CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION: “While the housing issue dominates political conversation today, the larger ‘quality of life’ context is as important as it was in the 1990s when communities responded with a Livable Region Plan for Metro Vancouver,” states Kim Stephens, Partnership for Water Sustainability in BC
Note to Reader:
Published by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia, Waterbucket eNews celebrates the leadership of individuals and organizations who are guided by the Living Water Smart vision. Storylines accommodate a range of reader attention spans. Read the headline and move on, or take the time to delve deeper – it is your choice! Downloadable versions are available at Living Water Smart in British Columbia: The Series.
The edition published on September 17th 2024 is the first of a series of reflections that preview the SYNOPSIS for the Chronicle of Green Infrastructure Innovation in Metro Vancouver (1994-2024). The release date for the Synopsis is November 2024.
Solutions to complex problems require deep knowledge
Storytelling is the way we share intergenerational knowledge, experience and wisdom. One of our themes is that technical stuff by itself does NOT carry the day. Rather, it is stories about champions and technical stuff that carry the day.
With our storytelling, the Partnership hopes to inspire a new generation of champions to take the intergenerational baton and run with it. It is so important that we honour, celebrate and continue to build on the legacy of the Georgia Basin Initiative.
In the 1990s, there was trouble in paradise. Sound familiar? In response, the provincial government launched the Georgia Basin Initiative and motivated regional planning through passage of the Regional Growth Strategies Act. It was all hands on deck and catalyst for the green infrastructure movement. Political leadership and commitment to a livable region plan. That is the story in a sentence.
Thirty years and counting!
“The region’s continued health and sustainability demands that we treat it as one system, not as a composite of separate and jurisdictionally distinct entities.” (extracted from page 14, Georgia Basin Initiative: Creating a Sustainable Future,1993)
“The great inland sea of the Georgia Basin – not unlike a great lake – is our common link… this region is a bioregion upon which we all base our environmental, economic and social futures.” (extracted from page 6; opening statement by Mayor Joy Leach at the Georgia Basin Initiative workshop held in Nanaimo)
Competing pressures: accommodate more people, sustain a livable region
Post-COVID, we are in an era of MEMORY LOSS, both generational and organizational. The phrase memory loss is another way of saying we don’t know what we don’t know. Meanwhile, communities are confronted by a host of issues that directly affect quality of life.
Planning without a practical lens on what is doable will not succeed. Effective solutions to complex problems require deep knowledge. But with memory loss being prevalent, deep knowledge is missing in government today. This is the elephant in the room.
“The Georgia Basin Initiative encouraged us to see the bioregion as an integrated whole, to understand that land, air, water, people, animals and fish are all interconnected.”
“Viewing our growth challenges through this more wholistic lens will give us the best chance to monitor progress, to shift gears when something is not working, and to have confidence that we are building a more livable region rather than the opposite.”
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE / CONTEXT FOR BUSY READER
“This past summer, I finished writing the Chronicle of Green Infrastructure Innovation in the Metro Vancouver Region (1994-2024). It is a 500-page tome! It is also the fifth in a series of legacy documents about the power of collaboration in combination with a regional team approach,” stated Kim Stephens, Waterbucket eNews Editor and Partnership Executive Director.
Be aware of unintended consequences
“The companion Georgia Basin Initiative and Regional Growth Strategies Act provide an over-arching context. In the Chronicle, I bring forward the thinking that would help today’s elected leaders tackle our region’s complex problems while minimizing unintended consequences – the ones that result when one-off solutions are done in isolation of understanding the whole.”
“Heavy on images and light on text, the Chronicle is a sweeping narrative. It reveals the “stories behind the stories” through the use of quotable quotes. Crafted to be an easy read, the Chronicle is a series of storyboards that weave storylines at a glance for each stage of the journey.”
“Previous legacy resources in the series featured the other four regions that are partners in the Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Education Initiative (IREI). What sets the Metro Vancouver chronicle apart is that I delve deep to answer this defining question:
Knowing what we know, now what?
“In this era of short attention spans and soundbites, who among the next generation has the curiosity and time to read a 500-page tome? That is the communication challenge that we are wrestling with at the Partnership,” continues Kim Stephens.
“How does one distil 30 years of history into a succinct and helpful set of takeaways? The approach we are taking is a layered one as illustrated in the diagram below. It is two-way. In one direction, it distils. In the other, it delves deeper.”
