Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Development

A Commitment to Action

This Draft Compact for a Sustainable Bay Area contains specific Commitments to Action to address the major challenges to achieving a sustainable region.

The members of the Bay Area Alliance propose the following framework for bold action. The ten strategic commitments are inextricably interconnected, and they are directly linked to the previous ten challenges. The order of listing is not intended to imply a priority.

1. Enable a diversified, sustainable and competitive economy to continue to prosper and provide jobs in order to achieve a high quality of life for all Bay Area residents.

2. Accommodate sufficient housing affordable to all income levels within the Bay Area to match population increases and job generation.

3. Target transportation investment to achieve a world-class comprehensive, integrated and balanced multi-modal system that supports efficient land use and decreases dependency on single-occupancy vehicle trips.

4. Preserve and restore the region’s natural assets, including San Francisco Bay, farmland, open space, other habitats, and air and water quality.

5. Use resources efficiently, eliminate pollution and significantly reduce waste.

6. Focus investment to preserve and revitalize neighborhoods.

7. Provide all residents with the opportunity for quality education and lifelong learning to help them meet their highest aspirations.

8. Promote healthy and safe communities.

9. Implement local government fiscal reforms and revenue sharing.

10. Stimulate civic engagement.

CHALLENGES

The Bay Area is one of the world's most desirable places to live and work. It has a robust and expanding economy. It is a gateway to the Pacific Rim. It has internationally known institutions of higher learning. It has a richly diverse population. It has a climate that is among the best in the nation. And it has natural resources whose beauty is unmatched anywhere in the world.

But the Bay Area also faces major challenges to a prosperous economy, quality environment, and social equity. These challenges are interconnected and must be addressed comprehensively.

1. Sustainable economy. The Bay Area economy has not been immune to recession. Earlier in this decade the region experienced its most significant recession since the Great Depression. In aggregate, the recovery from this recession has gone very well. But many people have been left out of the recovery. The gap between the "haves" and "have-nots" has grown substantially in the region. Many workers earn less than a living wage.

2. Housing supply. People travel increasing distances between home and work, leading to traffic congestion, personal stress and excessive time away from families. Housing prices are among the highest in the nation, adding to the problem of homelessness and causing Bay Area workers to live outside the region. Decent, affordable, safe and accessible housing should be available to all Bay Area residents.

3. Transportation system. Historical expansion of the freeway system in the Bay Area has reinforced low-density vehicle-dependent suburban development and more congestion. While funding priorities have shifted in recent years, public transit systems throughout the Bay Area are not sufficiently coordinated and do not provide adequate service, which is especially a hardship in low-income areas.

4.San Francisco Bay, habitats, farmland, open space and other natural assets. Prevailing low-density patterns of development separate homes from job centers, services and other destinations. These patterns are wasting resources, eating up open space, wildlife habitat and farmland, and threatening San Francisco Bay, the region’s biodiversity and human health through the degradation of air and water quality.

5.Resource use. Inefficient practices of production and consumption cause pollution and threaten the future prosperity of the economy.

6.Neighborhood integrity. The movement of job centers away from inner city neighborhoods and older suburbs is resulting in concentrations of poverty, deteriorated housing, a lack of adequate job training, public transit and other services, and a growing disparity of incomes between the rich and poor.

7. Educational system. The quality of the K-12 education system has deteriorated to the point where we are no longer among national educational leaders. We no longer provide an adequately educated workforce, and the future of our children is at risk.

8.Community health and safety. Declining inner city neighborhoods and older suburbs have experienced increasing crime and safety concerns. These issues are often exacerbated by environmental degradation in the same areas leading to increasing levels of health-related problems. People move away from unsafe and unhealthy communities, thereby increasing the rate of decline of the community.

9. Local government finance. Because of unreliable sources of funds, local governments often plan land uses that compete with other jurisdictions in order to increase revenues to meet growing demands for social and other municipal services. The result is a growing financial challenge, particularly for inner cities and older suburbs.

10. Civic engagement. Increasing geographic and cultural separation among people of different races, classes, and cultures and a lack of understanding of the dynamics of growth have resulted in a decline of a common civic conscience. People who are stressed by poverty, long commutes, and lack of support networks have little time for involvement in their neighborhoods and communities. Without established mechanisms for ongoing dialogue and policy development we cannot address emerging regional challenges effectively and equitably.

If present trends continue, our quality of life will deteriorate. But trends are not destiny. We have other choices, through the cooperation of the constituencies of the three E’s - economy, environment, equity working in partnership with government at all levels.