Re: Tahoe

Thanks for the reply. 

The Promise and the Problem

Yes, Tahoe is a special place and there have been a lot of changes since I grew up in Squaw Valley.  Unfortunately, a lot of the environmental gains seem to have come at the price of our economy.  Where we once had a vibrant small business environment, now we have large tracts of open space and 10,000 sq ft homes at the end of large driveways with 5 to 10 mile drives to services, and mega resorts owned by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley where we have our choice of seasonal $12 an hour jobs without benefits.

Add to that the fact that, as a community, we are incredibly resource insecure.  We need only look at the town of Tracy in the Central Valley and the economic devastation that came from $3 a gallon gasoline to see what is in store for us if we do not change our transportation and resource patterns.

A New Environmentalism

There is a growing voice for a new environmental vision that is informed and inspired by Bjarke's Hedonistic Sustainability -- which is why I reached out to Iben.  We are beginning to imagine what would be possible if we were to build a "String of Pearls" around Tahoe -- concentrated live-shop-work-play environments, linked by mass transit (we are really good at trams), structured as progressive big businesses owned by us with a deep commitment to community, broad prosperity, and deep sustainability.  We think the time has come to use small, resource secure, "footprints" and give land back to the four leggeds, the one leggeds, the winged ones, and the crawling things -- as well as providing abundant land for the purification of water, air, and the spirit of life. 

We are also convinced that this will drive economic prosperity at the same time.

JobBonds Funding Mechanism

Tahoe's existing transportation and resource infrastructure was built with Railroad and Highway Bonds.  The costs were too high for any one individual, group of individuals, or companies to finance these projects themselves.  We believe that the transportation and resource infrastructure for the next 200 years will be built with JobBonds, a municipal funding mechanism to generate the billions of dollars that will be needed to build the future.   I was at the California Democratic Convention as a delegate for Eastern Nevada County and received strong interest from top members of the State Party and major unions to utilize this vision to put our struggling building industry back to work.  Local builders will not, in the foreseeable future, be able to get cheap loans to build highly profitable luxury cabins, live in them for two years, then sell them tax free, then "rinse and repeat".  Only large municipal scale projects will get funding going forward.  This is the basis of my campaign for Supervisor of Nevada Counties' 5th District.

What's Next, Tahoe?

The next step as we see it is to begin the conversation about "What's Next, Tahoe?"  To prime this conversation, we are reaching out to visionary design professionals to help open up the dialectic and stimulate some "waking dreams".  The non-profit Sustainable Tahoe wants to host a "What's Next, Tahoe?" conference and possibly a series of workshops.  We thought that the involvement of students at a top design graduate schools combined with visionary professionals would offer a unique collaborative environment.

Let me know if you have any interest in discussing these possibilities further.

With Hope, Determination, and Love,
Michael Rogers



On 2/16/2012 7:03 PM, Claire Maxfield wrote:

Iben,

Thanks for thinking of us!  I’m definitely interested to learn more. As you say, it’s beautiful up there, and there is a long history of environmental stewardship in the area.

 

Michael, if you’d like to talk further, feel free to contact me or my associate, Catherine Nueva Espana (also copied here). Either one of us can tell you more about what we do, and see if it’s a good fit for your plans.

 

Best,

Claite

 

__

Claire Maxfield

Atelier Ten

 

From: Iben Falconer
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2012 1:19 PM
To: Claire Maxfield
Cc: Michael Rogers
Subject: Tahoe

 

Hi Claire,

 

I just got off the phone with Michael Rogers (cc’ed) who lives in Truckee, CA and is running for office in Truckee, CA. He has big exciting visions for the future of the Tahoe area and reached out to us to talk about them. I’ll let him fill you in on the details of the project, but overall he is looking to develop a more sustainable future for the region. He is interested in potentially organizing a workshop for the community to envision this future. While it’s quite a distance for us, I thought that perhaps you all would be interested—it’s gorgeous up there!  

 

venligst / best regards  

Iben Falconer

Business Development Manager

www.big.dk

 

BIG NYC
601 W. 26th St. Suite 1255
New York, NY 10001
USA

 

BIG CPH

Nørrebrogade 66d, 2nd floor

2200 Copenhagen N

Denmark