E-Perspective: Environment

• The Challenge: Preserving the Bay Area's Environment
• Sustainability: How Does It Help Protect the Environment?
• The Participation of the Environmental Community

"Our quality of life in the Bay Area requires us to creatively link environmental protection and social equity to economic growth. The Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Communities is an important player in making that happen."

-Tom Steinbach, Executive Director, Greenbelt Alliance

The Challenge: Preserving The Bay Area's Environment

The nine-county Bay Area is home to one of the most stunning and varied natural environments in the world. Its physical beauty, coupled with a booming economy and thriving job market, make the region an extremely attractive place to live. As a result, the Bay Area has experienced significant population growth over the past decades and the environment has been acutely affected. Among the challenges are:

• Continued loss of natural habitat, open space, and wetlands.
• Increased degradation of water and air quality.
• Air pollution caused largely by mounting traffic congestion.
• Constant and growing pressure to develop at the fringes of the Bay Area, resulting in urban sprawl.
• Low density development not supported by transit and other services.
• An insufficient public transit system.

These trends and conditions present difficult challenges that could have serious effects on the quality of the Bay Area's environment. The initiatives and actions supported by the Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Communities (Bay Area Alliance) address the region's environmental challenges by integrating environmental goals with the goals of business and social equity stakeholders, and by gaining meaningful participation from community leaders and government agencies. Collaboration among all these elements must be achieved in order to compel a "critical mass" of civic leaders to act in a manner that will ultimately benefit and protect the environment.

Sustainability: How does it help protect the environment?

Using the sustainable development framework, environmental, economic, and social equity stakeholders work together with governmental leaders and regulatory agencies to build a prosperous and healthy region. And, surprisingly to some, the goals of these interests are far more similar than they might appear. Consider the following proposals advanced by the Bay Area Alliance that benefit and protect the environment and also benefit economic and social equity interests:

• High density housing mechanisms such as second units and group housing: Limits urban sprawl, uses land more efficiently, and preserves habitats and open space while providing housing to a workforce of various income levels.
• Planning residential development near transit services: Increases use of public transit leading to reduced traffic congestion and air pollution, and provides housing and convenient transit options to a growing workforce of all income levels.
• Developing collaborative plans that set priorities for natural resource preservation: Protects and restores natural habitats, wetlands and open space.
• Supporting public-private partnerships to improve efficiency of environmental regulations: Improves the performance and enforcement of environmental regulations by implementing a collaborative process.
• Investing in a coordinated, cost-effective public transit system: Provides effective, convenient and realistic transportation and commute options to all people, reducing time consuming traffic congestion and air pollution.
• Investing in a safe and convenient network of bicycle and pedestrian facilities that link residential, commercial, and recreational area's and transit: Provides realistic, zero-pollution transportation alternatives to driving.
• Revitalizing underused or deteriorated areas near employment centers: Reduces urban sprawl, uses land efficiently, and addresses environmental clean-up in low income areas while raising the standard of living for disadvantaged populations.

These strategies and actions address some of the most difficult, threatening and fast-moving trends affecting the Bay Area's natural surroundings and environmental health. At the same time, these kinds of approaches respond to fundamental concerns among economic and social equity stakeholders, creating a collaborative atmosphere conducive to meaningful change.

The Participation of the Environmental Community

Today, economic, environmental, and social equity interests frequently spend time, energy, and significant cost opposing each other. The results often are delayed decisions, legal settlements or legislation that fail to adequately serve environmental, economic, or social justice goals.

The Bay Area Alliance is committed, through a broad-based membership, to reducing conflicts and confrontation among these traditional adversaries by identifying shared goals and facilitating collaboration on effective actions to achieve them. By working collaboratively, sustainable development will become a welcomed way of ensuring a quality environment and a shared way of life throughout the Bay Area.

The active involvement and participation of environmental leaders is key to the success of the Bay Area Alliance. For information about how to get involved, please contact us at infoBAA@bayareaalliance.org or call (415) 352-3648.