Innovations in technology and infrastructure have given rise to McMansions in America over the last few decades, but as the old adage goes, bigger isn’t always better. That’s the thinking behind the recent trend toward tiny homes, spearheaded by citizens who want to live more simply on less. And given the recent housing bust — nearly 1 out of 4 Americans now owes more than their house is worth — smaller doesn’t just seem smarter. It’s more sustainable, too. Here’s a look at how seven microhome communities are challenging our traditional approaches to housing — and helping tackle big problems along the way.
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Category: Making Government Work
How North Dakota Made Its Incredible Economic Comeback
States scrambling to lower unemployment and boost their economies can count on a new role model: North Dakota, which is recovering from the recent financial collapse better than the rest of its peers, according to the Washington Post.
According to writer Reid Wilson, who’s been chronicling the country’s best states in an ongoing series, North Dakota has a lot to be proud of: A rise in oil production has helped the state’s unemployment rate drop from 4.1 percent to 2.6 percent since 2009, while the median income increased 4 percent and median home price increased a whopping 16 percent. Elsewhere, booming oil production has also provided a fiscal boost to states like Wyoming, Texas and West Virginia.
In naming North Dakota the winner in economic recovery, Wilson used three factors: The drop in a state’s unemployment rate between 2009 and this April; the difference in median income in 2009 and in 2012; and the difference in median home prices before and after the recession, which Wilson says he estimated using data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Trulia.com (a real estate website).
As Wilson writes: “Other states deserve credit for making a comeback: The unemployment rates in South Carolina, Vermont and Utah have fallen by more than half since the worst of the recession…But no state has pumped up more in all three categories than North Dakota.”
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The State of the Union: The Federal Government’s Move to Go High-Tech
When you think of government, the words efficiency and innovation probably don’t come to mind. Rather, we probably conjure images of long lines at the DMV or the healthcare.gov rollout that made the tech industry cringe.
But behind the scenes, the Obama Administration has actually started changing the way the public sector operates, — thanks in large part to the work of America’s first Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra.
Chopra, a former Secretary of Technology in Virginia, helped introduce innovations like calling for apps to support equal pay, adapting lean startup principles to create new government organizations, and promoting 21st century energy policy through a SmartGrid that even caught the attention of Silicon Alley venture capitalist, Fred Wilson.
Now, in a new book called Innovative State: How New Technologies Can Transform Government, the former Obama official lays out his ideas for how to keep up with this fast-changing world through an “Open Innovator’s Toolkit”, a recipe for a more efficient, responsive and tech-savvy government based on these four principles:
- Open data — allowing outside innovators to tap into troves of public data can support the creation of tools and services that the government couldn’t dream of, let alone execute on their own.
- Convening — needing to bring the public and private sectors together to work collaboratively on lowering barriers to entry for business, increasing competition, and provide better services to the people.
- Challenges and prizes — using incentives to pay for results over rhetoric and ultimately, getting a better return on the taxpayer’s dollar.
- Attracting talent— recruiting entrepreneurs into government and creating a lean startup culture around narrow, clearly defined goals.
Throughout the book, Chopra provides several compelling examples of these principles in action, like attracting the talented Presidential Innovation Fellows to update federal contracting, or when Executives in Residence at the FDA improved regulatory process that led to faster approval of proposed medical devices.
Given these examples “Government 2.0” may still sound about as interesting as a DMV line to many of us, but Chopra’s innovations have led to real change and inspired nerds, data geeks and entrepreneurs to focus their energy and attention on tackling big problems.
Though public policy may lack the flash of Silicon Valley, these efforts can make a major impact on the lives — and wallets — of Americans.
When Jobs Are Tight, Immigrants Turn to Microbusiness Incubators
For many workers, the recent economic downturn either forced or inspired them to finally strike out and start the business that they’ve always dreamed of. And that is especially true for many immigrants who may lack education, English skills, or the dependable transportation they need to succeed in the traditional — and still tough — job market.
Paula Asuncion of Portland, Oregon is one such newly-minted entrepreneur. Asuncion immigrated from Mexico decades ago, and since then, held a variety of low-wage, fast-food and farm jobs to support her six children — a burden that grew more difficult after her husband’s death.
But two years ago, she started participating in a program sponsored by Hacienda CDC (Community Development Corporation), a Portland nonprofit that provides housing, education, and economic advancement help for Latinos. Hacienda CDC sponsored a microbusiness incubator that trained Asuncion and others on the ins-and-outs of entrepreneurship.
Now, Asuncion runs her own catering business and was able to buy a home rather than sharing a crowded apartment with other families as she used to.
