What trends do you see emerging for municipalities?
There is a tremendous resurgence of interest in new approaches to restoring and managing urban environments and infrastructure. Concepts like "livable cities," "urban sustainability," "green cities," and "smart growth" all focus on balancing environmental values, quality of life, and economic opportunities in cities. At CDM, we are enthusiastic about this progress and under the banner "Cities of the Future," we are challenging ourselves to take a more holistic view of the urban environment.
Can you provide a concrete example of what you are describing?
Sure. In Los Angeles, we are working on an integrated plan that brings together the wastewater, stormwater, and recycled water functions. Its initial focus was on wastewater facilities planning, but it has grown to encompass a much more comprehensive vision of revitalizing the Los Angeles River watershed.
Is this happening anywhere else?
The approaches vary considerably from place to place, but Chicago, Seattle, Denver, Fort Worth, and Philadelphia are all cities where CDM is involved in very innovative and collaborative approaches to restoring and revitalizing the urban landscape.
Why is this happening now?
There is renewed interest in urban living. Big cities are being appreciated as great places to live and work. Consequently, there is a tremendous amount of residential growth and commercial development as well. People—young and old—are moving back downtown, and they are bringing with them expectations and values that demand reliable utility services, high quality of life, and a restored and protected urban environment.
What is CDM doing to respond to these changes?
Through our focus on Cities of the Future, we have set a mission for ourselves to focus our talents on fresh, proactive, and stakeholder-based approaches to urban revitalization—improving quality of life, enhancing the urban environment, and creating economic opportunities for every citizen. Multipurpose projects that bring together environmental planners, water treatment process experts, systems modelers, landscape architects, and financial planners (to name just a few disciplines) require that, as a firm, we hone our collaboration skills, our engagement of diverse stakeholders, our ability to communicate across a wide range of individual experience and understanding, and our success in getting the most creativity and innovation from the talent available.
What makes these Cities of the Future different from cities of the past?
There are some common characteristics among programs that reflect the "future" I'm describing. As I suggested, they tend to involve a broad and diverse cross-section of the community throughout the planning process—either as appointed or volunteer participants. Typically, they get ahead of the curve on environmental compliance issues. Rather than expending limited resources fighting regulations, cities are investing in creative approaches that make compliance one of the driving forces for economic growth and development. They look for opportunities to turn perceived liabilities like brownfield sites and abandoned riverfronts into tomorrow's assets. There is often a strong aesthetic interest in the landscape architecture and bold new cityscape designs. They embrace community-based educational opportunities wherever possible. Maybe as important as anything, they bring together the often isolated utility functions in a city and encourage greater cooperation and teamwork among those agencies.
Is it difficult to bring community groups and utilities together?
It requires that everyone take a more out-of-the-box view of their role in shaping the future. In the simplest terms, we need to see that planting a tree and building high-tech facilities to treat stormwater are both parts of a viable strategy to protect water quality and improve the livability of our urban watersheds. One activity requires collaboration with community-based environmental interests and the other involves more traditional utility managers. When these groups work together, the results are impressive. At the end of the day, people want reliable systems that meet peak demands—at the same time, if we can reduce those peak demands by planting trees, eliminating unnecessary pavement, and restoring urban wetlands, we are even better off. Quality of life is improved, property values are enhanced, and cities are more livable. It's hard to argue with those results.