But now.

Well move ahead with our
next speaker is Diane Davis

coming to us from Harvard University.

I cannot let you read her bio but

I will say just on a personal note she
actually lives on the Emerald Necklace.

So she is living

thank you very much.

I thought that that was the reason
you invited me to speak here

because I knew actually
what the old said projects

like deliberate across from the my
ride my bike there all the time so.

But I seriously want to thank
the organizers of the conference in

Georgia Tech and the Mr family for
for their commitment

to thinking about sustainability
through the lens of step but

as we're seeing in this present set
a presentation through larger frameworks.

So I'm going to start with a lament
that has a do with the fact

that the end as engineering and
design professionals in the fields of

sustainability we generally
know what we want to achieve.

But we do not always know how we
can turn these goals into policy.

I think this is because we
don't pay enough attention

to the political processes and
governing actions through which

transformative environmental change
at the level of the city occurs.

It may be worth noting that some of the
best examples of cities hosting prominent

innovations in urban
sustainability have occurred

only after they were championed
by a prominent political leader.

Notable examples include the adoption
of bus rapid transit encourage T.V.

Brazil under then Mayor Jaime Lerner
the advent of congestion

pricing in London under then
Mayor Ken Livingstone and the removal of.

Urban highways in South Korea under
then Mayor Lee back among others.

Even Michael Bloomberg
has come to be known for

his prominent role in promoting and
advocating for recent changes and

in bike select bus lanes pedestrian
streets and bike sharing.

Although he was unsuccessful
in getting some of the harder.

More difficult policies including
congestion pricing implemented.

In many of these instances pathbreaking
policies that transform cities.

So as to advance urban sustainability
goals were possible only because a given

leader or visionary developed
the institutional capacity nurtured public

support and enable to supporting political
coalition of alliances both within and

outside of formal policymaking
bodies to adopt an implement

programs income in a complex urban
environment to be sure not all

mayors are able to push
the sustainability to the same degree and

some may be successful on only minor
ships shifts as with Bloomberg.

But when it happens
political negotiation and

trade off is usually part of the story.

Given this reality I want
to suggest that we need

to pay more attention to both
the governments conditions and

political strategies that enable our
constrain the successful achievement of

urban sustainability goals particularly
with respect to urban infrastructure.

By infrastructure I mean major
interventions in the build environment and

the physicality of the city particularly
in the form of sustainable infrastructure

what I'm sustainable transportation
infrastructure which is my expertise and

I'm going to be speaking
about a little more today but

also major policy interventions with
respect to green ways parks and other

environmentally proactive land use as many
of which have been already discussed.

We need.

Need to understand what makes
it possible politically.

For cities to move forward.

These infrastructure projects particularly
given the fact that they often head up

against the desires of developers and
even residents who may prefer

cars over public transport real
estate development over green space.

Or who are not willing to change locations
for housing or density priorities.

How do advocates for
sustainability overcome

the various administrative fiscal
environmental and political obstacles

that routinely prevent widespread adoption
of transformative urban policies.

What leadership skills.

Technical and physical resources
negotiation capacities and

governance styles have been
invoked to successfully guide good

ideas from the drawing
board to the street.

My aim here is to share some of these.

I've looked at these questions.

With respect to transportation and

my aim here is to share some
of the preliminary findings.

We're uncovering in the first stages
of a new three year research project

that I'm directing at Harvard
funded by the Valvo research and

educational foundations which focuses
on the role of political leadership

in and governance in
transportation innovation and

we're examining the interactions between
leaders followers governing institutions

and political opportunities and
how they've helped achieve successes.

I'm going to be focusing primarily on the
case of Stockholm which is one of seven of

our case studies which this year has been
named Europe's sustainability capital.

Stockholm is known not only for its
recent innovations in congestion pricing.

This city has also managed to preserve
large amounts of green space and parks and

environmentally provide protected
zones along the lines that stem may.

Might have envisioned and and
he would have been very proud of

of Stockholm had he been here today
to see what they've accomplished but

Stockholm is also along with these
advances in green space have kept has kept

high population densities by
connecting transport to housing.

Finally Stockholm is the cheese the these
aims in the context of cultural and

political tensions about
the viability of the green model

about the potential tradeoffs
with economic development and

with many of Sweden smaller cities and
rural areas resentful of the direction

being taken in Stockholm in ways that
have generated national opposition to and

fiscal constraints on the city's
sustainability efforts.

Now I do understand that there are limits
to the transfer ability of any

model of a Northern European
city to the United States.

But they're doing something right.