Janet Hamada, the executive director of Next Door Inc., another Portland-area nonprofit that offers business training told Gosia Wozniacka of the Associated Press, “The biggest concern among immigrants is having stable work. They come to us and say, ‘I want to start a taco stand. How do I do that?'”
People like Asuncion and those who want to open taco stands, for instance, form a major part of the American economy. According to the Association for Enterprise Opportunity, microbusinesses with five or fewer workers employ 26 million Americans.
The nonprofit Adelante Mujeres in Forest Grove, Oregon, which offers a ten-week microbusiness class for Latinos, has seen a surge in interest from those who want to start their own businesses. Program director Eduardo Corona told Wozniacka,”Anti-immigration laws have led to people having a really hard time finding jobs, even on farms. Since they have to put food on the table, they’re starting to explore their abilities and thinking of opening a business.”
Interestingly, numerous studies have shown that immigrants are more likely than native-born Americans to start their own businesses. One report found that more than half of Silicon Valley tech start-ups were founded by immigrants.
And now with the help of these increasingly popular nonprofit business incubators for low-income people, we’re likely to see even more successful immigrant entrepreneurs in every sector, from tacos to technology.
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How One Simple Question is Helping New Yorkers Prepare for Hurricane Season
“Do you know your zone?”
That’s the question New York commuters are being asked on billboards, in subway trains, on bus shelters, and on ferries as this year’s hurricane season approaches. (It officially begins on June 1.)
In the wake of 2012’s Hurricane Sandy (which killed 147 people and cause an estimated $50 billion in devastating damage along the eastern seaboard), New York City officials are ramping up for this year’s hurricane season by ensuring their residents are as prepared as they are. Which explains why the advertisements, which bear a vibrant bullseye, are popping up across the five boroughs, targeting the more than three million Big Apple residents.
Backed by the New York City Office of Emergency Management and design studio C&G Partners, the “Know Your Zone” campaign is designed to educate New Yorkers on how they should prepare for an impending hurricane based on the six different hurricane zones in proximity to the water. The outer red zone on the sign signifies the zone closest to the water, whereas the green is the farthest away.
MORE: How a Tornado-Stricken Town Became a Model of American Sustainability
Jonathan Alger, one of the designers behind the project, told Fast Company the purpose of the bullseye logo was to “create a symbol that would attract the eye no matter where it was placed or how fast it was moving by.”
The ads encourages residents to call or go online to find out what zone they live in and to learn, in the event of a hurricane, what measures of precaution they should take. The location of the ad determines its content. For example, bus shelter ads inform commuters which zone they’re currently in, while subway ones compel residents to log on and find out.
Joseph Bruno, the city’s commissioner of the office of emergency management, told the Associated Press that the devastation left by Sandy is a harrowing reminder that New York must be prepared as it heads into hurricane season.
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Why Did This California Mayor Spend a Night in a Cardboard Box?
Up until about six months ago, Tim Barfield worked 60 hours a week at an asphalt company. But then the 49-year-old’s boss went bankrupt — leaving him penniless.
“Down to nothing. Now some of the people I used to know tell me I can’t come to their house,” Barfield continued. “They’re afraid I’m [going to] steal something.” he explained to FOX40.
Barfield is now among the 14,000 to 16,000 homeless in Stockton, California, living in an ad hoc community of clutter and makeshift shelters under the city’s I-5 freeway. Barfield remains unemployed and adding to his financial burden is the fact that his girlfriend, whom he is living with, is pregnant and expecting in just six months.
However, things may change for Barfield, who recently had the ear of an unlikely audience: Stockton’s mayor, Anthony Silva.
While spending a night among his city’s homeless, Mayor Silva listened to Barfield’s story.
What was the mayor doing spending the night outdoors? Trying to better understand the underserved residents of his city, he explained.
“It’s shocking and it’s absolutely awful,” Silva told the Record Net. “This is not a second- or third-world country. It’s Stockton, California, and it’s a shame that we, as a community, have let things get this bad.”
For his night outside, Silva constructed a cardboard shelter duct-taped together and tucked between a garbage can and a fence, where he spent the night with two pillows, a sleeping bag and a bottle of hand sanitizer.
Silva, who is teaming up with Christian organization Inner City Action to form the Homeless Commission, has unveiled a plan to create a resource center for homeless people to access computers and develop job training skills.
“I’m working with a couple developers who are interested in ponying up a little money, possibly buying a warehouse, and letting a nonprofit like Inner City Action slowly take it over so homeless folks can get job training skills,” Silva said. “If they have two arms and two legs and they’re capable of working and they want to work, we can get them those job training skills.”
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The mayor also met with several other families about possibly forming a tent city.
“I’ve hit the bottom of the barrel and I didn’t know how I was [going to] climb out,” Silva said. “And that’s kind of how Stockton is right now with being bankrupt and not having enough jobs and a big homeless population.”
