Citizen Engagement

More than six months after the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) became law, local officials are continuing to allocate, process, distribute, and make sense of how the tranches of millions of federal dollars individual cities are receiving will impact municipal operations and residents’ quality of life in the years to come.

As local governments work through the historic influx in funds, numerous factors poised to influence spending decisions are at play, including the still-pending infrastructure bill, the availability of competitive grants and even some attempts to engage residents on spending decisions.

Some state, local, territorial and tribal governments have shared details this summer and fall about the wide range of initiatives that the new funds will support, such as efforts to mitigate food deserts, replace lead service lines or create flood protection.

The $1.9 trillion plan's $350 billion in fiscal relief funds — a little over one-third of which goes to local governments specifically — was inspired by pandemic-driven financial distress. The majority of large city and state recipients had yet to spend those widely flexible dollars by early October, a recent report highlighted. Recipients have until the end of 2024 to define spending commitments, and they have until the end of 2026 to actually spend the available money.

A September 2021 survey by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), with more than 530 town, city and county manager respondents, found that among key potential spending categories — like public health needs and replacing lost revenue — water, sewer and broadband investments are receiving the most attention. Some 84% of local governments indicated they’re actively considering allotting ARPA funds for those purposes.

Many cities are moving forward with strategizing on how to maximize ARPA funds without knowing exactly when or how much they may receive to put toward infrastructure needs, specifically from a potentially similar historic windfall from a federal infrastructure package. ICMA Director of Public Policy Elizabeth Kellar said there are so many infrastructure needs that worrying about saving the more flexible ARPA funds for non-infrastructure initiatives may be overblown.

Still, Baker Tilly Principal Kate Crowley, who leads the firm’s public sector advisory practice, which works with municipalities who have solicited outside help to handle ARPA, noted that for the local governments who can afford to do so, watching and waiting could be a good move. "We are encouraging our clients to strategize and to take the time to do that," Crowley said.

For governments who can afford to wait a bit, "When the time comes that we know the details of the infrastructure bill and what will be eligible and how the monies will be available to state and local entities, that's where a strategic funding plan can come into play," Crowley said.

Still, Crowley acknowledged there are also communities "that don’t have that luxury of time" — for example, those in need of broadband infrastructure. The advice for "really any community with a critical infrastructure need that can't wait" is to "make the best decision now with the information that you have," she said.

Even with the opportunity to pay to bring in outside help, "The capacity of local governments and other stakeholders in many places is not at the scale it needs to be to organize for success, to understand the myriad of sources that are coming from the federal government, and how to match those with local priorities,” said Bruce Katz, director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University, describing a potential "delivery crisis" due to cities not being used to this kind of federal funding flow. “I think we're still [in] early days here.”

Public engagement

Philadelphia Budget Director Marisa Waxman noted during a fall 2021 National League of Cities event that the city's use of ARPA funds for revenue replacement, or "new money for old stuff," is "a little unsatisfying to the public." 

That scenario gets at a broader point on the messaging and engagement opportunity cities have.

"I think it's very important for cities to be transparent about the investment decisions that are being made. In some cases like Philadelphia, because of the fiscal shortfall, it's really important for residents to understand that a large proportion of flexible funding will go towards dealing with the budget crisis," Katz said. "And then I think what needs to be communicated is what shoring up local revenues means, and what kind of services will continue to be provided in a quality and effective way. So even when funds are being used to deal with fiscal crisis, there's still a moment for communication with residents."

Kellar shared similar sentiments, and noted the opportunity in other grants. "I feel for the cities like Philadelphia and Chicago that obviously have very serious revenue challenges, and therefore being able to use this ARPA money for those revenue needs is really important,” Kellar said. Not to be forgotten, though, are more specific grant programs that could “help them advance in areas that are otherwise not as not as much funded by ARPA.”

Outside of the calculated allotments to different municipalities, the legislation carved out numerous competitive grant opportunities. One early example is the Build Back Better Regional Challenge, meant to spur economic revitalization through collaborations in regional clusters.

If smaller communities can agree on what their competitive assets are, "They do have the ability to create wealth in this," Katz said.

Planning more equitable public spaces that are responsive to community needs could help cities recover from the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report by the nonprofit Knight Foundation and urban research and design consulting firm Gehl.

The groups studied seven public spaces in Akron, Ohio; Detroit; Philadelphia; and San Jose, California, which were supported with more than $50 million in combined funding. After evaluating those spaces, the report found that projects with quality design and resident-centered programming were more regularly used and received more positive feedback. Some 81% of respondents in a survey of over 800 people near each space said they felt they would fit in better to a space if cities incorporated community feedback. 

When public spaces and their programming are community-led, the report said, projects could have a "ripple effect" on the rest of the city, as it can help in areas like workforce development and youth engagement and contribute to broader community development and resiliency. 

The role of parks and other public spaces in cities has become increasingly important during the pandemic, as people seek ways to stay active in a socially distant way. Many cities have responded to that trend by closing certain streets to vehicle traffic, including those in parks. And while it remains to be seen whether that street closure trend will stick, some spaces, like New York's Central Park, had already committed to car-free areas before the pandemic. 

The Knight Foundation said lessons learned during the pandemic could help cities rebound and make their communities more resilient. That "ripple effect" from community-led design of public spaces, for instance, can help cities address issues like public safety, a change that the report notes took place in Centennial Park in Philadelphia.

At that site, the report said, some programming looked to engage Black men amid last summer's unrest over policing. The Detroit Riverfront's Dequindre Cut used public art to document the shared experiences of Black activists and advocates in their efforts for racial justice.

Lilly Weinberg, senior director of community and national initiatives at the Knight Foundation, said community-driven design can also touch long-standing urban issues like displacement and gentrification, while the best examples were able to adapt to the pandemic and the need to alter usage habits.

"Public spaces that were community-led… during COVID-19, they were able to be nimble, they were able to respond to the needs within their community and be able to do things that were responsive to the moment in time," she said. "Whether that meant innovative programming for socially distancing, we saw various examples of that. I think moving forward, there's a tremendous opportunity for us to lean into this moment in time."

Community-driven public space design can also foster higher rates of attachment and trust among communities of color, according to the report. For example, 79% of Black respondents near the neighborhood parks studied said the space was "special to me" compared with 70% of all respondents. However, challenges remain to fostering trust and inclusion among communities of color, particularly for Black residents, due to "legacies of disinvestment and distrust," the report writes. 