And I think we need to look at
that a little more carefully.

And I also believe that we can
generate several insights or

principles from this case as well that are
applicable for of the cities of the world.

I'm going to structure my remarks around
three key propositions about political

leadership and coalition building drawn
from Stockholm making the point that even

in that socially democratic green friendly
city pushing the envelope in terms of

urban sustainability involve conflict
political conflict in negotiation but

in order to bring the lesson home to
the U.S. and all of us in this conference

honoring Frederick Law Olmstead I'm going
to punctuate maestro with occasional

references to the leadership role
played by set himself political and

otherwise in promoting new
environmentally sustainable vision for

American cities more than a decade ago.

I mean a century ago part.

Again many of the landscape
scaping objectives of

Olmsted's work did not require the same
financial resources that innovations and

sustainable transport always require.

And it's one thing to advocate.

For linear parks and Greenways and quite
another to build an entire infrastructural

transportation system linking
mobility to sustainable

land use at the Metropolitan scale
which is what happened in Stockholm.

But I do think that we can learn
something from an overview of

Olmsted's landscape in
planning contributions.

He did need to assemble strong
political allies in both the public and

the private sector and he faced political
strains as well as opportunities.

So let me start with a little
background Stockholm's recent successes

unstained village and I mentioned that was
named the sustainably capital of Europe in

two thousand and ten zero to this stablish
one of a strong mass transportation

housing NEC to the subway at its core
which made possible the development

of green suburbs while not
sacrificing downtown development.

The longer term impact of establishing
this relationship has not

only met a reduced need for
private automobile ownership.

It also created a culture
of public transportation.

That is identified as serving both wealthy
as well as poor had it not been for

the subway the land surrounding
Stockholm would have

developed very differently with green
spaces destroyed by roadways and

the proliferation of sprawl
to Bourbon developments.

So the question is what
made this possible.

This question is important to look at
because the project when it was approved

in one nine hundred forty one was highly
controversial with the original proposal

caught in the middle of a political
conflict between the social democratic and

liberal party representatives in
the Stockholm city council who shared

leadership responsibility as to vice
mayors further complicating matters.

The time it was proposed one hundred
forty one as was a time when Sweden was

suffering from the global economic
downturn associated with World War two

the projects opponents the first vice
mayor from the Social Democratic.

Our party whose portfolio was finance

argued that the city could
not afford the project.

Also because was not a large city like
other major cities in Europe in the U.S.

London New York that had built
previously built subways and

because of the topography of Stockholm.

Expensive tunnels or
bridges will be required and

many on the city council saw it was risky
and something that they would not be able

to afford the Liberal Party vice mayor pro
who's part fully was Urban Development.

Who proposes subway suggested that the
city need to be prepared for growth and

that this time of crisis was exactly the
moment to undertake anticipatory planning

the Social Democrats countered that they
did not believe the future population

projections projections for
the metro area were reliable.

That is the technical argument
Taishan was not the magic bullet for

the project success and instead
a point of tension and recrimination.

The project was ultimately proved by
the city council in forty one to such.

Despite significant zisha.

But it was not built until
the early one nine hundred fifty S.

when automobile usage was on the rise
with this time lag between decision and

execution providing plenty of
opportunity for reversing the project.

That is by the time they started building
the subway lines in the early fifty's

an alternative urban model based on
auto mobility was already on the rice so

it was not obvious that Stockholm
would continue to build the subway or

pursue transit oriented development.

So the complexity of this conditions
involving a split in political leadership

in the city council and
between mayors combined with the high risk

of the original idea to build the subway
leads me the first of the three

Popper as propositions about the politics
of sustainable urban infrastructure.

And that is a bold idea of
the transforms urban land uses and

even Or maybe especially a financially
risky one is bound to be.

Controversial but opposition can be
transcended by bringing multiple stake

holders and
important political allies to the table.

Now Starcom subway proponents cultivated
a range of influential allies

including bankers commercial interests
private developers who could be counted

on to promote promote and then able
the financial conditions for the project.

Thus appeasing one of the social
democratic opposition's main points.

Many of the actors the developers that and
the bankers

were more allied to the conservative party
than the Social Democratic Party but

by joining with the Liberal Party
position they widen support for

the proposal on the city council
the the project also receive

some support from a few members
of the Social Democratic Party.

Council because they embedded their
argument in a vision of the future

as much as the present and
they framed the project as being for

the city as a whole and even beyond and
not any particular constituency.