As for Barfield, his meeting with the mayor may yield a chance at another job. Silva told the Record Net he plans to help Barfield find work in construction.
While Stockton is certainly not the only city with a rising homeless population, recognizing it is an important step in finding a resolution and helping the unheard.
“We all need a chance,” said Barfield.
These Teen Newcomers Help Fellow Non-English Speakers Adapt
Immigrant children often help out their parents in ways most American kids could never imagine — serving as interpreters in interactions with English speakers and helping to make sense of bills and forms.
High school senior Yuling Chen is one such kid. Five years ago, Chen came to the United States with her family from China. Since arriving in America, she has always helped her family with the language that she was quicker to pick up. “When I go home, they all hand me a big stack of letters to read,” she told Chris Burrell of The Patriot Ledger.
But she doesn’t mind. “When I first came to the United States, my English wasn’t so good at all, and I wanted to help (the elderly) with their lives,” she said. Chen is one of a group of 235 Asian immigrant teenagers in Quincy, Massachusetts that are taking this assistance to the next level, volunteering to help elderly immigrants at Quincy Asian Resources.
Along with the other teens, Chen teach seniors how to use computers, help middle school students making the transition to America, and assist at the Lunar New Year party and August Moon Festival, among many other duties.
Peter Tam, a Quincy native, first came to the center in 2007 as an AmeriCorps volunteer; now he directs the youth programs, involving volunteers from both of Quincy’s public high schools. “We’re really looking to create the next generation of Asian-American leaders and recent immigrant leaders in the community,” Tam told Burrell.
To thank the teens for their hard work, Quincy Asian Resources awarded seven of them, including Chen, a college scholarship worth $1,000.
MORE: Neighborhood Centers Provide New Immigrants An Instant Community
One Artist Turns a Pothole Problem Into a Public Art Project
After enduring a punishing winter with below zero temperatures and heaps of snow, Chicagoans are finally enjoying some better weather. But along with those warmer days come one of the city’s biggest nuisances: Potholes.
Every year when the ice thaws and the streets crack into mangled turf, residents grouse about the countless road dimples, but invariably, the city cannot fill them up fast enough. This year, Chicago saw one of the worst pothole seasons on record, with 47,500 pothole complaints between December and March alone. The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) assumes there’s at least five unreported potholes for every complaint — meaning that officials estimate there’s a minimum of least 60,000 holes that remain unfilled, according to the Chicago Tribune.
With only 30 pothole crews, that’s a problem.
But instead of getting mad, 49-year-old Jim Bachor is getting creative. During February of last year, Bachor shared the plight of navigating through his northwest side’s pock-marked streets. With the help of his 87-year-old neighbor’s watchful eye, one night Bachor snuck out onto the street and filled a pothole with a 16-by-24-inch mosaic he designed to look like the Chicago flag, emblazoned with the label, “Pothole.”
Bachor, an artist and former advertising executive, has since made five more mosaics and has at least two more in the pipeline, according to Fast Company.
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“What really drew me to the mosaics originally was the permanence of the artwork. When I first went to work in the late ‘90s and came across the ancient mosaics still intact 2,000 years later it blew me away,” Bachor said. “Potholes can never be solved. They come back every year. They keep people employed, but it’s always a temporary solution.”
Each mosaic costs the professional artist and stay-at-home-dad about $50 for marble and materials and takes at least 10 hours to dry, which is why you won’t see these pot-art pieces proliferating around town.
“When I’m doing this kind of stuff, it’s amazing the percentage of people who pay no attention. And then there are people who stop by and say, ‘Thanks for beautifying our neighborhood,’” Bachor said. “One guy stopped to thank me and gave me a coffee and a Danish.”
While it’s not a practical solution, Bachor’s work is brightening up communities and turning an annual headache into a neighborhood beautification tactic. As for the CDOT, while they’re not advocating Bachor or others take on the task of filling in potholes, they’re certainly not discouraging the pleasant addition.
“Mr. Bachor and his art are proof that even the coldest, harshest winter can not darken the spirits of Chicagoans,” an official city statement said.
Neighborhood Centers Provide New Immigrants an Instant Community
When moving to a new country, finding and gathering everything you need is a daunting, if not almost impossible, task. For immigrants that arrive in Texas, there’s a place that can help them with anything: Neighborhood Centers.
This nonprofit, which was founded in 1907, runs 74 centers in 60 Texas counties, offering everything a newcomer to America needs to get on his or her feet. According to the Associated Press, in 2012, Neighborhood Centers estimates that it helped 400,000 people. In Houston, it offers vital services to a city where 2.5 percent of all naturalized immigrants in America choose to make their homes, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Neighborhood Centers offer everything from after-school programs and fitness classes to job-search assistance, tax preparation and citizenship application help. One perennial favorite is its busy schedule of English classes, which include daytime courses to accommodate the needs of stay-at-home moms.
