University of Washington group to address topic of income inequality

At the University of Washington, 5 master's students of Public Health and Urban Planning realize that a major upstream indicator that has much impact on our health and our communities is that of Income Equity. Income Equity is one of the 16 community-identified sustainability goals on B-Sustainable. The goal is: To increase income equity by ensuring the fair and impartial distribution of income and access to economic resources regardless of economic or social status. However, recent trends in income distribution, living wage and housing affordability indicate that income equity in King County is GETTING WORSE- meaning that the gap between the wealthiest and the poor is getting wider. This has many implications for everyone.

The group will be doing some more in-depth research based off of the Communities Count report (next one coming in December) and then organizing action. Keep checking back to find out what the group is doing.

Additional Sources:
Economic Opportunity Institute
Extreme Inequality
Inequality
Economic Policy Institute
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Washington Tax Fairness Coalition
King County Equity and Social Justice Initiative
Population Health Forum
United for a Fair Economy
Responsible Wealth
Presentation by Linn Gould, about income inequity and sustainability
University of Texas Inequality Project, with many studies and data about income inequity
Article in NY Times that includes King County as one of the counties with the biggest income gap
Take Back Your Time

'Celebrate Local' this holiday season

Tell us what you are doing to Celebrate Local!
Report your action today on the pledge form- it will take less than 3 minutes, and you will be eligible for rewards, like a Chinook book, a Celebrate Local book, tickets to local cultural events and more. Help us reach a goal of 300 reported actions!

Get tips from our campaign partners- and see comments added to the blog in these categories:
Celebrate our Community: Healthy People and Communities
Celebrate our Local Economy: Think Local First
Celebrate our Local Environment: Green Your Holidays

Across the country, the holidays have come to be a time of extreme excess and contribute to unsustainable practices that are not healthy for our bodies, our bank accounts, our communities or the environment. Here in King County, for example, we throw away 25% more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. This year, re-think your holidays. Let's Celebrate Local...

Celebrate Local is a community initiative supported by Seattle BALLE, Cascade Harvest Coalition, Celebrate Green, Chinook Book/ecometro.com, Community Alliance for Global Justice, Communities Count, King County EcoConsumer, King County Waste Free Holidays, Puget Sound Community Change Card/The Interra Project, Seattle Free School, SoCoCulture, Puget Sound Fresh, SCALLOPS, Seattle Greendrinks, TeachStreet, and Treeswing. The 2008 Celebrate Local initiative begins NOW (November 2008) and continues through February 2, 2009 tying together the many holidays and special events that occur at this time of year.

Spreading the Good Word of Indicators

---

Live at the Bioneers Conference...
S2 unveils its newest and very innovative information network, B-Sustainable, at the Bioneers Conference October 17-19 in Seattle. S2 and Communities Count will share a booth to show people how to be informed about our progress towards sustainability and health and social equity for all. Megan, Action Agenda Coordinator, will be presenting at 4:15pm on Saturday about the newest plans by S2 and Communities Count to use our information to take collective action.

Hey! We are in some other blogs!

• Check out what Ben Warner says about us on his blog, Community Indicators.
Mr. Warner is Director of JCCI, an innovative indicator project across the country in Jacksonville, Florida. JCCI's work has led to a great number of positive changes in Jacksonville, from policy implementation to the development of community leaders.

Enough about the decline in financial capital- let's talk about "Social Capital"

---

In partnership with Seattle City Club, Communities Count and Sustainable Seattle have been hosting community dialogues to raise awareness of the importance of social capital, and to identify opportunities for us to increase our social capital, as well as identify barriers to doing so- and ways to address those barriers.

So what is social capital? In his book Community: The Structure of Belonging, Peter Block says this. "A community's well-being simply has to do with the quality of the relationships, the cohesion that exists among its citizens...Social capital is about acting on and valuing our interdependence and sense of belonging. It is the extent to which we extend hospitality and affection to one another." Block goes on to say that to improve any of our community measures of community health- education, economy, health, safety, the environment- we need to INVEST IN SOCIAL CAPITAL.

