Dear 2015 - I’m from the future, listen up
Dear Austinites of 2015,
As I awoke today, the alarm clock gave me the daily rundown. It will be a high of 85, carbon emissions created by our community today are expected to be above 10,000, and we still don’t expect to receive any rain (it’s been about 6 months since the Torrential Downpour of 2049, so this wasn’t that surprising). It also told me that I used six gallons of water yesterday and 50 kilowatt hours of energy (but I produced 100 from my solar panels, sweet). Since the house is completely networked, I hit the alarm clock button and the house went into Morning Awake mode. The LED light in my bathroom came on, the coffee maker began to brew, and the water heater kicked on to create the four gallons of water I’d need for my stop-n-go shower. I checked my personal transit screen to see when the next train and bus were arriving, so I grabbed my foldable commuter bike and headed out the door.
I knew it was going to be a reflective day when I stepped outside and saw one. Something that I used to see every day without thinking about it. Something that the post-millennial generation of today cannot stand the sight of because it contributed to the rapid depletion of the most precious energy source we humans have ever known, yet wasted every day. I saw an SUV. Thankfully there were multiple people in there, or else it could have gotten ugly with some of the passers-by.
It made me think about life when I was younger in Austin. When we talked about the issues of climate change and density and affordability and transportation congestion as if they were important challenges to deal with but we had time to figure them out. We moved slowly in implementing policies and programs, but I’ve always wondered what would have happened if only we had fully accepted the challenges and recognized the danger that lay ahead. As you know, in those days we didn’t see how they were all interconnected; any one of them being a part of the solution for another when addressed properly. So I’m writing you this letter to see if knowing what happens in the future will spark something in you today to take a different approach.
Looking back on it now, it was the late 2020s that seemed to be the turning point for Austin. We had another summer like the one of 2011, but worse. Not only did we have 100 days over 100 degrees, but we didn’t get a drop of water from the sky for four months. Energy demand on the grid was so bad that black-outs became the norm for the first time in our city’s history. Businesses started realizing how ridiculous it was to have their large office buildings downtown keep the lights and air conditioning running even when they were empty. Homeowners did too. (Especially since energy costs soared with the new natural gas plant. The cost of natural gas quadrupled over ten years once new federal regulations took hold to account for the environmental harm that came from fracking and other techniques that released all that methane into our atmosphere. I wish we admitted it back then that doubling down on our reliance on a fossil fuel would be a mistake.)
Oil prices began to soar as the socio-political landscape in the Middle East finally deteriorated to the point of no return. Many people realized that the lifestyle they had chosen for themselves, driving 10 or 20 miles to work each way just to have a larger, more ‘affordable’ house wasn’t actually resulting in a happier or more affordable life for anyone when they took into account transportation costs and wasted time. Parents spending hours in their cars, alone, fighting traffic, instead of being at home with each other, their kids, their friends and neighbors. Self-driving cars did start to flood the streets of Austin, but that just meant more fuel use and more vehicle congestion, even if you didn’t have to drive it yourself.
Local food production had been on the rise until the late 2020s, with urban farming and community gardens taking off. It allowed people to know exactly what was going into their food, and with the great work of local nonprofits it seemed like we were even making progress with getting healthy food into communities that lacked access to it in the past. Our long, hot summer with a corresponding massive drought threatened to put an end to that. However, with oil prices driving up the cost of food production throughout the world, along with all those flights it takes to deliver that food here, people were determined to stick with it. (Side note: our grocery stores are a lot smaller now because most of us refuse to pay for the true cost of food that is grown two continents away just so we have it on our shelves year-round. If you take just a moment to think about it, it’s pretty ludicrous that we came to expect that.)
While it may sound like a really scary situation, well, it was. People were still moving to Austin at a high rate, but it was mostly from the gulf coasts cities that had started to drown in constant hurricanes and sea level rise that no one expected to happen that soon. The central parts of Austin were already so expensive that it meant these new arrivals flocked to the suburbs for housing. Since there were not many multifamily buildings there for people, they drove the cost of suburban houses up by 150% from the prior years. Which in turn meant, for many of the Austinites that were already forced from the central city in the prior decade due to affordability concerns, that they were now being forced to move out of the region altogether.
In 2030, Maria Actshun decided she’d seen enough. She ran for Mayor and promised to make the changes necessary to deal with all of these issues and think progressively about the future trends we would have to face also. She recognized that if we had just taken things a little more seriously years ago, we could have avoided many of the problems we faced in the late 2020s. Her campaign slogan was “Investing in Austin Today for a Resilient Austin Tomorrow,” and it finally rang true with people. They saw that only addressing the issues of the day had never prepared us for the challenges we knew were coming all along.
