Happy 20th Birthday Futurewise
"If you care about where your kids are going to live or if you care about where you're going to retire, Futurewise is the group you need to invest in because their work is the key to our ability to make progress on all those issues." Aaron Ostrom Director of Fuse
Here are a few topics we often talk about here on DTE: growth management, responsible land use, conservation, neighborhood
walkability and efficient and earth-sensitive transportation. If you consider tying them all together, what we end up talking about is a vision for a higher quality of life in Spokane, Washington state, the country and the world. A vision for a more sustainble region. Sounds great right?
It does to us now, as it did to the founders of Futurewise 20 years ago. That's right, 20 years! Pretty incredible when you think about how difficult and frustrating public policy work can be. That's 20 years of jumping hurdles, running uphill, swimming upstream, etc..... you get the picture.
In case you're unaware, Futurewise is "a statewide public interest group working to promote healthy communities
and cities while protecting farmland, forests and shorelines today and
for future generations." Founded in 1990 (the same year the Growth Management Act was passed in Washington State), they're the only statewide group in Washington working to ensure that local
governments manage growth responsibly - essentially the state's primary advocate for smart growth policies.
In the below video you'll hear stories about how Futurewise started, what's it done in the last 20 years, and why its work is critical for the future. What we want you to do is consider how Futurewise has aligned with your vision of a sustainable Spokane. Think about how it has helped protect that vision or introduce you to that vision, or use this video and post to begin that thought process. What you'll find is Futurewise is more important to you than you probably previously considered. For the next 20 or 40 years, having organizations be watchdogs of corporations, developers and other power brokers is going to be essential for protecting our vision of a sustainable Spokane, and Futurewise has 20 years of experience doing so. Get connected, get educated, get involved.