Investing in public spaces could also be easier said than done for cities in the coming years as local leaders face the potential of massive budget deficits in the aftermath of the pandemic. The National League of Cities estimates budget shortfalls of $90 billion for cities nationwide, while the annual Menino Survey of Mayors found that many foresee dramatic cuts in parks and recreation as they try and balance their books.

But Weinberg said while there are tough decisions ahead, public space and programming can have long-term benefits, especially if usage is high. 

"What I'd encourage cities to do is to look at the possibility and look at the demand and the usage that we've seen," Weinberg said. With federal funding potentially available, she added cities can use that to "think strategically for how they can capture some of the dollars within their own community to really think for the future of adaptive, more equitable public spaces."

For city leaders, it could be challenging to have the community take the lead on determining programming, as some may be used to a more top-down approach with less of an emphasis on engagement. But as an increasing number of cities look to engage residents on a variety of platforms, Weinberg said community-driven efforts can be successful, especially if cities make use of partner organizations.

"The question is, who is the right partner that's really truly trusted within that specific area, that can partner with the city and help lead this work, and convene this work," she said. "I think that would be my best advice for doing this. And then also to have some grace; this takes time. It can sometimes be messy but that it really pays off with the impact that occurs when we have community-led public spaces."

The City of San Diego Planning Department is seeking public feedback as it develops a climate resilience plan focused on preparing for sea level rise, flooding and drought, extreme heat and wildfires — risks backed up by a climate change vulnerability assessment completed early last year. The Climate Resilient SD plan would build on the city’s Climate Action Plan released in 2015.

The city conducted a survey in early 2021 seeking residents' anecdotes on how climate change has already impacted their communities and gauging residents' resilience priorities going forward. The planning department intends to analyze those responses before distributing a second survey. It aims to release a draft version of the plan in summer 2021 with a goal of submitting it to the city council for approval by the end of 2021.

Ultimately, San Diego is looking to adopt adaptation strategies to minimize the city's vulnerability to climate change hazards, thereby protecting "people, economy, infrastructure, and natural resources."

In addition to taking in public input, the San Diego Planning Department wants to educate its residents about the importance of resiliency in the face of climate change.

"Not everyone even understands the distinction between climate mitigation, which is essentially trying to reduce GHG emissions, versus what we're working on. And it's really: How do we plan our city to make sure that we're in a good position to face these threats that we know are going to happen?" said Mike Hansen, the city's planning director.

While other major cities, including Boston and New York, preceded San Diego in developing climate resilience plans, their vastly different scenario projections limit how helpful they may be as guiding lights, Hansen said.

"We actually have pretty different climates just within the city of San Diego," Hansen said, noting geographies ranging from coast to mountainous areas to agricultural lands to canyons. "So probably, compared to most major cities, we have a lot of the different 'issue areas' of climate change that we're really thinking about."

Locals largely understand the value of resilience planning, Hansen said, having experienced significant wildfires and cliff erosion in recent decades.

Planning Department Deputy Director Heidi Vonblum added, "We have a very [geographically as well as demographically] diverse jurisdiction. And one of the goals of the plan is to prioritize adaptation strategies in areas where the populations are more vulnerable to climate change with less capacity and resources to be able to easily adapt."

The public survey, available in five languages, questions residents on how to weigh goals concerning

• building a resilient and equitable city
• connecting communities and informing them about climate impacts
• recognizing the importance of, and protecting, historic and tribal cultural resources
• protecting biodiversity and preserving and restoring the natural environment

More specifically, those goals cover preparing for, responding to, recovering from, and informing the public on climate hazards; prioritizing vulnerable communities; increasing green space and natural shade; making walking, biking and recreation options more accessible; fostering connections between neighbors; preserving historic tribal cultural resources, and sharing traditional knowledge of land management and cultural significance; being able to have clean air and water and maintaining plant and animal diversity.

The importance of preempting disruptive and dangerous effects of a changing climate was again in the national spotlight in early 2021, with the power disruptions in Texas after Winter Storm Uri a shining example of the costly consequences that can occur for regions left unprepared.

"Whenever there's any kind of natural disaster, then there's quicker engagement on resilience discussions. The general population, the decision-makers — they'll all be a little bit more attuned to the fact that these plans need to be made," said Amy Bailey, director of sustainability and engagement at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES).

For cities that haven't yet leaned into resilience planning, Bailey and colleague Laura Brush, resilience lead at C2ES, hope more cities will consider future economic competitiveness implications. Brush said a report they worked on that published in October 2020 revealed minimal overlap between cities' resilience or sustainability plans and their economic development plans.

There's no singular motivator that is driving governments to pursue these plans, said Natural Resources Defense Council's Rob Moore, director of the water and climate team. But one additional economic consideration may be that rating agencies have increasingly been pressing local governments seeking bonds on how they factor future climate impacts into revenue projections.

"The writing is clearly on the wall that fortune will favor those communities who are prepared for the future," Moore said. "Given what we know about climate change, given the projections that are out there, these are now entirely foreseeable events."

Resources available to carry out resilience planning may be poised to grow. For one, multiple sources pointed to possible expansion of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, or BRIC, launched under the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2020 following the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018. The initial grant cycle, which closed at the end of January, made $500 million available for states, local governments, tribes and territories pursuing pre-disaster hazard mitigation projects.

President Joe Biden also quickly reinstated an Obama-era executive order intended to have all federal agencies prioritize climate adaptation preparations. But the new administration, for all of its emphasis on climate expertise and action thus far, does not feature a climate adaptation-specific role, Moore noted.

Coordinated efforts emerged on resilient cities in 2013 following destruction in the Northeast from Hurricane Sandy. The Rockefeller Foundation established the 100 Resilient Cities program, which in part seeded chief resilience officer positions in cities. Although the foundation ceased support for the program in 2019, citing shifting priorities, the former program president launched a new nonprofit called Resilient Cities Catalyst last year. Additionally, former member cities banded together under the Global Resilient Cities Network.

Oklahoma's third-largest city of Norman is home to the University of Oklahoma, which long held control of local transportation operations until it passed such responsibilities to the city in 2019.

