STRONG Salem is for everyone who wants to help and participate in getting Salem, Oregon, to quit chasing Growth Ponzi Scheme plans and instead become a resilient, fiscally responsible place that lives by the wisdom that "Communities exist for the health and enjoyment of those who live in them, not for the convenience of those who drive through them, fly over them, or exploit their real estate for profit."
As hellish as life was in the primitive factory towns (see Steven Johnson's fine study of early industrial London, The Ghost Map), cities at last have matured into the most ecologically enlightened habitat for a world that numbers billions of human beings. Urban density compacts population and saves the land, its resources, natural beauties, and human lives. Cities are where ideas are exchanged most rapidly and where medical progress is made. Subtract the cars and freeways, condense the suburbs back into urban centers — some large, some small — mix in a good measure of social justice, and we have the best design for living in a world where over 50 percent of the human race now chooses to reside in cities. Eldertown makes all this more possible.
Joycelyn Chavez, Manager of Marketing & Business Development for UNITED STREETCAR LLC will be the guest speaker at the Thursday noon meeting of the Salem Downtown Lions Club. UNITED STREETCAR LLC, located in Clackamas, Oregon, is manufacturing the first modern streetcar made in the USA. In a few weeks the first vehicle will roll out of the plant and begin test runs on the Portland Streetcar system. Modern streetcar lines are being developed by many cities in the US to serve growing urban mobility needs.
The Lions lunch meeting will take place at the Blue Pepper Bistro, 241 Commercial Street NE in Downtown Salem, starting at noon.
Bob Krebs
President
Salem Downtown Lions Club
503-375-2821
Below please find links to my Tacoma, Washington Streetcar videos.
Streetcars of Tacoma Video – Part One
Streetcars of Tacoma Video – Part Two
Jan 19, 2008: LOVESalem reaches the web, bringing a vitally needed message to Oregon's capital city: We must Oregon-ize to put the needs of people before the needs of cars. This requires that we live our environmental values -- that we LOVE (Live Our Values Environmentally) Salem -- by working to stop the Sprawl Machine.
The Sprawl Machine is a ravenous beast that feeds on green space, close-in neighborhoods, and property taxes and that excretes monstrous, ugly road projects that pollute the air, increase mortality and morbidity, promote climate change, weaken families and neighborhoods, and help weaken the social fabric and civic participation.
The Sprawl Machine works by constantly luring its prey with promises that the problems created by cars can be addressed by doing more of the same -- building more lanes, more bridges, consuming ever more money. In other words, the Sprawl Machine promises that we can keep doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different result this time.
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