From the current vantage point it is
surprising that Social Democrats opposed

to public transportation probably saw our
ideas of what the Social Democratic Party

is but a part of this was
because of their prioritization

of social rather than spatial
planning in this context

the support of downtown development
interests was both controversial but

key to the project's success by turning
to private banks and other businesses

who saw the subways enabling the economic
revival and transformation of downtown

the subway advocates again the ones who
were thinking about spatial not social

planning were able to argue the financial
resources could be lent to the city.

They also made the argument that by
connecting through transportation

downtown areas to other areas outside
of the city that it would keep.

Intercity activities vibrant which
would generate more tax revenues for

the city that would allow them to pay
repay the infrastructure loans and

other social programs for city residents.

So by linking infrastructure
innovation to economic development and

revenue generation
the Liberal Party won their policy.

Now I want to mention here.

The parallel with almost its projects
a similar language he used similar

language similar similar strategy of
leverage in wealthy supporters for

for many of his major park projects and
for framing them about

larger social public issues like
creating health was Central Park for

example as the obstacles were many
using valuable urban space for

Parkland that could have been
turned into real estate development

was not popular of the time particularly
with Tammany Hall local government.

Governing authorities and
ultimately the decision to move forward

was made by the New York state
legislature and a highly political act.

Likewise also rely directly on
his political neck sions with

connections with the park commission
to to mount the competition for

the design that he ultimately won and his
design was selected over another leading

candidate with a direct intervention
of the governor view of New York

a Republican who also shared Olmsted's
partisan political sentiments

his large network of public and
private sector alleys particularly those

affiliated with the Union League continued
to serve him well in the commission

of design contracts including a shift
from New York to Boston to build.

Work on the Nexus.

But even with these political
connections we must

recognize that Ohm's it was successful
because he framed just projects as a means

to help achieve a healthy city for all and
ways that generated wide support for

the idea of running out of time but
back to Stockholm.

One of the great ironies of their subway
story was that despite having political

support for
the original construction of the project

it soon became clear that it was
only going to be fiscally viable.

If it sufficient right or

ship and this man it needed to
be matched by suburban demand

specifically to build a subway out to new
areas that didn't have any housing it.

But because a subway was planned as
a technology to guide suburban development

not respond to it.

Housing was not yet there.

Not yet
built to the degree it needed to be.

So in order to make
the project cost effective.

This.

In an essence this constraint
allowed a new innovation

which was the promoters of subway to
focus their attention on building housing

as much as building the subway.

So from my perspective it was a constraint
that was parlayed into innovation.

There really was a part of the success of
the story it motivated city authorities

to purchase lands and
engage in development arrangements

with municipalities outside
the city boundaries.

So as to develop housing and this writer
should demand to pay for the subway

Stated differently in order to is
strengthen the viability of the project.

Once it was approved local authority ceded
and guided the development of mass housing

in areas adjacent to subway stations first
establish in the mass transportation

housing next nexus that became so
key to long term sustainability and

Stockholm and the interesting thing about
this innovation was it also had direct

political payoffs by providing new housing
and linking housing to transportation

that that enabled access to the city
center author it is generated a virtuous

cycle between economic primacy of an ever
expanding urban development that's keeping

the pro development political constituency
happy in the Conservative and

Liberal party but at the same time
the commitment to building homes

generated newfound political
support from the subway praja.

Act among the social democrats.

Whose party profile linked them to labor
unions and social policy more general.

So by adding housing to the mix
the political coalition support for

sustainable transportation
wind dramatically and

this is a slide of the kind
of policy that was then

implemented by the Social Democrats
of the national level.

Right in the aftermath of building
the subway the million homes a policy

that started an entire construction
project connecting housing and

transportation development.

And that leads me to my second proposition
institutionalizing fiscal political and

citizen support for the transport housing
Neka Nexus across scales of jurisdiction

is a key to ensuring long staying long
term sustainability and the key here.

I'm going to have to go quickly
because only about two minutes left.

He concept here's is institutionalisation
so in Stockholm the linking

of housing to transport not only required
institutionalizing grade in cooperation we

different political parties about the need
to invest in sustainable infrastructure.

It also brought the new institutions new
planning institutions many of them listed

here that all started kicking in.

After the original decision to build
the subway in one nine hundred forty one.

So I'm not going to go through all those
institutions but at a certain point

subways then you had a master plan then
the master plan created new pressures for

a Planning Act.

Then after the subway
line was was created.

There were new new facilities to focus
on downtown development then you have

a master plan for a joint city planning
commission between the municipalities in

the city and so on and so on.