Such an undertaking required new learning from the city, now responsible for the transportation of 300,000 passengers annually. This prompted the development of a long-term plan to review existing bus routes and improve transit — but all the city had to work with was outdated information. Norman knew it had to ask residents what they wanted to see, so it turned to a simple civic engagement tool: a public survey.

"This survey is informing most, if not all transit decisions in Norman,” said Taylor Johnson, the city's public transit coordinator. Norman is just one of many cities and agencies nationwide that have used surveys to gather public input on transit.

Surveys are beneficial tools to guide policy change, said Ashley Amaya, senior survey research methodologist at the Pew Research Center. Survey responses can be gathered relatively quickly, while conducting multiple surveys can track changes and trends over time.

"When governments survey the public, they also can find out how frequently things are being used or what would happen, potentially, if they did make changes," Amaya said. "That can help them allocate money towards different parts of the programs that maybe need a little bit more help."

Yet to accomplish their goals, government entities must figure out the most effective questions and the best way of distributing the survey. In Norman, the city landed on the questions for its Go Norman Transit Study with the help of Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates. The transportation firm compiled a survey that allowed the public to weigh in on everything from bus shelters to transit routes, which was then reviewed by the city. 

The survey ran for about three weeks last month and ended on Nov. 30, garnering 638 responses. Norman publicized the survey on social media, hung posters inside of buses and contacted an email list of stakeholders urging them to take and share the survey.

The city will use the survey results, along with census data and input from community meetings, to inform transit decisions over the next two decades as Norman's population continues to grow. "Since the routes haven’t changed very much over the last 20 years, I would say it’s all on the table of what the plan could recommend," Johnson said.

The most immediate changes will likely come from low-cost recommendations, such as moving a route or eliminating underused bus stops while adding needed ones, Johnson said. These will be coupled with medium- and long-term plans. Come February, the city will hold community meetings to get feedback on these proposed transit recommendations.

'Getting future riders where they want to be'

Norman isn’t the only city seeking public input as it embarks on a new phase of transit. In Idaho Falls, home to about 60,000 residents, the city's only public bus service closed in May 2019 due to financial issues. Since then, transit companies and partners have filled the gap with paratransit and senior citizen-focused services.

Now, Idaho Falls is relaunching its bus service as Greater Idaho Falls Transit (GIFT) and will need a fresh perspective on the community’s transit needs, said Michelle Ziel-Dingman, president of the Idaho Falls City Council and GIFT board chair.

The transit agency is creating a survey to help guide the deployment of its planned fixed-route and paratransit bus services. That survey is slated to launch at the end of December and run until mid-January.

"At this point, we want to fully understand if you were to travel on a GIFT bus, where would you go? Is that to work? Is that shopping? Is that for medical?" Ziel-Dingman said. "Our city has grown and changed. New businesses have come in. New large retailers have come in. And we want to assure that we’re getting future riders where they want to be."

The survey will ask people where they would travel on the bus, in addition to demographics such as gender, age and employment status. The transit agency also needs to know if students and staff at the College of Eastern Idaho and University Place require a bus route, and if senior citizens need additional transit. 

Information gleaned from the survey can also be used to target advertisers. For example, if a significant number of users want to go to a certain business, GIFT can approach that business for advertising opportunities, Ziel-Dingman said.

GIFT used former transit surveys from the local Bonneville Metropolitan Planning Organization as a starting point for its survey. A student at Brigham Young University-Idaho with survey experience is also assisting with its design.

The survey will be distributed online with the help of Idaho Falls' communications department, businesses, hospitals and local colleges. Ziel-Dingman recognizes that online communications can be a barrier to those without internet access, but she is confident that free internet at libraries will help bridge that divide.

Assessing COVID-19’s effect on transit

Even transit agencies that have long analyzed riders' habits are now in uncharted territory due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Before the pandemic, the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) in Chicago was working on a survey of non-riders — those who either stopped riding transit or never used it in the first place. Suddenly, COVID-19 caused nearly everyone to become a lapsed transit rider, which completely altered the survey, said Hersh Singh, principal analyst at RTA.

"Everything we knew pre-COVID about people’s desires for transit, I don’t think really hold at all right now because everything has completely changed," Singh said. "I don’t think any of us in the transit profession think that those same preferences will hold."

So RTA, which oversees planning for northeastern Illinois' three transit operators and their 2 million riders, changed the core goal of its survey: understanding the pandemic’s effects on ridership.

RTA reworked a nationwide study on COVID-19 and transportation with consulting from Resource Systems Group. It kept questions regarding people’s transit movements and added ones that could help identify a new baseline for people’s habits: Are they commuting to work? Are they going to the grocery or using delivery services more?

Two questions even addressed granular transit operation funding through an exercise that asked respondents to allocate an imaginary $10 across nine transit priority areas. While this portion of the survey took extra work, it allows transit agencies to see which priorities their riders find most important, Singh said. 

"It’s weird because we just got thrown into an unknown,” Singh said of COVID-19. “Planners pride themselves on understanding the markets and market preferences, but right now we just have no clue."

The 18-day survey ended on Nov. 30, attracting more than 2,600 responses. RTA reached people by emailing the customer lists of transit agencies and the Ventra ticket buying app. They tried to reach riders of the three transit agencies as well as people currently using transit, such as essential workers and those without cars.

A second wave of the survey will be conducted in mid-January. Analysis of both surveys together will allow RTA to see if opinions change during the intervening 1.5 months, and to better identify what people want out of transit.

Best practices

Surveying the public is not a sustainable approach to citizen engagement unless it is done effectively. 

Transparency is key to making sure people know a survey is worthwhile, said Amaya of the Pew Research Center. One indicator of transparency is for the surveying group to have information online about the way a survey is conducted, including sampling methods, question wording and weighting, and methods of analysis.

Amaya said the preferable sampling method is probability-based where the organization randomly surveys from a variety of samples. This includes calling random phone numbers or mailing random addresses from the U.S. Postal Service’s list, which is a common way to conduct sampling for online surveys as well. Organizations can mail people an invitation with a unique link of an online survey so they can take it only once. 

Another common approach to surveying is through a panel. Organizations can recruit random people through phone or mail to sit on a panel that can then be surveyed multiple times. These processes are typically online, quicker and cheaper because the survey audience doesn’t need to be consistently refreshed, Amaya said.

Surveys should try to avoid non-probability-based samples, Amaya said, because the people who typically volunteer to respond differ from the general population.

