2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

262 Strengthening Communities with Neighborhood Data
City of Cornelius, and the Jackson Bottom Wetland Preserve. Centro
Cultural would work with Verde to create a new green jobs training program
for local residents that would also perform maintenance for the
alley’s proposed bioswales and rain garden. In 2011 the project, which is
currently under development, was awarded $322,234 with a total project
cost of $1.2 million.
These are just three examples (and there are many more) of the kinds
of projects made possible by the Nature in Neighborhoods Capital
Grants Program that was funded by Metro’s 2006 natural areas bond
measure. Unlike the regional and municipal components of the bond
measure, which had preidentified projects, the capital grants program
has the flexibility not only to respond to unanticipated opportunities
(which the other two components of the bond measure cannot), but
also to respond directly to the needs of individual communities at the
neighborhood level in new and creative ways. As the program builds
on its outreach strategy by targeting park-deficient neighborhoods and
strategic partners, the number of innovative projects and partnerships
has increased, bringing it closer to its potential annual allocation.
Concluding Observations
The environmental findings of the Regional Equity Atlas were first used
by CLF and Audubon to lobby for a neighborhood-focused capital grants
component to the 2006 natural areas bond measure. The strength of
their arguments rested on the objectivity of the data and analyses that the
university provided. Their persuasiveness can also be attributed to the
intimate knowledge that Labbe, in particular, had gained in helping to
develop, with the Portland State University GIS analyst, the metrics and
analytical framework for the environmental aspects of the Atlas. That
work and Labbe’s expertise as a conservationist allowed him to credibly
wear two hats (that of analyst and that of advocate) in the context
of arguing for the inclusion of equity as a foundation of the 2006 bond
measure.
The Atlas analyses found an equity dimension to parks access in that
many of the most park-deficient areas were in low-income neighborhoods
populated by ethnic and racial minorities. With the Regional Equity
Atlas initiative, CLF, the Audubon Society of Portland, and others were
able to effectively demonstrate that social equity (focused on income and