“In November, we will release the Synopsis legacy resource. Building to that moment, we are rolling out a series of seven preview extracts titled Reflections on the Green Infrastructure Chronicle. This edition of Waterbucket eNews is the first preview. It is an appetizer.”
The past informs the future
“The series draws on the rich history of the Georgia Basin Initiative. We feature individuals who have deep knowledge of the top-down and bottom-up commitment to collaboration and innovation…that kept so many organizations on track for so long…until too many individuals either forgot or never knew WHY so many were successful for so long.”
“The series theme is a call to action: LEARN TO LOOK BACK TO SEE AHEAD AND THEN DO BETTER,” concludes Kim Stephens.
Distil, distil, distil
The Chronicle of Green Infrastructure Innovation is heavy on images and light on text, has four layers, and is designed to be a ‘legacy resource’. The target audience for each layer is different.
The interests and attention spans for the continuum of audiences also differ. The layered approach is two-way. In one direction, it distils. In the other, it delves deeper.
This Synopsis is oriented to senior managers who have limited time to absorb what they need to know to make informed decisions. It can easily be read in 15 minutes or less!
A defining statement characterizes each era:
STORY BEHIND THE STORY: Solutions to complex problems require deep knowledge – preview extract from the Synopsis for the “Chronicle of Green Infrastructure Innovation in the Metro Vancouver Region (1994-2024)”
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Turn the wheel, overcome amnesia
Solutions to complex problems transcend line items in a report. A set of cascading factors must all be in alignment to effect change. The table below illustrates how the Metro Vancouver region has regressed from a situation where many things were in alignment to one where few are in alignment.
Keeping the last column of the table in mind, how will provincial and local governments OVERCOME ORGANIZATIONAL AMNESIA? Political leadership and commitment is essential. Elected leaders just have to understand WHY a livable region is important and then commit to a plan to make it happen.
Staff can only carry things so far. With political commitment, however, one can get the ball rolling. And when someone who is elected commands respect and is THE CHAMPION, momentum can quickly accelerate.
With new political commitment, rebuild the coalition for the Livable Region Plan
“Knowing what we know, it is not as simple as going from an X to a tick mark in each column. You have to build new political commitment and basically start all over again in a new crucible phase…where you coalition-build to develop a new shared vision, etc.,” states Ray Fung, retired director of municipal engineering and transportation.
In the 2000s. Ray Fung chaired the BC Water Sustainability Committee (2003-2008) and the Green Infrastructure Partnership (2008-2010), Both were rolled into the Partnership for Water Sustainability upon incorporation as a non-profit legal entity in 2010.
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Springboard to 2025 and beyond
“The task at hand is about how to redefine things in a new political environment so you would be able to get a new vision and new political commitment. This is how you ride the curve from a new crucible period to another golden period. Learn from past experience. There is no time to reinvent the wheel.”
“Housing affordability is an issue and more people in the same area of land means increasing housing density. But as you go up, you need more park and open space. The need for tree cover becomes even more grave to reduce the heat island effect.”
“When you function stack, stream corridors for drainage and habitat can also be recreation corridors for enjoyment of nature. And that is needed to keep up with the housing density going up. Packaging and framing it that way rides that curve. It is the only way to build political support,” concludes Ray Fung.
Complementary perspectives about political commitment and leadership to effect change
Living Water Smart in British Columbia Series
To download a copy of the foregoing resource as a PDF document for your records and/or sharing, click on Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Green Infrastructure Innovation in Metro Vancouver – Solutions to complex problems require deep knowledge.
DOWNLOAD A COPY: https://waterbucket.ca/wcp/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/09/PWSBC_Living-Water-Smart_Green-Infrastructure-Chronicle-preview1_2024.pdf
About the Partnership for Water Sustainability in BC
Technical knowledge alone is not enough to resolve water challenges facing BC. Making things happen in the real world requires an appreciation and understanding of human behaviour, combined with a knowledge of how decisions are made. It takes a career to figure this out.
The Partnership has a primary goal, to build bridges of understanding and pass the baton from the past to the present and future. To achieve the goal, the Partnership is growing a network in the local government setting. This network embraces collaborative leadership and inter-generational collaboration.
TO LEARN MORE, VISIT: https://waterbucket.ca/about-us/
DOWNLOAD: https://waterbucket.ca/atp/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/01/PWSBC_Annual-Report-2023_as-published.pdf