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A Visit from Sejong, South Korea, "Asia's Green Metropolis of the Future"
A smattering of images from our study tour with delegates from MACCA, Sejong, South Korea's administrative agency.
SPECIAL REPORT FROM MALAYSIA: From Black Clad Pirates to Green Urban Growth
Submitted by:
Rex Burkholder,
Metro Councilor, District 5
Malaysia. The Spice Islands. The Straits of Malacca. Tropical seas and jungles. Pirates? So yesteryear!
Today, Malaysia is in the center of the most dynamic economy in the world--Chindia. With over 3 billion people and a growing middle class, Chindia is wrestling with reconciling the twin objectives of raising average incomes while protecting and restoring the environment. Penang itself is a bustling center of international high technology companies and high rises alongside the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Georgetown (where Jimmy Choo got his start!).
Through First Stop Portland, I was invited by the World Bank Institute to join a forum on Greening Urban Growth in Penang, Malaysia with 50 or so other participants from around the globe.
The summit included elected leaders from Korea, Vietnam, China, India, Malaysia and the Philippines, along with top World Bank economists and planners from as far away as Spain and as close as Singapore. The diverse group reflected the global economy as well as the long history of Malaysia in world trade with its own population mix of Malay, Chinese, Indian and Europeans.The story of Asia’s incredible shift from unstable, poverty-ridden continent to economic superpower is well known, as are the stories of horrifying pollution and destroyed ecologies. But there is a remarkable transformation underway.
Metro Councilor Rex Burkeholder (back row center, in brown jacket) with Kim Cuenco, World Bank Institute
This forum was organized by The Growth Dialogue (USA) and Think City (Malaysia) and supported by the sovereign wealth fund of Malaysia, Khazana Nasional, in order to describe and define a “New Model” of economic/ecologic development.Andrew Sheng, President of the Fung Global Institute (Hong Kong), summarized the issues this way:
Let me illustrate with the story told by Joo Bon-Hyeon, former vice-Mayor of Ulsan, South Korea. Ulsan was the miracle city. A seaside swamp 50 years ago, it became the center of the Korean chemical and petroleum industries and a major city. Along the way, it also became so polluted that only those desperate enough for jobs would live there. The river was devoid of life and dangerously contaminated, the air noxious to breathe. A decade ago, the city committed to change, recognizing that the heedless money-making was destroying the very ability to live. Cleaning up the water and air became the number one priority of Ulsan. Now, less than a generation later, there are fish have returned to the river and people are returning to the city. Part of this effort was finding uses for the industrial byproducts that were once just dumped—what Sheng referred to as the Circular Economy.
In the classic First Stop Portland style of relationship building, as a result of my visit, Hamdan Abdul Majeed Executive Director of Think City, a project of the Khazanah Nasional fund, will be visiting Portland at the end of April as part of an Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship. I hope to see many other participants in the coming years, as there is a lot of interest in Portland’s story--even on the shores of the Andaman Sea!
When the World Bank Institute was looking for a local expert to share Portland's livability story, they called First Stop Portland. Special thanks to Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder for answering the call and submitting this account of his visit.
Rex Burkholder,
Metro Councilor, District 5
Malaysia. The Spice Islands. The Straits of Malacca. Tropical seas and jungles. Pirates? So yesteryear!
Today, Malaysia is in the center of the most dynamic economy in the world--Chindia. With over 3 billion people and a growing middle class, Chindia is wrestling with reconciling the twin objectives of raising average incomes while protecting and restoring the environment. Penang itself is a bustling center of international high technology companies and high rises alongside the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Georgetown (where Jimmy Choo got his start!).
Through First Stop Portland, I was invited by the World Bank Institute to join a forum on Greening Urban Growth in Penang, Malaysia with 50 or so other participants from around the globe.
The summit included elected leaders from Korea, Vietnam, China, India, Malaysia and the Philippines, along with top World Bank economists and planners from as far away as Spain and as close as Singapore. The diverse group reflected the global economy as well as the long history of Malaysia in world trade with its own population mix of Malay, Chinese, Indian and Europeans.The story of Asia’s incredible shift from unstable, poverty-ridden continent to economic superpower is well known, as are the stories of horrifying pollution and destroyed ecologies. But there is a remarkable transformation underway.
Metro Councilor Rex Burkeholder (back row center, in brown jacket) with Kim Cuenco, World Bank Institute
This forum was organized by The Growth Dialogue (USA) and Think City (Malaysia) and supported by the sovereign wealth fund of Malaysia, Khazana Nasional, in order to describe and define a “New Model” of economic/ecologic development.Andrew Sheng, President of the Fung Global Institute (Hong Kong), summarized the issues this way:
- The first “great transformation” –an unrepeatable bonanza created by capitalist institutions and methods combined with fossil fuels
- Spreading worldwide and driven by Chindia, incredible growth in incomes. There will be 6 billion mid-income, urban people by 2050, up from 1 billion in 2000.