This is a critical time to be discussing this. As uncertainty builds around the economy and financial markets, our environmental challenges grow greater- step one to addressing those is building social capital. The time also provides us an opportunity to re-assess what is important in life- in fact, researcher Robert Putnam suggest that during another dire economic time, the Great Depression, many Americans were the happiest they remember being- and remember time spent with family, friends and neighbors, working together and supporting one another.

So how is King county doing? Measures such as our Involvement in Community Organizations, and Level of Neighborhood Social Cohesion, and Level of Social Support- suggest there are some assets to build on, and some challenges to address. (From Communities Count- new report coming in December).
Nationally, Robert Putnam (famous for his book "Bowling Alone" and his work through the Saguaro Seminar) suggest that our social connectedness is on the decline, as is our level of civic engagement. DO YOU THINK THIS IS TRUE?

This has been a hot topic at the community dialogues. King County residents have a lot of thoughts on this. Some blame "The Seattle Freeze," Ipods and cell phones, negative media, and bickering politicians for what some see as low levels of social capital. Others think our car-dominated culture, unwalkable neighborhoods (in short, the Built Environment) and the norm of "work, work, work" play big roles. Another major topic of concern is what one man terms our "nickle and diming" form of government and "messed-up tax policy" which he says gives power to lobbyists and makes individual action an exhausting process. According to these challenges, building social capital will take changes to the Built Environment, including enhancing the walkability of our neighborhoods, reform tax policy, and a transformation of some of our modern cultural tendencies.

Pioneer Square is a walkable neighborhood- Do you think it has higher levels of social capital? (right)

But there are positives. Everyone seems to love our King County library system and the roles they play in building community. Lots of people are involved in neighborhoods groups, from District Councils to SCALLOPS groups to others. One woman living in downtown says she knows everyone in her condo- and credits the common area at ground floor for this. Another couple, who live on the east side, took the effort to put gift baskets on their neighbor's porches- and now have friends for life. And overwhelmingly- everyone seems to think this upcoming election has people more excited to engage than we have seen in awhile.

How can WE ALL build social capital? Is it important, especially at this time? What do you think?

-submitted by Megan Horst, Action Agenda Coordinator, Communities Count.

City Club Partnership

---

Sustainable Seattle has partnered with City Club and Communities Count to promote community action towards our B-Sustainable program goal of Participatory Decision-Making and Civic Engagement.

Our Action Agenda Coordinator worked with City club to compile existing information about our civic engagement- from involvement in community organizations and voting and volunteering rates to participation on arts and culture. Now, City Club is using that information to promote action.

Opening with United Way’s Day of Caring on September 12th and ending on Election Day on November 4th CityClub’s Community Matters Campaign will focus on building our social capital and moving citizens from talk to action, because community matters.

Visit www.seattlecityclub.org to join the campaign and help increase our community level of civic engagement. Sustainable Seattle is hosting a dialogue for the tenants of the Vance Building! Thursday, October 23 from 11:30am - 1:00pm.

Program elements will include:

• Education - In-depth, non-partisan information and opinion offered by experts, community leaders and policymakers. Presented as 7 live public forums and candidate debates on health care, environmental stewardship, public education and imminent elections and ballot initiatives. Each session will be presented to a live public audience. It will also be broadcast multiple times on cable television (Seattle Channel and TVW) and available for streaming and as podcasts.


• Community Dialogue – New this year, CityClub will host up to 50 facilitated community conversations asking citizens to weigh in on the ways they are currently engaged in the community and the barriers and opportunities they see to strengthening that engagement. Participants will also be asked what elected and civic leaders can do to support deeper citizen engagement.


• Action – All Community Matters Campaign participants will be charged to take action to deepen their civic engagement. A web-based “civic action toolbox” will be available as a resource and all dialogue and forum participants will be asked to sign individual pledge cards listing specific investments they intend to make. CityClub will record these civic commitments and mail back copies of the pledge cards to remind participants of their commitments. Additionally, dialogue and online participants will identify strategies we should take to strengthen our social capital. At the end of the Campaign, micro-grants will be awarded to community organizations addressing these identified needs.


• Community Report – The Community Matters Campaign will conclude with a report to the community—policymakers, press, and the public—summarizing what we learn from participating individuals and organizations over the program’s duration.