The new planning institutions
gave life to and

sealed the public's expectation
that good urban governance.

Required connecting the real housing and
sustainable transport and

once it's reduced allies those attitudes
helped keep the growth of automobile

ridership at relatively low levels so
Stockholm became not a cause.

Are free place but car light
lifestyle a place for a car light

lifestyle in which ownership rates
are high but use your ship is you low.

I think I'm going to go quickly for
here because I'm way too many pages here.

Overhead of time.

OK.

But I guess my point here is that
I want to talk about the ways in

which that these originalists issues and
planning institutions cultivated and

I want to use a word institutionalized or
a commitment to sustainability and

a set of expectations about
the relationship let's say of green space

transportation housing and
sustainability early on in

the public imaginary in a place
like Stockholm just so and

this is a really I think in a really
important point given the fact that this.

This public sense sensitivity
was not necessarily

existing in one nine hundred
forty one of the time that

four visionary thinkers were thinking
about connecting that the city.

The will coordinated housing public
transportation sustainability Nexus

also ensure that parts of
the periphery remain green and

that citizens could move easily between
town or green suburb in the country.

So rather than carving it that this is
not going to actually fit the slide but

rather than I would I want us to think
about the kind of larger ethos that

allowed the civic consciousness
about environmental sustainability

in the case of of Stockholm I'd like
us to think about this as somewhat

inverting the logic of Olmsted's
linear parks rather than carving

out a silver a sliver a necklace of
green spaces in the midst of an already

settled urban area or designing intimate
suburban communities in natural settings

that might eventually be connected to
central business district by parkways and

rapid transit in Stockholm
the housing transport system.

Became the starting point for achieving
such aims serving as a linear corridor

of infrastructure carved
into larger green spaces so.

A corridor of like urban ism concrete

transportation carved into spaces with
connectivity along the network pathway and

a building accessibility to work home and
the shopping Nexus and this networked or

linear urban ism appears just serve the
interests of both the rich and the poor

alike which is often you know a deal
breaker in terms of making investments be

you know separating green spaces from
tenements or major housing dense housing.

And I think it's also worth saying
I will do it very quickly that

the point about says.

Institutionalization of of kind of the the
the organizational as well as cultural.

Desire for
these types of sustainable projects

can I think can be seen in some of
almost as projects which achieve

some of their larger more territorial
territorial scaled out successes.

At least when they tried.

They occurred when they tried to
politically engage institutionally expand

new constituencies.

Although not necessarily to
the same extent as in Stockholm.

And this is just quickly a discussion of
the ways in which the idea of the Project

for the emerald necklace was started with
little particular sites were individual

owners owned properties and all is said
and the whole firm the sons as well

as father worked on making connections
between these different actors but

ultimately after making those informal
political relationships institutionalized

with the help of Olmstead who was very
connected in Boston legislature and

Massachusetts.

Legislative new institutions
that formalized the control over

these particular projects to make
the entire emerald necklace.

I think it's also interesting from my
perspective if we look at the timeline and

hear more about this later says worked.

L. or R. when they move from doing
individual one off projects to

planning for entire areas and
you start seeing the more rat.

I think this suggests some a learning
curve that if you want to get

your projects have them achieve
the healthiness quotient scale them out.

You need.
You also

need to start thinking about creating
urban plans and not just interventions.

I think it's also interesting that we
talked about the L.A. plan the L.A.

plan is a case where almost it's tried to
work on institutionalizing their political

allies as well as organizations but
ultimately this plan which was invited

by the Chamber of Commerce
the Chamber of Commerce invited

OHMSS to create a plan and I think it was
in two thousand and eight that had a.

Idea four hundred miles
of parks street traffic.

Well those are the statistics was
ultimately repudiated by the people

who invited him to build it and in one
thousand twenty nine they we drew it and

it was one it was completed
it just sat on the shelf.

So this leads me back to my last point
that consider as constituencies I guess

I want us to remember that cities
are steps are never static.

And that even historical institutions.

May not that helped at one moment.

Do not help him in the long term.

So is constituencies change to
the politics of sustainability.

And I am going to have the I'm dropping
my my my text and I'm going to try to go

through the slides here because there's
a final conflict in the stock in case

I think it's really important that
ultimately leads to the introduction of

congestion charging stock as one of the
few countries cities in the world that has

successfully introduced to congestion
charge a mention that it was impossible.

It has a place in London it's in Singapore
and it was not possible in New York and

the question of how that happened and
I think the political conflict.

Had to do with the fact that.

After the institutionalization
of the housing transport now.

