Protecting and restoring a vibrant green infrastructure has been a key component of efforts underway to create a livable Portland-Vancouver metropolitan region. This work has great relevance for Seattle, where population is expected to at least double over the next century, making public open and green spaces increasingly vital.

Details on Portland's efforts will be presented at the final event in the City of Seattle's 2005 Urban Sustainability Forum:

"Creating Livable Cities with Urban Green Space "
Monday, Dec. 5, 2005, 5:30-7 p.m.
Seattle City Hall, Bertha Landes Room, 600 Fourth Ave.

FEATURING:  Mike Houck, Director
Urban Greenspaces Institute, Portland State University
View event flyer

Guest speaker Mike Houck will illustrate on-the-ground examples and tools his region is using to simultaneously ensure equitable access to nature, parks, trails and greenspaces; to maintain biodiversity; and to create higher density, compact urban form.  These approaches include the Metropolitan Greenspaces Initiative, regional growth management strategies, and innovative watershed planning and stormwater management.

Houck has served as the Portland Audubon Society’s Urban Naturalist since 1980. In 1994 he co-founded the Coalition For A Livable Future to ensure the integration of affordable housing, transit alternatives, urban design, compact urban form, and green infrastructure into growth management strategies.

A 2003-2004 Loeb Fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, Houck also wrote Wild on the Willamette, A Guide to the Lower Willamette River and co-edited Wild in the City, a Guide to Portland’s Natural Areas, a natural history of the Portland metropolitan region.

This forum event is free and open to the public; no registration is required. It is designed to help frame a community dialogue on a vision for open space that will continue into 2006 with a 100-year planning initiative called "Open Space Seattle 2100:  Designing Seattle's Green Network for the Next Century" (details at right).

About the 2005 Urban Sustainability Forum
This event is part of the 2005 Urban Sustainability Forum, a series of energizing public dialogues on transforming Seattle into a 21st century city that is climate-neutral, pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented, community-focused and sustainably designed.

The series features nationally and internationally recognized leaders in sustainable community development and provides an opportunity for Seattle business leaders and citizens to discuss urban sustainability issues and create a shared vision for the future. It is sponsored by the City of Seattle, the Seattle Public Library, BetterBricks and ULI Seattle.