Before writing a survey, spend time talking with riders through a focus group or at community events, said Steven Higashide, director of research at TransitCenter. These detailed discussions can highlight important issues that an agency can incorporate into a survey. He also said to give particular thought to how an audience can be reached. An online survey is likely to be skewed toward higher-income riders, so agencies can pay community-based organizations to distribute surveys to a diverse group of people, Higashide said.

He pointed to Metro Transit in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, which collaborated with 13 community-based organizations to get the word out about a recent project to build new bus shelters. These groups knocked on doors, manned tables at community events and surveyed riders at bus stops. This led to survey responses that were representative of riders in terms of race, ethnicity, income and disabilities, said Higashide.

"These are all groups that tend to be harder to reach when you're just doing an online survey,” Higashide said. “In a lot of projects, public engagement is something that is not well-resourced, which means that input into a project might come from a few townhall meetings done at times and places that are inconvenient for a lot of transit riders to attend. That makes projects more politically difficult and it skews the feedback that agencies get."

In addition to getting continual feedback from riders, agencies shouldn’t overlook the needs of other transit stakeholders. For example, Higashide said the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston regularly surveys its employers to understand how demand for transit changes as the pandemic progresses.

While surveys should be just one of many tools agencies use to collect feedback, they remain an important method to hear from a wide array of riders who otherwise may not typically offer planning feedback. 

"Whether it's changing service or changing the fare structure or planning new projects, transit decisions should be informed by transit riders,” Higashide said. "The folks who plan transit aren't always in the same room as riders. Transit gets influenced by elected officials and by business groups and developers and all sorts of interests who don't always have the same interests as riders."

Sixteen cities earned certification in 2021 honoring their use of data to improve city services, increase transparency and improve civic engagement.

What Works Cities, an arm of the nonprofit Bloomberg Philanthropies, recognized Austin, Texas; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Detroit; and Gilbert, Arizona, with gold certification. Meanwhile, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Bellevue, Washington; Fort Collins, Colorado; Glendale, Arizona; Irving, Texas; Little Rock, Arkansas; Madison, Wisconsin; Minneapolis; Norfolk, Virginia; Portland, Oregon; San Antonio; and Syracuse, New York, all received silver certification. Cities are awarded the prizes based on their level of data sophistication based on 45 criteria the organization says are foundational for data-driven governance.

What Works Cities said data can be useful in various areas, including by helping to reduce carbon emissions, increasing access to broadband and moving more people experiencing homelessness into permanent housing. The use of data has also helped drive effective responses to the coronavirus pandemic. Since 2018, 40 cities have achieved What Works Cities Certification.

Cities have been relying more heavily on data in recent years to help them make decisions and engage with residents, a practice that has accelerated since the start of the pandemic, said Jennifer Park, founding director of certification at What Works Cities. The growth in data use has come as cities have increasingly sought to learn from each other and cooperate on shared issues, while boosting investments in professional development for public sector employees and create more analyst positions and job titles like "chief data officer," said Park.

The number of cities that use data to help in areas like performance management and public engagement jumped dramatically over the past five years, a report published in June by Deloitte's Monitor Institute in collaboration with What Works Cities, found. Those data-driven efforts have led to all manner of improvements, including sidewalk management and waste collection, and Park said it will continue to grow.

"At the start, there were a handful of cities that were saying, 'Let's build an open data portal, let's start to think strategically about our goals,'" Park said. "As more and more cities have joined these networks or have been connected with each other, I think there's been an increase of cities that have realized, 'Wait, if we invest in this, which is relatively low cost, we can actually transform our city and deliver better services that are more equitable and more efficient to our residents.'"

The pandemic has made those efforts more important, Park said, and cities have responded by using data to get information out about infection rates, vaccine availability and how services will be affected through a slew of dashboards. Cities have also used data to try to ensure their now-digitized services continue to reach those most in need even in the midst of the pandemic, while a greater reliance on digital communications has helped engage residents, Park said.

"The last year has elevated the need for use of data in government like we've never seen before," she said.

Those lessons learned around data use during the pandemic will be crucial as cities transition into a post-COVID future and wrestle with how to balance potential budget shortfalls with the need to maintain services. Park said data will also help city leaders continue to share real-time information and communicate with their residents, while the types of community surveys seen during the worst of the pandemic can be an effective way to monitor public sentiment.

"Many cities went directly in to survey families and residents to understand kind of what services are essential and where additional services and support can be provided to during the time of COVID," she said. "That type of surveying, I think, should continue. The constant engagement and understanding through surveys is one way to collect qualitative data and really understand how they can continue to build better services and programs."

Phase one of New York City’s much-anticipated e-scooter pilot launched in August with up to 3,000 Veo, Lime and Bird e-scooters available for users in the East Bronx. The number of scooters is expected to increase to 6,000 for the second phase of the program in 2022. 

New York City’s Department of Transportation (DOT) and the three scooter companies engaged in an "extensive" community engagement process to educate the public about the pilot’s safety, equity, and accessibility offerings. That process included dozens of meetings with community boards, local business improvement districts and local medical facilities. The community meetings also informed the selection of sites for the installation of almost 90 e-scooter corrals along the pilot zone’s busy corridors.

The three companies were selected based on their past performances in other markets, demonstrating the "highest performance measured in the evaluation process." The operators were also selected based on their responses to the Request for Expressions of Interest questionnaire issued in October 2020 about "equipment, accessible options, pricing, equity policies and discounts, features, and a launch schedule," according to the NYC DOT press release.

NYC DOT will share a legally mandated report near the end of the two-year pilot with its recommendations.  

New York City has long been seen as one of the last great untapped markets by dockless scooter companies, as state law prohibited their use until 2020. That changed when Gov. Andrew Cuomo added a policy proposal to a budget bill legalizing their use, and the state legislature agreed. The New York City Council then moved quickly to approve a local pilot program.

The pilot will come to an 18-square-mile area of the East Bronx, which is home to about 570,000 people. The pilot's first phase brings up to 3,000 scooters into the demonstration area this year, which includes the neighborhoods of Eastchester, Wakefield, Pelham Parkway and Co-op City. A potential second phase in 2022 could double the amount of scooters available and add more neighborhoods. NYCDOT said in February its pilot area is designed to not overlap with Bronx neighborhoods targeted by Citi Bike as part of its expansion plan.

