If given the opportunity to relocate your favorite store, restaurant or even your home, what type of outdoor environment would you choose? Would it be a shaded tree-lined street with wide sidewalks, good lighting, and comfortable seating within walking distance to parks or other interesting places you love to go? Studies show that urban greening investments that beautify our streetscapes also increase economic returns to our communities. Imagine what might happen if we transformed other underused patches of land into spots for local interaction that could support small local businesses.
But greening also has other economic benefits. Greening has potential to reduce maintenance and regulatory compliance costs for municipalities. Greening can provide local jobs. Specialized skills that are currently in demand include graywater installation, lawn replacement, design, installation, and maintenance of native and rain-absorbing landscapes, retrofitting parking lots and streets with permeable surfaces, local organic produce, and urban farming for niche markets. Entrepreneurs are certain to come up with innovative business models that marry smart technology with creating and maintaining sustainable urban landscapes.
Jobs with environmental benefit, often called “green sector” or “green collar” jobs, have the potential to extend sustainable values and practices to quality of life for employees including paying a living wage and providing good benefits. By investing in local business incubators, providing technical assistance, supporting small manufacturing, providing tax and other incentives, and funding workforce training programs communities can create and keep green jobs local and increase overall economic returns.