- Western model of industrial capitalism cannot “scale” to meet needs of 6 billion middle class consumers, so we need a new model of growth.
- This new model is being developed, particularly by China, emulated by India and Brazil.
- “New Model” is based on changes to:a. Energy Markets—renewables the default optionb. Resources/commodities re-circulated (Circular Economy)c. Finance: from generic to targeted eco-finance
Let me illustrate with the story told by Joo Bon-Hyeon, former vice-Mayor of Ulsan, South Korea. Ulsan was the miracle city. A seaside swamp 50 years ago, it became the center of the Korean chemical and petroleum industries and a major city. Along the way, it also became so polluted that only those desperate enough for jobs would live there. The river was devoid of life and dangerously contaminated, the air noxious to breathe. A decade ago, the city committed to change, recognizing that the heedless money-making was destroying the very ability to live. Cleaning up the water and air became the number one priority of Ulsan. Now, less than a generation later, there are fish have returned to the river and people are returning to the city. Part of this effort was finding uses for the industrial byproducts that were once just dumped—what Sheng referred to as the Circular Economy.
In the classic First Stop Portland style of relationship building, as a result of my visit, Hamdan Abdul Majeed Executive Director of Think City, a project of the Khazanah Nasional fund, will be visiting Portland at the end of April as part of an Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship. I hope to see many other participants in the coming years, as there is a lot of interest in Portland’s story--even on the shores of the Andaman Sea!
When the World Bank Institute was looking for a local expert to share Portland's livability story, they called First Stop Portland. Special thanks to Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder for answering the call and submitting this account of his visit.
Kansas City: Visting Portland is a "Smart Move"
This week an article in the Independence, MO daily newspaper headlined County Keeps Rail Plan on Track informed readers that “officials are trying to figure out which ideas from cities across the country are the best to borrow when planning business development along those routes.” The same week, transportation authorities in Jackson County, Missouri convened a series of workshops to get a sense of what locals think about the land use and economic development potential related to a proposed commuter rail line along the regions highly trafficked and increasingly congested interstate highways. Meanwhile, one of the municipalities in the corridor allocated $18,000 to a region-wide outreach program intended to educate and engage the Kansas City’s auto-centric populace in the regional transit planning process.
It would appear that transit has found some traction in Kansas City once again.
Kansas City has a rich transit history (which you can read accounts of here and, of course, here). As the story goes, until the 1960s, Kansas City had one of the leading transit systems in America. Alas, like many American cities in the post war period, the rise of the automobile and the spread of suburbanization (read : white flight) took their toll and the rail lines were dismantled. Currently one of the most decentralized regions in the country, Kansas City’s transit advocates have been working for decades to keep their city from being regarded as the “Los Angeles of the Midwest.” Now local leaders like Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders and Kansas City Mayor Sly James are listening. They acknowledge that automobile dependency and urban sprawl have taken a toll on their region and are supporting transit-- and the development that oftentimes comes along with it--to help make Kansas City a more equitable, economically thriving, and environmentally sustainable place.
[Note: for those of you unfamiliar with the place, you can get a primer on the whos, whats and wheres of Kansas City (the city) vs Kansas City (the region) here. Since we’re talking about regional transit, you can assume we’re referring to the latter.]
Currently, partnership between Jackson County, Missouri; Kansas City, Missouri; the regional MPO (MARC); and the urban transit authority (KCATA) is working to develop and implement the Smart Moves transit plan for the region. Three projects are currently in the preliminary research phases: two suburban commuter rail lines and one urban streetcar. Given that things like public participation in transit design, regional transit planning, complex public-private partnerships and interjurisdictional collaboration are widely touted as what makes Portland’s transit system work, it's no surprise project leaders looked to Portland during their FTA-funded Alternatives Analysis process. As part of their study, advisors on the commuter rail projects toured Portland with First Stop last week to meet with local experts and ride the rails. According to their feedback, they were quite impressed --and surprised-- by what they heard and saw.
At the outset of their day, the delegation peppered local experts with technical questions like “What do your partnership agreements look like?” and “How do you balance design ideals with ridership demands?” But by the end of the day, questions like “What should we do to avoid the mistakes you’ve made?” and “What would you do if you were in our shoes?” prompted presenters to share the wisdom gained from their experiences over three decades of transit planning and development.