At a press conference, NYCDOT Commissioner Hank Gutman said the agency will "work closely" with the three companies as well as local communities to make dockless scooters "an effective, convenient and safe way to get around."

"We are proud to bring e-scooter share to the Bronx... We welcome Bird, Lime and Veo—and we look forward to working closely with them, elected officials and local Bronx communities to make e-scooter share an effective, convenient and safe way to get around.” - Commissioner Gutman pic.twitter.com/fXrfK3xVkA

— NYC DOT (@NYC_DOT) April 14, 2021

The companies chosen for the scheme reacted positively, and they promised to be good partners with New York City and its residents.

"We're honored by the opportunity to once again serve New York," Lime CEO Wayne Ting said in a statement. "This e-scooter pilot program couldn’t come at a better time, as New York focuses on providing low-cost transportation options that allow residents to travel socially-distanced in the open air."

In a blog post, Bird said it is "committed to being a responsible and equitable transportation partner" in New York City. It pledged to use its latest scooter model in the pilot program in the East Bronx, in addition to other alternatives including a four-wheeled version. The company also said it would make its riding plans like Community Pricing and Global Ride Pass available to make its services financially accessible to all.

"In close partnership with the community, Bird is committed to ensuring the success of the program and providing NYC residents and visitors with a safe, reliable shared mobility service that is equitable and accessible to all," Bird founder and CEO Travis VanderZanden said in a statement. "We look forward to introducing our most advanced technology to the shared mobility program and evolving our service to best meet the unique needs for riders in the Bronx."

In a statement released by NYCDOT, Veo co-founder and CEO Candice Xie called it an "honor" to be selected for the pilot program.

"This last year has demonstrated that expanding access to new forms of affordable mobility can complement public transit and is crucial to the livelihoods of our neighbors and the functioning of our cities," she continued. "We look forward to providing NYC with our latest standing and sit down e-scooters so that riders in the East Bronx have more options to get around safely and sustainably."

Ting said the pilot program can help New York City recover from the coronavirus pandemic in an equitable and sustainable way, and it can do so in a way that reduces what he described as "crippling" traffic congestion.

"Getting this program off the ground quickly, in the midst of a global pandemic, is clear evidence of how global cities like New York are adapting to establish a new normal for transportation that is shared, electric and carbon-free," Ting said.

Virginia has launched a statewide competition to design cybersecurity solutions to protect internet of things (IoT) devices, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in April. 

Speaking on the first day of the virtual Smart Cities Connect conference, Northam said the contest through Virginia's Commonwealth Cyber Initiative will be open to college faculty as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students. Participants will work with cybersecurity experts on new innovations, with winning teams given help to get their products to market.

The challenge, done in partnership with nonprofit US Ignite, opened in early May and is expected to last around 18 months.

During his speech, Northam noted the proliferation of IoT devices that is expected to occur in the coming years, with some estimates putting the number of connected devices at 200 billion worldwide by 2031 and 35 billion by the end of 2021 alone in a wide swath of industries and sectors.

But with that connectivity comes cybersecurity challenges, something that has been highlighted in the pandemic as many city employees and services have been forced to work remotely. 

"Enhanced IoT security will touch nearly every aspect of people's lives and help drive digital transformation," Northam said in a speech. "The security of these devices, and the networks and computers connected to them are vital to the daily operations of businesses, banks, schools, libraries, government agencies, and the people who rely on them to communicate with family and friends, manage finances, conduct business and access services."

There are also indications that state and local governments see themselves as needing to play a leading role in establishing and strengthening IoT networks. Researchers at Cornell University are working to design a statewide network for New York to help close the digital divide and advance residents’ digital skills and trust in new technologies amid privacy concerns.

Northam said he looks forward to state officials "sharing what we learn with the rest of the country" through the competition and be a "model for the nation." The contest also comes with Virginia flexing its muscles as what Northam described as a "national leader in cybersecurity," boasting the second highest concentration of technology workers in the United States and being at the "forefront" of workforce development in the sector.

As all sectors of the economy become increasingly digitized, he said it is important for leaders to stay ahead and to encourage people to work to solve problems that may arise with cybersecurity.

"Network connectivity is an increasingly important component of our national infrastructure, not only for bringing people together, but also for connecting buildings, vehicles and machines in ways that improve efficiency and enable government to deliver public services more effectively," Northam said. "Because of the importance of these networks, they must be robust, resilient and secure."

Baltimore is one of many U.S. cities that turned to a resilience corps to tackle the dual crises of the pandemic and unemployment, problems that have disproportionately impacted people of color.

On March 12, 2020, the first coronavirus case was diagnosed in Baltimore. By May, infection rates grew rapidly and became four times higher among Latino residents and 1.5 times higher among Black residents compared with the city's White residents. Meanwhile, the city's unemployment rate had skyrocketed from 4.9% in March 2020 to a high of 11.6% the following month.

To tackle those problems head-on, Baltimore officials and their partners launched the Baltimore Health Corps (BHC) in June 2020 to recruit, train and employ 275 new community health workers. The program targeted those who were unemployed, furloughed or underemployed amid the pandemic and living in neighborhoods hardest-hit by the coronavirus.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott, the Rockefeller Foundation, the city's health department and the Mayor's Office of Employment Development shared initial findings from the pilot, potentially providing lessons for other cities seeking to launch similar efforts.

"Rooted in an all-hands-on-deck approach, Baltimore Health Corps has been critical to addressing this pandemic," Scott said in a press conference Thursday. "This is what an effective public-private partnership looks like. And, as with our approach to the COVID-19 pandemic overall, the health corps has been grounded in equity."

Performance on three key objectives 

The BHC Pilot Early Lessons Report, created by the University of Maryland School of Public Health, measured the initial six months of the pilot phase against the following three objectives: 

1. "Create jobs with racially equitable hiring and career development possibilities"

The BHC achieved its goal to hire 275 target workers, creating new positions for contact tracing and care coordinating. Of the people hired, over 85% were formerly furloughed, unemployed or underemployed. At least 65% of those individuals were Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC).

2. "Increase capacity for COVID-19 contact tracing"

More than 80 people were hired to handle contact tracing by November, putting the group at 60% capacity for its operations. By the end of January, the contact tracing team was fully staffed, with contact tracers moving from a "call center" to a "case management" model to improve relationship-building with the community, according to the report.

