Citiwire.net -- 5/28 -- Neal Peirce and Manuel Pastor

German City Emerges as a World Class Energy-Saver

By Neal Peirce

For Release Sunday, May 31, 2009
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group

FREIBURG — Tucked into a sunny corner of southwestern Germany, this old university town was best known until the 1970s for its massive cathedral dome, its tie to the Black Forest, and its craft of intricately carved cuckoo clocks.

Who would have thought then that early 21st century Freiburg could claim to be a world-class eco-city, leading in solar and wind power, energy-conserving home construction, rain-water management, public transit and carless neighborhood development?

Blame, if you will, authorities of the regional (state) government of Baden-Wuerttenberg. In 1975 they announced they’d build a nuclear power plant near Freiburg. No choice, they decreed, the power was needed for growth, and nuclear power was the smart modern choice.

The government had failed to reckon with local opposition — not just university faculty and students, but denizens of all ages, as well as local farmers, residents of nearby small towns. They mobilized around the construction site, tore down perimeter fences, used church bells to warn when the police were coming.

Even after the plant was cancelled, they stuck together, agreeing it wasn’t enough to say what they opposed — they had to explore where they would get their future electricity, power, heat. Would it be solar, or wind, or geothermal? Could it happen with no nuclear power, with radically less oil and coal?

Regional Equity: Exciting Cause, But Greater Than It Seems

By Manuel Pastor

For Release Sunday, May 31, 2009
Citiwire.net

It’s always great to complete a new book. And my new co-authored volume — This Could be the Start of Something Big: How Social Movements for Regional Equity are Reshaping Metropolitan America — is surely no exception.

But this book feels particularly satisfying because — oddly enough — it’s not the book we meant to write.

I’d set out out three years ago to catalog “best practices” in the field of regional equity — the various attempts by non-profits, government agencies, and some business leaders to insure that all communities get to share in successful regional economies. Joining in the research adventure were two long-time colleagues — Chris Benner, previously the research director at Working Partnerships, a labor-affiliated think tank in the Silicon Valley, and Martha Matsuoka, now a professor but once an environmental justice organizer for Urban Habitat in the San Francisco Bay Area.

All three of us had been early proponents of regional equity. Chris helped to push for living wage laws in San Jose. Martha worked for regional tax-sharing in the Bay Area. And I collaborated with L.A.-based groups to place inner city youth in jobs in the entertainment industry. Along with such groups as PolicyLink in Oakland, we had been boosters of mutually supportive regional connections. And we were all starting to feel a bit guilty.