During a presentation at ZGF, architect Charles Kelley explained that the keys to Portland’s transit success lie in it’s strong intergovernmental relationships, the relationship between policy and practice, placemaking programs that support both ridership and neighborhoods, strong public-private partnerships, a culture of civic engagement and... stewardship. “Stewardship?” inquired one of the visitors. “What do you mean by stewardship?” Thinking his explanation would relate to protection of our natural environment, I was surprised when Kelley replied, without missing a beat, “It’s about a vision, a shared understanding of who’s responsible for the future.”
This idea was echoed throughout the day, including during a ride up to OHSU on the Aerial Tram. When one of the delegation members remarked, “The people of Kansas City would never let us a build something like this,” local expert Sharon Kelley, HDR, pointed out that the people in Portland weren’t always behind the tram project, either, but local leadership stayed focused on the larger vision for the South Waterfront and worked to bring it to fruition. This sentiment was reinforced at a meeting with Metro Councilor Rex Burkeholder, who shared that an integrated, long-term vision is the key to withstanding the sturm and drang of local political cycles.
Since they are planning rail to the suburbs, a ride on the West Side Blue Line MAX was essential. From the costs of tunneling beneath Washington Park to sometimes tricky relationship between cities like Hillsboro and Portland, to the pros and cons of New Urbanist developments like Orenco Station, former project planing director for TriMet, Phil Selinger, shared what worked and what didn’t along Portland’s inaugural attempt at light rail transit. But nothing was so eye opening along the tour as the group’s visit to The Round at Beaverton Center, where they talked with Don Mazziotti, Community Development Director for the City of Beaverton, who explained in no uncertain terms what happens when developments go wrong. Mazziotti encouraged them not to take things at face value: projects that look economically viable might be more a mixed-bag when assessed through a variety of critical lenses. “Look for opportunities that already exist and be willing to resist prevailing politics,” he encouraged. The visitors were surprised by his candor: “Folks are so frank here. I think we're learning more from hearing about your mistakes than your successes!”
The delegation was excited when they finally made it to the Beaverton Transit Center for a ride on WES Commuter Rail. Although the alternative analysis process mandates that they must evaluate all reasonable alternatives in a given corridor, Kansas City’s leadership has been set for some time on the idea of building DMU (diesel powered) commuter lines, similar to WES, that run along existing railway tracks. Kelly and Selinger shared their experiences with WES, including the challenges the project had faced and cautioned that heavy rail doesn’t necessarily spawn the type of TOD as other types of transit rail projects. The delegation walked around the Tigard WES station, experiencing firsthand the relationship between the train and its surroundings. Comments like “It’s much bigger and louder than I thought it would be...” were not uncommon.
Later, the delegation shared the day’s experiences over dinner with sustainability guru Dennis Wilde, Gerding Edlen. Yes, they acknowledged, Portland has many tools to offer Kansas City, such as market analysis, site analysis, forecasting models and ridership analysis. But perhaps more notable, they observed, were the ways that hearing the stories and discussing projects with folks who’d been involved actually shifted their perceptions about their own rail project. Wilde suggested they take what they’d learned a step further, urging them not to adhere to a TOD vision just because some rail tracks already run through a place. Engage stakeholders, he advised, not simply to get them to agree to an already developed idea but ask their opinions and engage them as your own local experts. Furthermore, he cautioned delegation members against the “if you build it, they will come” mentality, encouraging them to work within their local context rather than trying to change it. “Base your vision for the future on the values that already exist in your place.”
It would appear that transit has found some traction in Kansas City once again.
Kansas City has a rich transit history (which you can read accounts of here and, of course, here). As the story goes, until the 1960s, Kansas City had one of the leading transit systems in America. Alas, like many American cities in the post war period, the rise of the automobile and the spread of suburbanization (read : white flight) took their toll and the rail lines were dismantled. Currently one of the most decentralized regions in the country, Kansas City’s transit advocates have been working for decades to keep their city from being regarded as the “Los Angeles of the Midwest.” Now local leaders like Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders and Kansas City Mayor Sly James are listening. They acknowledge that automobile dependency and urban sprawl have taken a toll on their region and are supporting transit-- and the development that oftentimes comes along with it--to help make Kansas City a more equitable, economically thriving, and environmentally sustainable place.
[Note: for those of you unfamiliar with the place, you can get a primer on the whos, whats and wheres of Kansas City (the city) vs Kansas City (the region) here. Since we’re talking about regional transit, you can assume we’re referring to the latter.]
