Dynamic Plenaries

Outliers: The Story of Equitable Development Success

Thursday Kick-off Plenary • 10:00 – 11:45 AM

The methods for making our communities sustainable are expansive and include approaches like equitable development. Today, equitable development embodies the ongoing commitment to encourage fairness in planning and development practice to ensure everyone has a safe and healthy environment in which to live, work and play. Although conversations about social equity in the context of the built environment seemed elusive in years past, this dynamic plenary will feature a dialogue about equitable development through a “Golden Age” of community place-making where experts are realizing that good redevelopment and meeting the needs of underserved communities can no longer afford to be mutually exclusive.

Keynote

Ron Sims,
Civic Volunteer Active in Health, Education, Environmental and Social Equity Issues

Response Panel

Moderator: Rukaiya Adams
Chief Investment Officer, Meyer Memorial Trust

Glenn Harris
President, Center for Social Inclusion

Chris Benner
Ph.D., Professor, Environmental Studies and Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz

Resilient Recovery and Sustainable Redevelopment: Making the Connections, Making Progress

Thursday Keynote Lunch Presentation • 12:20 – 1:00 PM

The federal government is changing the way it works with communities. Coordinating diverse resources in specific places will leverage resources and make it easier for locals to have meaningful input. More federal aid is also being allocated through competitions. Learn how you can take advantage of these trends to improve your communities. Three federal programs illustrate this new approach to supporting smart growth and sustainability. The ongoing evolution of EPA’s Brownfields program and the new “Making a Visible Difference in Communities Strategy” are re-aligning the EPA’s programs to better meet the needs of underserved communities and achieve equitable outcomes. At the same time, HUD is working to transform the way local partners use disaster-recovery funds. Discover innovative approaches that their National Disaster Resilience Competition grantees are using to connect unmet recovery needs with larger environmental and equity challenges.

Introductions

Neil McFarlane
TriMet General Manager

Speakers

Mathy Stanislaus,
Associate Administrator, US EPA, Office of Land and Emergency Management

Michelle Pirzadeh,
Deputy Regional Administrator, US EPA, Region 10

Danielle Arigoni
Acting Director, Office of Economic Resilience, HUD

America’s Grand Strategy Starts With Community Leadership

Friday Keynote Plenary • 8:30 – 9:45 AM

The Pentagon and the Department of Defense have called climate change a top security threat. Retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Mark “Puck” Mykleby has co-authored “A National Strategic Narrative” that calls for a new U.S. grand strategy with sustainability as the central foundation for developing a more prosperous and secure nation. This new grand strategy calls for community leadership to advance walkability, smart-growth housing, regenerative and organic agriculture, and a productivity revolution focused on reducing resource intensity. Mykleby will discuss the national imperative behind these community initiatives and strategies for public and private partnerships to advance America’s next Grand Strategy.

Speaker

Mark “Puck” Mykleby
Colonel (retired),U.S. Marine Corps; Co-founder, Strategic Innovation Lab, Case Western University

Private Sector Solutions for Public Benefit Projects

Saturday Morning Plenary Panel • 8:30 – 10:00 AM

Local governments are taking on greater responsibility – from addressing climate change to accommodating increasing demands from a growing population – at a time when they are facing a multitude of fiscal constraints. Funding from state and federal aid and sales tax is declining and infrastructure improvements and maintenance (often already long deferred) are lagging. As the old proverb goes, “necessity is the mother of invention”— the public sector will be pushed to whole new levels of ingenuity to sustainably accommodate growth and meet escalating infrastructure needs. Kate Meis will set the stage for this discussion highlighting the challenges of funding critical public infrastructure and how these challenges are helping to drive new private-sector partnerships. Following her presentation, Sacramento City Councilmember Steve Hansen will facilitate a conversation between Santa Monica City Manager Rick Cole and Peter Luchetti, Vice Chair of the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank and Founder of Table Rock Capital, around opportunities they see (from the public- and private-sector perspectives) to develop private-sector partnerships and solutions to fund public-benefit projects.

Speakers

Kate Meis
Executive Director, Local Government Commission

Steve Hansen
Councilmember, City of Sacramento

Peter Luchetti
Founder, Table Rock Capital; Vice Chair, California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank

Rick Cole
City Manager, City of Santa Monica, CA

The Making of a Healthy City

Saturday Closing Plenary • 3:15 – 4:00 PM

A National Geographic Fellow and bestselling author, Dan Buettner has discovered, through multiple expeditions with teams of research scientists specializing in population studies, the five places in the world – dubbed “Blue Zones” – where people live the longest, and are healthiest and happiest. They found that the lifestyles of all Blue Zones residents shared nine specific characteristics – the Power 9^®. In 2009, Buettner and his partner, AARP, applied principles of The Blue Zones to Albert Lea, Minnesota, and successfully raised life expectancy and lowered health care costs by some 40%. He’s currently working with Healthways to implement the Blue Zones Project in 17 cities throughout America. Blue Zones works with a diverse group of stakeholders to create an action plan for communities to change their environments into safe walkable, bikeable and livable communities where individuals and businesses thrive, people longer, and health and quality of life are improved.

Speaker

Dan Buettner
Founder and CEO, Blue Zones, LLC; National Geographic Fellow; multiple New York Times bestselling author