So, with the help of neighborhood leaders, business leaders, and university researchers, Mayor Actshun formed a Future Austin Task Force that laid out all the challenges listed above and what we were going to do about them. Sure, some people complained about the cost of these actions, but she rightly pointed out that the costs of inaction were far greater if we were going to continue as a great city. The report from that group echoed many of the actions that were already laid out in the community’s climate plan and comprehensive plan, but it tied budgets and timelines to them for implementation. Some of the recommendations pointed to increased government regulation in some areas that we previously thought weren’t necessary. However, because us stubborn humans never changed our behaviors that caused these problems while still expecting government to save us when things went downhill, government leaders finally decided they had a responsibility to act in the best interests of all Austinites.
It was during the heated debates of the Future Austin Task Force where the connections between these challenges and opportunities were made clearly enough for all Austinites to finally “get it.” Taking action on climate change was always hard to sell because you can’t see carbon emissions in the air like you can see other types of pollution. Trying to tell people that they needed to change their behaviors today so that we would have a better world 15 or 30 years into the future was tough too. In hindsight it’s easy to recognize that by 2015 our society had become accustomed to everything happening at the speed of a screen touch; why would anyone sacrifice today for a better tomorrow?
But the group laid it all out there. Every time you plug in and turn on a device, flip a light switch, turn on the A/C, take a shower, water your lawn (side note: those mostly disappear by 2040), you are using energy and water, of which both take energy and water to produce. Whenever you drive your car you’re using oil that was dug up out of the ground (also using massive amounts of water and energy) and transported and refined and transported before it gets the point where you burned it up just to go buy that thing. Even the cost of flying has gone up to reflect all of the emissions that are released when we decide we want a weekend away. All of the actions we take on a daily basis have a climate impact, which means we have an opportunity at multiple points throughout the day to be a part of the solution.
By 2035, it was as if the city realized it had a new purpose and vision. Building managers and housing developers formed a working group to trade ideas on how to conserve energy and water through commissioning and retrofits. Developers and neighborhoods committed to use form-based codes to increase density in the appropriate areas of town so that it fits individual neighborhood character but allows for people to live, work, and play in a walkable or bikeable area. Large employers and the various governmental entities used real-time data and volunteers who used mobility-tracking apps to develop smart transportation solutions utilizing mass transit and group transit. The on- and off-street bicycle network was completed and people realized not only was it a faster form of transportation to work than sitting in traffic, it was an easy way to use that time efficiently to get daily exercise and relieve stress.
I remember back in 2015 that everyone pointed to new technology as the way we’d solve many of these problems. Technology has improved and new tools are out there, but waiting for them to emerge as the silver bullet only sped our movement to the negative outcomes we were trying to avoid. Use what you have today, scale them up quicker than you think is necessary, and integrate the new technology when it becomes feasible. Distributed energy and storage for buildings and homes is cost competitive and builds energy resilience while conserving natural resources. On the streets today are electric light-rail (it finally passed in 2032 once Austinites accepted you can’t build your way out of highway congestion!), bus rapid transit, microbuses, pedibuses, and more, but we have 80% of people riding bikes on the beautiful urban trails network. The right government policies along with prefabricated multifamily housing (made from rapidly renewable resources) allowed for a massive construction boom that caught us up with the demand and started to put downward pressure on housing costs.
It doesn’t have to be sexy
If I could pass along any advice to you, my 2015 friend, it would be to act now. Recognizing the challenges we will face is one thing, but committing time and resources to better position ourselves for the future is what’s needed. Sure, it’s cool to make big announcements about partnerships with organizations or businesses about the next big thing, but the coolest thing to do is implement the solutions that work for today so that future generations don’t have to pay for it exponentially later. Make the calculated investments in what’s necessary because the future is coming fast and you have a responsibility to leave this place in better shape than you found it for your future kids and grandkids.
Authored by: Lewis Leff
Lewis Leff is from Atlanta but has lived in Austin for over ten years, partly due to choosing to avoid a suburban, car-centric lifestyle. He earned a masters degree in public affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs, and has held various roles with the City of Austin. His current job is as a Business Process Consultant with the Office of Sustainability. Lewis sold his car recently, bikes to work and play, tries to eat and shop local whenever possible, and is passionate about creating a better world than the one he came into.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lewisleff
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This blog post is a response to the Dear 2015 group blogging event prompt:
The year is 2050. Write a letter to the people of 2015 describing what your city is like, and give them advice on the next 35 years.
For more responses, see the Dear 2015 Event Page.