3. "Provide essential care coordination"

To address the needs of the city's most vulnerable amid the pandemic with improved care coordination, the BHC team worked with contact tracers and shared resources with locations such as testing sites and housing complexes. As a result, the care coordination team saw a 126% increase in referral volume for their services in November, those referral requests included needs like food access (33%), quarantine support (13%) and housing (8%).

A model for other cities 

Baltimore's work can serve as an example for other cities or states seeking to build their own resilience corps, the report states.

"This model was very different than what you see around the country," said Otis Rolley III, senior vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation's U.S. Equity and Economic Opportunity Initiative, during the press conference. "The reality is, this is in fact the model for what all of the country should be doing when it comes to addressing both the economic and the physical health related to COVID-19."

For other localities seeking to build or improve their own resilience corps, the report offers suggestions, including ways to implement equitable hiring practices. Localities should remove obstacles for new hires when it comes to background checks and drug-testing requirements; involve community-based groups who can reduce computer literacy or other technology barriers for applicants; and provide support to help participants find job opportunities after the program, it states.

Cities should also use data to determine if their hires are representative of the groups most likely to suffer from chronic unemployment or job loss in their community, the report suggests.

"You cannot have a discussion about health equity without also dealing with economic equity. You cannot discuss the trauma and the result of COVID-19 on our physical bodies without also addressing the trauma it has had on our economic well-being of our communities, of our families, and particularly of BIPOC populations," Rolley said.

The corps model is designed to continue serving the local community even after the pandemic. Corps members receive "career navigation" assistance to plan for their professional future and transition to their next opportunity, according to Jason Perkins-Cohen, director of the Mayor's Office of Employment Development. They also receive behavioral health, legal and financial empowerment counseling.

"This is a model that can extend beyond the pandemic," Perkins-Cohen said. "We can use this model to intentionally solve dual problems, equitably putting residents to work to make our city safer, to make our city cleaner and to rebuild our infrastructure."

More cities are looking to jobs programs focused on resilience to help their economies recover from the coronavirus pandemic and provide their hardest-hit residents with employment and new job skills.

San Jose, California, is the latest major city to pursue this path. Mayor Sam Liccardo announced the city’s proposed Resilience Corps in March to create over 500 jobs primarily for young adults focused on pandemic response, environmental resilience, learning loss for struggling students, economic recovery and disaster preparedness. City officials said those are five crucial areas to build community resilience.

Liccardo proposed creating the Resilience Corps as part of his budget blueprint for FY 2021-2022, noting the enormous economic impacts of the pandemic, especially on disadvantaged communities.

"The financial effects of this pandemic — compounded by racial and widening economic disparities — have wrought a host of maladies among young adults, including homelessness, increased addiction, rising suicide rates, increasing child abuse by young parents, and rising violent crime," Liccardo wrote in a message to the San Jose City Council accompanying his budget proposal. "Our young adults' futures — and our collective futures — deserve a response beyond handouts: they need a paycheck."

A growing trend

Other cities, like New York and New Orleans, are creating their own resilience corps programs in some form. 

In his State of the City address in late January, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the formation of the City Cleanup Corps, a 10,000-person strong effort to beautify the city, including wiping away graffiti, power washing sidewalks, creating murals and cleaning neighborhoods.

He compared the group to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which he said provided "good-paying jobs to people in need and improve the country’s infrastructure."

"The massive job loss in New York City caused by the pandemic-driven global economic crisis calls for a similar program to create jobs and improve our city," de Blasio continued.

New Orleans launched its Resilience Corps in 2020, partnering with Resilience Force, a national nonprofit that looks to make cities’ workforces more resilient.

With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and state and city-level partners, that project will train residents to be community health workers. The individuals will help prevent the spread of COVID-19 by coordinating with contact tracers, conducting wellness checks, delivering food and other supplies, connecting residents with city and state services, and more.

In a statement, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the Resilience Corps will help vulnerable communities and also provide workers "with stable jobs that are pathways to full-time careers, from which they can build their own more resilient futures."

Community benefits

A resilience corps could be an effective way for cities to reboot their economies and move into a brighter future, outside experts said, especially as corps can take many forms depending on leaders’ priorities.

Andrew Salkin, founding principal at the nonprofit Resilient Cities Catalyst, noted that San Jose’s focus on disaster preparedness and environmental resilience comes as California has battled rising temperatures and wildfires in recent years, while also being hit hard by COVID-19.

Meanwhile, New Orleans' focus on health comes as it has seen its economy damaged by coronavirus-related shutdowns while also responding to increased hurricanes and flooding.

"One, it's bringing people into the economy, which is great after the pandemic, then two, actually using them and leveraging them to do the work that has already been identified as a need," Salkin said. "This is the resilience piece, as they were trying to use the investments to create the city they want from the city they have, as opposed to just repairing what was there before."

Cities have been transformed during the pandemic, with some streets being closed to vehicles to encourage cycling and outdoor dining at restaurants. And local leaders are already looking to the post-pandemic future and evaluating what changes need to be made, especially in the fight against climate change and building communitywide resiliency.

As people look for ways to contribute to their communities, especially if they are out of work, a resilience corps can help make cities more livable for all, according to Salkin. 

"This is a really interesting time for government to either create new institutions, new roles for government, or partner with entities that were already there like Business Improvement Districts to say, 'We want to manage open space now, not just the activities and restaurants and things like that,'" he said.

Replication elsewhere

Other cities considering similar moves already have a wealth of potential partners at their disposal, Salkin said, with various community groups and nonprofits likely able to step in and provide guidance.

Nationally, the AmeriCorps program received an extra $1 billion in investment under the recently passed American Rescue Plan to provide immediate pandemic relief, specifically in disadvantaged communities. That program could also expand to be a useful resource for cities, but local-level action could be crucial, he said.

"There are lots of community groups and organizations that are already doing amazing work in their communities, I think they're the ones that are closest to the challenges," he said. "They're the ones that have been working through these problems and trying to think through how to build that transition for their neighborhood. Leveraging that work of those folks is as exciting an opportunity as there is."

But Salkin warned it is incumbent on cities to ensure their corps programs give participants transferrable skills that can have a long-term impact, rather than just be a program designed to give them a short-term paycheck.

"It's more than a job, it's a pathway to a career," he said. "This is an opportunity to take the federal dollars if you're using stimulus dollars and turn it into long-term career paths, which is always hard to do. But now that we have some resources to do that, that'd be great."

