Time was when a societal reference to “green” mainly meant hard-core, environmental activism. It conjured up the Sierra Club, pricey solar panels and visceral opposition to the pave-over-paradise crowd. And it connoted trade-offs: What’s the economic downside to tree-hugging naiveté?
That time has long passed, says Portland, Ore., economist Joe Cortright. He’s the author of “Portland’s Green Dividend,” a study that extols the benefits of smart transportation and land-planning policies.
In a telephone interview before his recent “smart-growth planning” address to a Tampa business luncheon, Cortright gave green a more contemporary context.
“The rhetoric around green has been one of ‘noble self-sacrifice,'” said Cortright. “Noble, but not economic. People foregoing consumption and giving up stuff to better the environment. The hair shirt environmentalists, if you will.
“But we’ve come to realize,” he emphasized, “that green wasn’t just a good idea. It was also good business.”
And Portland, of course, could be Exhibit A. To liberally paraphrase Gordon Gecko: “Green is good in Portland.”
“We haven’t achieved Nirvana, but a base-level of agreement on priorities,” noted Cortright. In effect, the combination of mass transit and anti-sprawl land-planning have saved Portland money and fashioned its progressive identity.
According to Cortright, Portlanders are experiencing more than $2.5 billion annually in green dividends, which is money that gets re-invested in the local economy. These savings derive from a steady reduction in vehicle miles traveled per person. In the Portland region, the cost now averages $20 per person per day; $24 is the national average. Houston, for example, is $40. The Tampa Bay region is $28. And with oil ratcheting toward $100 a barrel, the dividends should grow commensurately.
Cortright’s message to locals is encouraging – and blunt.
Tampa Bay, he acknowledged, is not Portland and reflects newer housing patterns and much more sprawl. Having said that, Cortright underscored that making major inroads in smart growth is “definitely doable.”
“There is stuff you can do short-term,” he explained, “such as where you choose to live (i.e. the urban cores) and how you encourage mixed-use development and afford opportunities for people to live closer to where they work. Employers can encourage telecommuting. And in the longer term, there’s transit. All of this moves you in the right direction.”
On the other hand, what if politics and parochialism continue their short-sighted impact and the Tampa Bay region never gets the religion of smart transportation and land-planning policies?
“Well, you’ll pay the price,” warned Cortright.