In the current professional literature of the various fields that we as “public administrators” find ourselves, there are always discussions and articles regarding networking or sustainability and green building. On the surface they seem like two different topics but they are not mutually exclusive.
How can we put our networking skills to good use to create a more sustainable community and policies for the future? One, example is schools and sustainable planning. Recently an article in the Journal of the American Planning Association quoted some statistics for the number of children that are driven to school by their parents. According to the article “In 1969, 41% of all trips to school in the United States were made by walking or biking. By 2001, this had declined to 13%. Over the same time period, the proportion of children being driven or driving themselves to school rose from less than 20% to 55%” (McDonald and Aalborg, JAPA Vol. 75 No. 3 Summer 2009 p.331) This coupled with the fact that many schools are no longer located within walking distance for many of its students. This adds to the local traffic congestion, number of cars on the road during peak commuting hours and emissions contributing to local pollution. As planners, school officials and public safety officials, perhaps we need to get together and start thinking about putting new schools back in neighborhoods, and provide safe walking and biking lanes to enable and encourage other modes of transportation to and from school.
Additionally, allow the schools to have a duel purpose, such as using the gymnasium for Boys and Girls Club and other youth oriented organizations for their after school programs, which will save resources and put these activities in the neighborhoods, rather than building a separate building perhaps even in a different part of town for such activities. Joint library facilities for the school as well as the surrounding community by combining the public library with the school library for that neighborhood is another way to combine resources and space, that is in practice in some areas.
By using our networking skills with our planning skills, we can create communities where people can travel shorter distances to accomplish daily tasks, and provide access to students to use an alternative form of transportation to get to and from school each day.
This may be more suited to urban and even suburban areas, but every little bit we can do to work together as a community to make our communities more sustainable, will benefit us all.
