At Partners’ recent forum on September 22, “Building Livable Communities: Creating a Common Agenda”, many discussed livability’s ubiquitous nature on both macro and micro levels. The panelists spoke of the need for access and affordability to the many factors that serve as part of a system to create livable communities: transportation, housing, and education, to name a few. But when does a boundless agenda for livability, incorporating all relatable factors that serve to shape a livable community, become unproductive? In brief, what is the ‘tipping point’ for livability?
On a macro level, and in the world of federal policy, livability serves to influence a new interdepartmental partnership, the trifecta of US DOT, EPA, and HUD, the Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities. On a micro level, and in the world of the full-time mother and father, livability serves to shape their opinion on the minivan versus the metro to drop the kids off at school. Livability is simply applicable, to everything. “Livability,” a contemporary buzz-word assigned by Congress and the urban design world alike, has been defined by Partners since the organization’s inception in 1977 as, “The sum of the factors that add-up to a community’s quality of life.”
Beth Osborne and James Lopez, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, were speakers on the first panel and represented ⅔ of the newly formed trifecta. Announced in June 2009, the Partnership is a Smart Growth initiative to help improve access to affordable housing and more transportation options, while effectively reducing environmental impact on communities nationwide. Osborne discussed that the newly-formed trifecta represents a shift from the traditional mode of thinking: departments of the government that previously operated within their own silos are now breaking-down barriers to incorporate more systemic planning.
The partnership, Mr. Lopez stated, blends principles of livability standards while creating an agency of sustainability. The trifecta is bringing these principles to life by managing initiatives such as Recovery Through Retrofitting, Green and Healthy Homes, and Urban Waters. Lopez states that we always put the responsibility [to act] on other departments; “DOT is [the department] responsible for transportation, not us [HUD].” But it is time that we surpass the limitations created by an agency’s defined principles and take responsibility for national and local problems at hand; to link with agencies that do have the tools to enact a solution, and create a real interagency collaboration.
Lastly, Lopez states that we all have to do things, and that interagency work is defined by actions, and dependent on leadership (read about the Partnership's year in review including primary accomplishments in the Partnership for Sustainable Communities: A Year of Progress for American Communities (PDF) released this month October 2010).
As many believe that these partnerships are becoming more viable and effective in producing national livability agendas, there begins a torrent of inquiries regarding departments that have been left-out of the mix. But isn’t there a point when the bottom of the bag breaks, and its durable fabric is no longer deemed as structurally sound— or is it just that we added too much weight to the bag?
There are always defined limitations to productivity —so what are the limitations, or the parameters, for how we create a livability agenda on a Federal and local level? A question asked by an audience member provoked these broader-themed thoughts. The question was directed to the first series of panelists; specifically to Rachel Goslins, executive director of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. The audience member inquired about a missing collaboration between the President’s Committee and the Health Field in which she works.
As Goslins paused to begin naming some possible arts-health collaborations, Osborne quickly steered the discussion towards what she believed was the broader theme: “So what about ______ (blank)?” 'Livability' has become this pivotal word igniting people from all sectors to join together in the unity for a better and more livable community, Osborne stated. However, while livability prides itself on a 100% community participation to success ratio, partnerships have limitations for success when too many partners come together to form one initiative.
Osborne continued, The Trifecta has sparked great interest along this new mode of thinking; overlapping departments in a much-needed effort to break the silos. But there began an endless chorus of “what about _____ (blank)?” Well, it is impossible to fill the blank, she stated. We must all invest in partnerships both as a whole and as multiple alliances which share information. If the arts connect to the health field, then so do transportation, housing, the environment, education, and more. There must be a tipping point for effectiveness, and we must be strategic about how we create alliances between departments that will only benefit from collaboration rather than hinder productivity.
So what if we held a town meeting, in its most simplest of forms, that attempted to give each player in the city planning process an open platform to express their specific ideas and needs for the city plan? We would be in the meeting for days on end… with no bathroom breaks. In urban planning’s most nascent stages, we solved the problem of insurmountable planning agendas by creating sub-committees devoted to areas of expertise. But on the other hand, after time these sub committees, or Federal Departments HUD, DOT, and EPA, become isolated in their own silos of thinking.
We need to find a balance between deconstructing those departmental silos to function in affinity with the other (just as the functioning of our daily lives relies on using a shared system of housing, transportation, and the environment), but not over-loading our livability agendas. So what is the best strategy for utilizing our time, energy, and resources in building these partnerships, and ultimately, what is the ‘tipping point’? We find out by trial and error; keeping close watch on the newly formed Interagency Partnership for Sustainability will help showcase how this process can work most effectively. We recognize that this mode of thinking is just on the crux of developing a revolutionary framework for creating livable communities.