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Geov Parrish in this week's Seattle Weekly has bought the city's line about a new push to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
To which I have only one question: Where the hell have you guys been?Don't get me wrong. I love that first Nickels and now Sims have put themselves among the forefront of local elected officials around the country who are trying to help pick up the slack for the truly criminal failure of the Bush administration to do anything to curb global warming.
Would that it were true. Major American cities have been signing on wholesale to plans to try and make their cities Kyoto Protocol compliant, but by and large it's all just hot air. Take our sister-city to the south, Portland, Oregon. Last year, a division of the mayor's office called the Office of Sustainable Development announced that Portland had that year managed to achieve Kyoto standards by reducing carbon emissions to their 1990 levels in a tidy little report that was short on details and long on self-praise. We smelled a rat and looked into it, and sure enough, the claim was pretty much bogus spin.
First, the area that became Kyoto compliant included only the city's urban core and Multnomah County, in which most of the city sits. But the Portland Metro area includes large parts of three counties: Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington Counties. And according to Census data, most of the development in the Portland Metro area over the last 15 years hasn't been in Multnomah County--that county's population only increased by 15.12%, while Clackamas County's grew by 30.28% and Washington County's by a whopping 56.72%. And what about those counties' emissions data? Nowhere to be found. Turns out, you can't actually get good emissions data from anyone, including the EPA. But we've got a sinking suspicion it's not doing as well as in downtown Portland. Commute times in Washington County have increased over the last 15 years, despite a $1 billion west side light rail line that was supposed to help congestion (sound familiar anyone?).
But downtown Portland's getting better at least, as long as you don't like kids. Because the percentage of children in Multnomah County, which is largely suburban, is decreasing as the population increases. Why? Well, most of downtown has been turned into condos (sound familiar again?). And those condo-dwelling, childless young urban professionals are getting all the amenities, including a nifty streetcar line that was used to spur development in the now infamous Pearl District and adjacent communities. (Can anyone say South Lake Union?)
And as condos go in and housing prices rise, a largely urban community becomes more energy efficient, it's true. But families and working class jobs are fleeing in droves. To wit: Vancouver, Washington, long considered Portland's extra suburb, lies in Clark County, Washington. During the last 15 years, the population has boomed. By 64.84%. And it also has the lowest median homes values of the four counties, the second lowest median rents, and the highest percentage of population under the age of 25 and growing.
So sure, a city full of condo-owning yuppies with no kids who work in clean tech sector office buildings pollutes a lot less. Just, we're wondering where Nickels, Sims & Co. expect families to go? All we know for sure is that when those pesky polluting normal people are gone, Nickels will gladly bask in the undeserved media glow for having helped the environment, or at least the environment where his voters live.
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