Currently, partnership between Jackson County, Missouri; Kansas City, Missouri; the regional MPO (MARC); and the urban transit authority (KCATA) is working to develop and implement the Smart Moves transit plan for the region. Three projects are currently in the preliminary research phases: two suburban commuter rail lines and one urban streetcar. Given that things like public participation in transit design, regional transit planning, complex public-private partnerships and interjurisdictional collaboration are widely touted as what makes Portland’s transit system work, it's no surprise project leaders looked to Portland during their FTA-funded Alternatives Analysis process. As part of their study, advisors on the commuter rail projects toured Portland with First Stop last week to meet with local experts and ride the rails. According to their feedback, they were quite impressed --and surprised-- by what they heard and saw.
At the outset of their day, the delegation peppered local experts with technical questions like “What do your partnership agreements look like?” and “How do you balance design ideals with ridership demands?” But by the end of the day, questions like “What should we do to avoid the mistakes you’ve made?” and “What would you do if you were in our shoes?” prompted presenters to share the wisdom gained from their experiences over three decades of transit planning and development.
During a presentation at ZGF, architect Charles Kelley explained that the keys to Portland’s transit success lie in it’s strong intergovernmental relationships, the relationship between policy and practice, placemaking programs that support both ridership and neighborhoods, strong public-private partnerships, a culture of civic engagement and... stewardship. “Stewardship?” inquired one of the visitors. “What do you mean by stewardship?” Thinking his explanation would relate to protection of our natural environment, I was surprised when Kelley replied, without missing a beat, “It’s about a vision, a shared understanding of who’s responsible for the future.”
This idea was echoed throughout the day, including during a ride up to OHSU on the Aerial Tram. When one of the delegation members remarked, “The people of Kansas City would never let us a build something like this,” local expert Sharon Kelley, HDR, pointed out that the people in Portland weren’t always behind the tram project, either, but local leadership stayed focused on the larger vision for the South Waterfront and worked to bring it to fruition. This sentiment was reinforced at a meeting with Metro Councilor Rex Burkeholder, who shared that an integrated, long-term vision is the key to withstanding the sturm and drang of local political cycles.
Since they are planning rail to the suburbs, a ride on the West Side Blue Line MAX was essential. From the costs of tunneling beneath Washington Park to sometimes tricky relationship between cities like Hillsboro and Portland, to the pros and cons of New Urbanist developments like Orenco Station, former project planing director for TriMet, Phil Selinger, shared what worked and what didn’t along Portland’s inaugural attempt at light rail transit. But nothing was so eye opening along the tour as the group’s visit to The Round at Beaverton Center, where they talked with Don Mazziotti, Community Development Director for the City of Beaverton, who explained in no uncertain terms what happens when developments go wrong. Mazziotti encouraged them not to take things at face value: projects that look economically viable might be more a mixed-bag when assessed through a variety of critical lenses. “Look for opportunities that already exist and be willing to resist prevailing politics,” he encouraged. The visitors were surprised by his candor: “Folks are so frank here. I think we're learning more from hearing about your mistakes than your successes!”
The delegation was excited when they finally made it to the Beaverton Transit Center for a ride on WES Commuter Rail. Although the alternative analysis process mandates that they must evaluate all reasonable alternatives in a given corridor, Kansas City’s leadership has been set for some time on the idea of building DMU (diesel powered) commuter lines, similar to WES, that run along existing railway tracks. Kelly and Selinger shared their experiences with WES, including the challenges the project had faced and cautioned that heavy rail doesn’t necessarily spawn the type of TOD as other types of transit rail projects. The delegation walked around the Tigard WES station, experiencing firsthand the relationship between the train and its surroundings. Comments like “It’s much bigger and louder than I thought it would be...” were not uncommon.
Later, the delegation shared the day’s experiences over dinner with sustainability guru Dennis Wilde, Gerding Edlen. Yes, they acknowledged, Portland has many tools to offer Kansas City, such as market analysis, site analysis, forecasting models and ridership analysis. But perhaps more notable, they observed, were the ways that hearing the stories and discussing projects with folks who’d been involved actually shifted their perceptions about their own rail project. Wilde suggested they take what they’d learned a step further, urging them not to adhere to a TOD vision just because some rail tracks already run through a place. Engage stakeholders, he advised, not simply to get them to agree to an already developed idea but ask their opinions and engage them as your own local experts. Furthermore, he cautioned delegation members against the “if you build it, they will come” mentality, encouraging them to work within their local context rather than trying to change it. “Base your vision for the future on the values that already exist in your place.”
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A specialist in distance education at PSU since 1996, Barbara Maidel oversees the day-to-day administration of the Criminology and Criminal Justice On