Oregon150

By: Ethan Seltzer Professor, Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University

The great thing about history is that it has already happened. We may not agree about what it means, how things happened, why they happened, or even what the outcomes were, but time once passed does not pass again. At least we know that is true.

Forecasting the future is a bit trickier. No one knows what the future will bring. Sure, we might have some pretty well-informed guesses about what may happen, but odds are those guesses won’t be very accurate. We want the future to be better than the last fifty years, but how can we ever top the Four Campaigns?

In 2009, Oregonians faced what seemed like overwhelming problems, as did people living in most places in the United States. We were part of a global knowledge economy that required creativity and innovation, but we weren’t sure how to prepare all of our citizens for it, or how to include them all in it. The conflicting interests of urban and rural residents created an ideological divide that seemed unbridgeable.

Climate change not only threatened to alter ecosystems, but also had nearby Western states clamoring for their share of Oregon’s water and renewable energy resources. In early 2009, the magnitude of the fiscal mess that began with the financial crisis of 2008 became clear when early revenue projections for the 2009 Oregon legislative session showed massive shortfalls in state revenue in the coming biennium.

At the state level, the prospects for maintaining basic services and commitments looked bleak, so bleak that twentieth-century solutions to economic downturns-blasting open urban growth boundaries, creating new giveaways for any out-of-state corporation promising a few jobs, funding a plethora of new highway interchange projects-promised little in the way of relief.

For a time, we tried to address these problems one task force at a time. Soon, however, it became apparent that the “war on …” approach was destined to fail. In fact, using baldly truculent terms as metaphors for the action needed obscured the real aim: the creation of solutions. Someone-nobody remembers who-suggested the term “campaign.” This notion resonated with Oregonians for several reasons.

A campaign pursues something proactively. It is not a reaction, but a step toward a goal. It is purposeful, intentional, and forward-looking, the basis for all of the innovations that Oregon had became known for by 2009-the bottle bill, light-rail transit, bikes, urban growth boundaries, alternative energy, and more. In addition, winning campaigns are participatory-they can’t succeed without a broad base of engagement. In short, campaigns are bridges to our aspirations, connecting us from where we are to where we want to be.

In 2012 we took a deep breath, and the Four Campaigns were born. The first was the Campaign for a Living Landscape. People began to realize that Oregon’s sense of place was constructed not out of what we’d built or what we’d found, but out of the interplay among the working, wild, and urban landscapes throughout the state. Cities in nature and nature in the cities had become a vital calling card that attracted visitors and talented new residents to Oregon’s metropolitan areas. Our food, wine, and forest products were sought after worldwide; “Made in Oregon” was a desirable brand, synonymous with quality, sustainability, and healthy living.

Through this campaign, Oregonians worked hard to modernize farm and forest enterprises, leveraging resources by developing new ways to make products that the world wanted while preserving the quality of the soil, water, and habitat that had given the state its sense of promise and opportunity. The term “Oregon grown” became synonymous with food and fiber products that met the highest standards of sustainability and healthfulness. Oregon exported not just products and commodities, but production methods that weren’t being used anywhere else in the world.

In an unexpected twist, growing food and fiber in these innovative ways created healthy ecosystems that began to provide tangible benefits to our cities and rural communities. The air and water were cleaner, and the landscape was better able to cope with the changes brought about by urban development. These “ecosystem services,” previously unaccounted for and undervalued, became the core of a new set of urban/rural relationships that improved the economic and environmental health of communities in both regions. The perception that environment competed with economy was dispelled, as it became apparent that maintaining the productivity of farms and forests, preserving the health of natural habitats, and improving the efficiency of cities were all interrelated.

This first campaign quickly led to the second, the Campaign for Local Solutions, an economic incentive program that spawned a statewide network of innovative start-ups offering products and services to meet the everyday needs of Oregonians. New Oregon enterprises, developed with an eye toward long-term viability and responsiveness to local needs, ushered in a new and more stable period for Oregon communities, in what continued to be turbulent economic times just about everywhere outside our borders.

Scores of jobs were created, and wealth stayed local, as Oregonians bought electric cars built in Salem. These cars were powered by electricity generated at biomass plants using “Made in Oregon” generators that burned refuse from Oregon cities, a closed-loop process developed, and patented, by Oregonians. With the state as a true living laboratory for the world, Oregon’s green economy took an exponential and very profitable leap onto the world stage. Through local excellence, Oregon achieved greater and more profitable global reach, and the state became truly self-sufficient in the process.

To support the first two campaigns, the Campaign for Creativity was launched. This campaign recognized that good ideas for creating desirable and sustainable places, managing working and wild landscapes, and doing more with less in fields ranging from sports apparel to lumber and wood products would be key to Oregon’s global competitiveness. It was all about ideas, both for capturing markets and for making great spaces.

It was young bicyclists who figured out how to make bicycle commuting safe and attractive, and receptive city governments that gave their ideas room to take hold. Working together, these groups created a model of “green and safe” bike lanes, convenient bike parking, and financial incentives for bike commuting that drew the attention of cities around the world.

Similarly, it was cutting-edge designers at Nike who, after many years, created
a completely recyclable shoe. Over beers at a brewpub and later at a conference at
Oregon State University, their manufacturing process got the attention of researchers
in the Forestry School, and the Oregon zero-waste construction system-building
houses in a manner that incorporates what used to be considered waste or scrap in the
final structure-captured almost the entire new-home construction market.

Of course, connecting the dots among all of these campaigns was the fourth great effort, the Campaign for the Future. This campaign was about people, and it focused almost entirely on learning and education reform. True reform took place when the citizens of Oregon, recognizing that a high school education was hardly sufficient even if it was world-class, enacted a sales tax dedicated to public education that finally ended the roller coaster of funding and reforms that had plagued the state for decades.

The state’s grade schools, high schools, and universities became the envy of the nation, as Oregon once again became recognized for having the best-prepared workforce in the world. Unlike in the twentieth century, when educational attainment in Oregon was largely a function of people-educated elsewhere-who were migrating to the state, educational attainment in 2059 can be directly traced to the engagement of Oregon residents with the much-admired Oregon Educational System, another coveted Beaver State brand.

Oregon thrives in 2059 not because it has become a spaceport, or because it has discovered a mushroom that halts aging, or because buildings no longer need steel and concrete to reach heights of half a mile. Instead, Oregon thrives because it has combined the Four Campaigns into an integral whole. By engaging each other beneath the banner of the campaigns, Oregonians found the way and the will to transcend
the seemingly insurmountable challenges of 2009 in unique and authentically
Oregonian ways.

In 2059, Oregon has become internationally known for directly benefiting from small groups of people getting together to change industries, communities, and institutions. What began as a “do it yourself “ethic pioneered by artists and musicians in the 1990s has blossomed to define an Oregon approach to problem solving and innovation. Its roots are in strong communities, and strong communities have empowered their residents to join together in new collaborations able to tackle landscape-scale challenges without fear of losing identity or control.

Oregon thrives in 2059 because it has developed a new compact that empowers every one of its residents to make a good life without sacrificing the sustainability of the place or the interests of other people in the process. In 2059, the basic and historic notion about Oregon as a place for living a good life remains true. Today, by achieving local excellence, Oregon has actually achieved global reach. Oregon thrives, in short, because it has reasserted an old idea-”we’re all in this together”-in new and innovative ways.