Axis.
It allowed the development of

of green areas for both rich and
poor as I was mentioning and

the cities started growing middle income
people especially those who worked at and

used transportation but also you had
wealthy suburbs and car ridership went up.

I need not remind people that still.

Valvo and Stockholm and
Sweden is a country that produces cars and

car ridership did include did it.

Did accelerate over time and ultimately
created political conflicts about whether

this Stockholm would would build more
highways and build more roads to respond

to the growth of the city after all
the subway helped helped expand the city.

It created a certain amount sprawl and
there were a huge conflict

between the different political parties in
the late ninety's and the late eighty's or

early ninety's about how much
of to balance investments in in.

Roadways and
investments in public transportation and

it brought a political
negotiation a coalition that was.

Under the leadership of
the National Minister of Finance.

Called Bank Dennis came up with
the the Dennis agreement or

the dentist package that tried
to have a little bit of support.

You see on the.

Graphic here that basically the different
political parties want to different types

of infrastructure and and a a agreement
was negotiated by giving a little bit

to everybody but the important
thing here is the the agreement

was was made possible because
Mr Dennis exposed to the Green Party

from the negotiation at
the national political level and

ultimately that decision came back
to haunt him because they contained.

They continued to support and push for

environmental sustainability precisely
because the way they were pushed out of

the political negotiation
about sustainability.

Ultimately when the Social Democrats
came back to power.

In Stockholm in Sweden and nationally
in two thousand and six they introduced

congestion part charging on the national
level in a way to undermine the kind of

exclusion of that principle in the dentist
package in the one nine hundred ninety S..

And this created a major crisis for
the mayor of Stockholm it was

a social democrat who wanted to keep
the dentist package moving because it

was a package that had the most political
party support all the different parties

supported that and only environments
were pushing for congestion charging but

she basically the party discipline
suggested that she would have to resign if

she didn't introduce congestion pricing or
she.

Would have to follow through with
the national political parties

points in my lap.

My last two sites.

And ultimately in order to find room for

maneuver in this politically
difficult situation.

She introduced a trial test of
an congestion charging and I think

the point here is that experimentation
generates space for the implementation of

controversial policies and what will what
you find if you look at the statistics.

Many people were opposed to congestion
charging before the trial or

be before the trial or
the experimentation and

once it was implemented people
actually really liked it and

then they formalized it and
that helped push Stockholm.

Let's say over the edge in
terms of sustainability.

So my last slide the takeaway.

What I'm what I'm trying to underscore
here is I want us to think about the ways

that building sustainable infrastructure
is a constant political struggle.

It never ends.

And.

One has to always be pro active
in prepared envisioned towards

a future to understand what
are the kind of roadblocks.

One second.

You have to expect road blocks and
back backsliding.

But in those types of environments
if you're aware that you're going to

find opposition to deep
sustainability deep green urban ism

you have to be able to think
about learning how to develop

negotiating strategies that allow you to
turn an obstacle into an opportunity.

And then last I think I wanted to say

that we need we as in the design
professions engineering.

Planners designers.

Need to know more about
political strategies.

We need to know more
how politicians think.

And we need to be able to

think like politicians when we introduce
technical knowledge just as we have to be

able to train politicians to think
technically I think in our profession.

I'm speaking from the two places I've
been teaching both MIT and Harvard.

But this is an area that is really
underdeveloped but ultimately

without an understanding of political
negotiation strategies and conflicts.

We're not going to be able to create
the cities that we want to thank you.

Thank you Diane.

So we actually do have just a couple
of minutes if we've got questions for

any of the speakers from the morning
before we take our break any

anyone have questions I thank you.

Helen and Diane this goes to you.

I happen to be working on
a project on Peachtree which

is Atlanta's main street and
if there are any media in here.

I might be getting myself into trouble.

We we along the organization that I'm with

the bucket Community Improvement District
along with the Georgia Department of

Transportation the city of Atlanta
are seeking to transform peace or.

From midtown Atlanta all
the way up through Buckhead

from a traffic sewer to a complete
street number looking for

the conversation about complete
streets later on today.

The political wins around
this are gale force and

your comment early on about the absolute
need for political leadership in order

to make a change in this way I'm
discovering is a very important point

because what the leadership is doing
is sort of holding the finger up and

trying to decide wows the public coming
down on this and it's very difficult for

people to become educated about why
you are trying to do something and

overcome their preconceptions about their
life and their desire not to see change.

So this is a very interesting subject and
you may want to come back and

look at Atlanta for your next case
study about political leadership and

sustainable transportation change.