On the nonprofit’s Baker-Ripley campus in Houston sits the Promise Credit Union, which allows patrons to open bank accounts without Social Security cards or federal work permits — easing the immigrants’ distrust of financial institutions and giving them a safe place to store their money.
The nonprofit also runs a charter school and a welcome center that have been credited with revitalizing some low-income apartment complexes in southwest Houston. They run a thrift store — the Bumblebee Shop — serving as a classroom for patrons who want to find jobs in retail. Workers learn to handle the accounting, inventory, and work schedules. The shop sells items donated by the community, and it’s a good place for people to find affordable clothes for kids, too.
Neighborhood Centers host a knitting group that involves immigrant women in crafting scarves, hats, and other clothing and accessories that they can sell. One of the unifying themes of their programs? To help patrons find ways to make a living even though they don’t have a college degree or perfect English skills.
Often, immigrants start out receiving help from Neighborhood Centers, then return later on as volunteers to help the next wave of newcomers.
Bruce Katz, the vice president of the Brookings Institution, told Dug Begley of the Associated Press, “I think what places need is a vision. There is no lacking capital in the United States. None … What’s needed, and what (Neighborhood Centers) is doing, is putting vision to capital.”
MORE: It Wasn’t Easy to Welcome 25,000 Refugees, But Boy is This Town Glad it Did
New York City Looks to Stockholm for a Traffic Blueprint
As a city densely packed with 8.4 million people, New York City has gained one of the worst reputations for traffic and accidents. Bikes, taxis and commuters clamor for road space, creating bumper-to-bumper bottlenecks and hours upon hours of delays.
But Mayor Bill de Blasio is aiming to change the way in which New Yorkers approach road safety, looking to the country holding the world’s most renowned nation for street safety: Sweden.
Sweden, which is only slightly larger than New York City with 9.5 million people, has the lowest number of traffic deaths in the world with a national rate of 2.7 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the New York Times. In Stockholm, the Scandinavian nation’s capital, the rate is 1.1 deaths per 100,000 — a third of New York City’s rate.
Which is why de Blasio is looking to implement a similar blueprint in the Big Apple, announcing a $28.8 million dollar budget increase to the Department of Transportation for the administration’s Vision Zero Action Plan. Under the ambitious strategy, which is based on Sweden’s Visio Zero plan, de Blasio is aiming to eliminate all traffic deaths by 2024.
The Swedish Parliament first implemented Vision Zero in 1997 with the hope of eventually reaching zero traffic deaths. The proposal was that if Swedes could follow the most basic traffic laws, engineers could design streets to prevent all traffic fatalities. Through reducing speed limits, road construction reform, pedestrian safety, incorporating more roundabouts and an increased used of automated enforcement, Sweden has cut the amount of traffic fatalities in half (264 deaths last year) since it began the policy in 1997.
“You should be able to make mistakes,” said Lars Darin, a senior official with the Swedish Transport Administration, “without being punished by death.”
Though some components of the Swedish model do not translate (for instance — roundabouts, which have been integral to reducing the number of fatal crashes in Sweden), city administration officials have been in close contact with European traffic authorities working through the action plan.
New York’s Vision Zero plan does call for an increase in local enforcement of speed limits, broader parking lanes as well as the use of “black box” data recorders in taxicabs. The New York Police Department has also rolled out “arterial slow zones,” which reduce the speed limit from 30 m.p.h to 25 m.p.h., while state lawmakers recently green-lighted an additional 120 speed cameras throughout the city’s school zones. New York City now boasts 140 speed cameras in comparison to Sweden’s more than 1,100.
While Swedish authorities acknowledge New York’s Vision Zero Plan as “impressive,” they disagree with the city’s more recent focus on distribution of jaywalking tickets as well as cards with safety tips and areas with a recent history of fatal crashes.
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“Design around the human as we are,” said Claes Tingvall, the director of traffic safety at the Swedish Transport Administration and a godfather of the Vision Zero plan.
However, Polly Trottenberg, the city’s transportation commissioner, pointed out the cultural difference with pedestrians between New York and Stockholm. “New York City is one of the more remarkable pedestrian cultures in the world,” she said.
Regardless, New York is pushing ahead with the Vision Zero plan, emphasizing that cities nationwide that have implemented similar strategies to Vision Zero have reported fatality rates falling at a pace of more than 25 percent than the national rate.
Changing the attitude of city streets from survival to safety is a necessity as New York drivers and cyclists move into the summer months.