Another smart city project tied to Sidewalk Labs has come to an early close.

RedTail Media reporter Kate Kaye first reported in late February that Portland Metro had severed ties from its smart city work with Sidewalk Labs spin-off company Replica.

Portland Metro began working with Replica, which separated from Sidewalk Labs in September 2019, to provide insight into how local residents moved throughout the Portland, Oregon, region, kicking off the project in April 2019.

But the partnership ended roughly two years later due to disagreements over data privacy, a sticking point that has become increasingly common in smart city projects, and an issue that experts say local leaders and their private partners can take note of to learn from and improve future collaborations.

Data disagreements

Replica’s work in the Portland area — originally projected to cost $500,000 for a one-year pilot — was born out of networking conversations with Sidewalk Labs at a Portland transportation conference in late 2018, a Replica spokesperson said in an email.

The regional government entity wanted to tap Replica’s software, which uses "de-identified" mobile location data to understand how people move throughout cities. Essentially, the software tool can help cities predict what modes people will use to travel throughout the city, when they will travel, and the purpose of that travel, which can help inform decisions tied to congestion, bike lanes, infrastructure investments and more.

The software creates a "replica of a given place at a given time, across lots of different aspects of the built environment," said Replica CEO Nick Bowden. The company's customers, which include dozens of agencies throughout the country, consume modeled or replica outputs, according to Bowden. "We don't pass through raw data," he said. 

That distinction appears to be a source of conflict between Replica and Portland Metro. 

"Portland Metro wanted to see raw, identifiable data; however, sharing raw, identifiable data is antithetical to Replica's privacy ethics and principles," a Replica spokesperson wrote.

"At Replica, we believe better insights should not come at the cost of personal privacy. We were not willing to compromise on our privacy principles, which frustrated our Portland Metro client and ultimately led to an early end to the project," the spokesperson continued.

Portland Metro told Smart Cities Dive in an emailed statement that it ended its relationship with Replica "after review of the draft data" and said they "wish Sidewalk Labs the best with its future work." 

'Privacy can't be an afterthought'

The split between Replica and Portland Metro has echoes of the privacy concerns surrounding the Sidewalk Labs' now-defunct Quayside project on the Toronto waterfront. 

After much hype, Sidewalk Labs ended its projected $1.3 billion initiative last spring due to "unprecedented economic uncertainty" following the onset of the coronavirus. By that time though, the project had developed fierce opposition from local activists, who cited concerns about how the private sector-led project would intrude into people's everyday lives.

"I think there was both that naivete [and] kind of an arrogance of, 'Oh we're Google, just trust us... Everything will be fine.' People are worried about their privacy. There's a lot of distrust out there," said Karen Lightman, executive director of the Metro21: Smart Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Privacy can't be an afterthought, it needs to be intentional, she said.

That distrust among U.S. residents toward big tech companies has compounded into what some experts have deemed a "techlash."

The concept of smart cities was once largely viewed with "boundless optimism," but now the smart city moniker can sometimes be viewed as a negative, according to Lightman.

As certain smart city projects dissolve — like Replica's work with Portland Metro, Sidewalk Labs' work in Toronto and even Cisco's recent decision to pull the plug on its smart city software — she said there are some lessons to be learned.

"When you're dealing in the public realm, you have to be respectful of the public and that means, the human. You need to build trust and you need to be intentional in building that from the ground [on] up," Lightman said.  

Building trust can come in the form of civic engagement, something the Quayside project received much criticism for lacking.

"I would suggest a shift from driving from a data perspective to more driving from a democratic engagement and legitimacy perspective," Alex Ryan, head of the MaRS Solutions Lab and a consultant on Toronto's Quayside project, said in an earlier interview. "How do you engage citizens more as co-designers of the spaces that they live, work and play in?"

A 'window of opportunity'

But just as city residents may be growing weary of the privacy implications that come with certain smart city initiatives, Replica's Bowden said that there is currently a "window of opportunity" for public-private partnerships to help cities recover from the pandemic.

Given the fundamental changes recently seen in urban mobility patterns, there's a chance to rethink how infrastructure is built, managed and structured, Bowden said.

"When there are tectonic shifts in behavior, I think we want [the] public sector to be on the, at least, the front edge of those tectonic shifts and not be quite so reactive," Bowden said. "In our particular case, I think there's a real valuable service that we can provide to help these public agencies be on equal footing to some of the private sector agencies that they work with."

And although 2020 and 2021 have seen the toppling of some smart city initiatives, other projects, like The Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners, GA, and Toyota's Woven City, are moving forward with big plans and potential implications for the future of connected cities.

In late 2020, the City and County of Honolulu rolled out its first Climate Action Plan (CAP) — just one example of the "grunt work" cities have done to achieve the goals of the Paris agreement in the absence of federal leadership over the last four years, said Honolulu's chief resilience officer, Matthew Gonser​.

The aggressive plan, which was open for public comment before being finalized, includes nine climate strategies with 46 specific climate actions to occur over the next five years, all to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) 44% by 2025. The road map also intends to put Honolulu on a path to carbon neutrality by 2045. 

Created in partnership with the University of Hawaii, the CAP was informed by input from specialists, agencies, business and nonprofit leaders, and even a citizen-engagement game aptly titled "The Climate Game."

Smart Cities Dive caught up with Gonser to discuss the unique climate challenges the city and county faces, the associated costs of Honolulu's ambitious goals and more. 

SMART CITIES DIVE: President-elect Joe Biden has plans to re-sign the Paris agreement on "day one" in office. What will that mean for Honolulu? 

MATTHEW GONSER: It's difficult to tell at this point. We've already been having initial discussions with our congressional delegations both in the Senate and Congress, getting more aware of what just passed through the appropriations bill and the second stimulus package. There's obviously stories out there about additional intentions to bolster and link economic recovery, COVID response and prosperity along with the climate action needs. 

It's really evident from the individuals who have been identified to be appointed in various leadership roles — their understanding and acknowledgement that local leadership has really driven the discussion for the last four years — that they are open to partnerships and learning where the needs and opportunities are.  

It's really great to see someone like Mayor Pete, who has a great understanding of what it takes to lead and make decisions at the local level, get better connected with transportation. And finding ways that all of the things around smart communities and healthy communities — whether it's complete streets, electrified transportation, making sure that our public spaces are places that encourage and promote economic prosperity and health — are all great signals for the opportunities that are potentially to come down to the local level from the federal government. 

