neighborhood Residence - Solar happens - drying tomatoes and green beans, solar oven cooking dinner. Also visible - solar hot water collectors, part of glass wall for 350 ft sq sunroom, grass to garden, edible landscaping. The property also has a 3500 gallon rain water catchment system plus an intentional evolving towards greater "home economics."
Jefferson Westside Neigborhood Eco Village - Building resilient culture - Neighbors sharing what they know about green living. Note the living roof on the bike shed. The site has many examples of resilient land use and social structure .
Far West Neighborhood Residence - Multiple elements of a more resilient property - food production, sun room for passive solar heat under construction, 1500 gallon rain water tank behind, solar electricity, garage turned into living space.
University Neighborhood - CASL [Center for the Advancement of Sustainable Living] House, a student initiative at UO will become a community center for green living. House being green remodeled, planned resource library, on site examples of green living,,,,,,,,
Friendly Neighborhood Residence - Three properties removed the fences to increase neighborly collaboration.
River Road Neighborhood Residence - Neighborhood Collaboration - Making apple juice.
Eugene's Neighborhood Summit, March, 2009. An impressive event bringing together neighborhoods, the city and many diverse community organizations.
Amazon Neighborhood Residence - Canning food, a valuable skill for local self reliance.
River Road Neighborhood Residence - Neighbors teaching neighbors - Tree pruning for healthy and productive trees
First Methodist Church - "Thats My Farmer" - A great example of communities of faith supporting local farmers and food security.
River Road Neighborhood Rosetta Park - Work party - neighbors take on helping with park maintenence so Rosetta Park can be herbicide free.
Whiteaker Neighborhood - Work party. A collaboration between citizen volunteers, Whiteaker Community Council, Walama Restoration Project and City of Eugene Stream Team
The Prom - A Community Event to encourage greater local culture and self reliance - City supports neighborhood and citizen initiative.
River Road Neighborhood Tour de Coop - Neighbors visit a number of homes with chickens. Chickens and other poultry provide eggs, eat unwanted insects and slugs and add to soil fertility.
A School Garden, constructed with help from The School Garden Project, attracts media attention and teaches self reliance skills to students. Caesar Chavez Elementary School, Eugene.
St. Thomas Episcopal church, Fotos of Grass Roots Garden. A collaboration between the St. Thomas Church, Food For Lane County and Master Gardeners. Many gardening skills workshops take place here. It is a popular location for community service. Foto Credit to SOFT.
Center for Appropriate Transportation -CAT - Local manufacture of human powered machines, teaching useful skills, empowering the community.
River Road Neighborhood - Great example of neighborhood initiative to clean up a filbert grove with logistical and material support from Eugene Stream Team. City and neighborhood collaborations can be a big part of building a more resilient Eugene.