The original goals of the CAP were directly informed by hundreds of residents who engaged in a "climate game" to prioritize policy actions. Can you explain what the game and those learnings were? 

GONSER: Yeah, that was good fun... Oh man, the things we miss from [not] being able to do in-person public engagement. 

That was at the tail end of 2018 into early 2019. We held 12 public community meetings, and these were in partnership with the area council members. So we have nine city council districts, [and] we partnered with the two major universities, Hawaii Pacific University and the University of Hawaii.

This was phase one of the engagement, sharing information on what a CAP is [and] what it requires. And starting to have the discussions on pros, cons, trade-offs, benefits, interests, and appetite on a whole array of potential climate actions and measures to address the main sectors of emissions, buildings, transportation [and] waste management. 

And even though some of those things are potentially outside of the city's jurisdiction — aviation in particular, as well as marine transportation — these were the first discussions to help people think about different time horizons, and what it actually takes to drive emissions down to zero. So through those meetings, we were able to get a sense of what things people are most aware of, believe in, interested in, [and] willing to support in the near-term. 

Can you explain how the specifics of the game worked?

GONSER: The specific [components included] tiles, and each tile represented the same sort of quantitative emissions reduction. 

As we charted our collective island-wide emissions down to zero, you had to play a certain number of tiles. There were some limitations and restrictions, particularly around vehicles... You could go all in on electric vehicles (EVs), or you had to think of some hybridization of vehicles. You could play X number of solar [photovoltaics (PVs)], but there are limitations because there's only a certain number of routes, so you can't assume you're going to eliminate all of the emissions just by putting PV on every rooftop. So people had to really think [it] through. They had a table that listed feasibility technology, potential benefits [and] potential consequences. 

The important thing was going around the island and doing these in different geographies. [There were] different appetites for onshore wind, or large utility scale solar farms didn't always jive with community sentiment in any particular region. That's why it's really important to get that initial reaction so that when we are engaging with the utility, when we are reviewing projects, when we're thinking of the opportunities to carry any of this forward, we are acutely aware of community sentiment, for even proposing projects or ideas. 

The CAP outlines nine strategies for achieving a 44% reduction in GHG emissions by 2025. Which of those nine strategies do you think will be among the most challenging to implement, and why?

GONSER: On the challenging side, we know waste diversion and promoting waste prevention is a challenge for an island community that's rather dependent on imports. And those imports oftentimes bring packaging and all these things that we're just sort of left with to deal with. 

What are the things that we can do locally to ensure that we are either eliminating that from our waste stream or diverting it for different uses? We have a current disposable foodware ordinance that took effect on Jan. 1. Although it's currently in a three-month grace period, the rules are being finalized, acknowledging that it takes time for companies and businesses to get through their materials and can sometimes be an economic burden on the transition ... it's been a work in process. But we acknowledge that the COVID economic crisis has made that challenging for small businesses. 

So again, thinking about the things that we don't necessarily have direct leverage or influence over, potentially making it harder for us to manage our resources. Continuing to eliminate these single-use plastics is going to be really important both on the waste side, but also on public health and environmental health, looking at our procurement policies to make sure that we are buying the best to make sure that we're not unduly contributing to the emissions from the waste sector. 

Although there was a steady decline in Honolulu’s emissions between 2005 and 2016, the CAP reports those levels have started to increase again—rising 0.1% in 2017 and jumping again by 1.8% in 2018.  Why did this occur, and how does the plan intend to address it?

GONSER: Right. From the inventory, it looks like that it's mostly from the transportation sector, primarily ground transportation and aviation. Obviously, individuals and consumers are quite responsive to the price of gas and oftentimes quite responsive to the kinds of vehicles that they'll purchase. We have steady both truck and SUV purchases and registrations here on Oahu and across the state. So that's something that we're obviously trying to better understand. 

And really support — whether it's through incentives or keeping things at the state level — the adoption of EVs being prepared for when some of those other vehicle options become available. That requires getting out in front with the infrastructure to support charging both at public facilities, private facilities, but also ensuring that new homes and developments are at least prepared to tap into EV charging if any homeowner or resident is interested.

It's all interrelated. The thing that we acknowledge that is really outside of our influence or jurisdiction are things like aviation and marine transportation. So that's why it’s important that we continue to coordinate with the state and the feds to think about that industry and its long-term transformation.

What are the financial costs associated with achieving carbon neutrality by 2045? 

GONSER: There’s no right ballpark number. If you look in the plan, each action proposed has these key evaluative questions. And while it talks about cost effectiveness... any of these things will need to be further investigated and further understood.

I don't want to overthink or dwell on costs because governments, private institutions, landowners, developers, etc., we all spend a lot of money on a lot of things already. And what it's really about is aligning our decision-making processes with our intentions and goals.

And we're already seeing the benefits of investments in city facilities. We just converted 53,000 streetlights all around this island. Those investments will be paid off by savings over time. [In 2020], amidst the COVID pandemic, we immediately went out with energy savings performance contracts, both specifically for our Department of Parks and Recreation, looking at water and energy efficiency opportunities, as well as all of our other city facilities  

I know the initial thought or potential reactions are, "This is going to cost us how much money?" Well, we already have a capital program, we already looked at fleet turnover, we already think about our buildings and facilities. And this is just one more component to add to that calculus, it's just another parameter and it's a prioritized parameter to ensure that we are doing the things now to stave off economic challenges and climate crisis and health challenges in the future.

What are the financial costs of not achieving these climate goals?

GONSER: We are looking at the costs of inaction today, as well as potential costs of inaction into the future. We are concurrently working on a climate adaptation strategy that looks towards 2050 across the five most pressing climate hazards as identified by community and city departments to think about the consequences to our assets, infrastructure and the services that we provide. 

We are one of many jurisdictions that have filed suit against the fossil fuel industry as a result of their decades of deceit and lying to community investors and governments about the consequences of utilizing the product. 

We know already today, based on a statewide sea level rise report, that if we don't do anything, about $13 billion of property and structures are at risk from the impacts of sea level rise just beyond mid-century. And again, that's if we do nothing. But the motivation obviously, is that a no action alternative really isn't an option when change is coming to your shoreline.