Keep America Beautiful 2014 NotesTHE POWER OF STORYTELLING 3

THE CANONICAL STORYLINE 3

CIGARETTE BUTTS LITTER PREVENTION 4FOUR HIGHLY TESTED STRATEGIES 4PARTNERSHIPS MULTIPLY REWARD:EFFORT 4MEDIA BLITZ 4SMALL BUSINESS IMPACTS 4

TALKING TRASH PLENARY SESSION 5HANDLING TRASH 5SNOW REMOVAL 5DISPOSAL OF MATERIAL 5EMERGENCY RESPONSE 5DEMOGRAPHICS AND SOCIAL COMMENTARY 5LOGISTICS AND DEPLOYMENT 6ALTERNATIVES 6

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF RE-TRAC 7INFORMATION MANAGEMENT PLATFORM FOR RECYCLING AND WASTE MANAGEMENT 7USE CASES 7ANALYTICS AND REPORTS GENERATED AUTOMAGICALLY 7BIBB 7

HONEYBEES COLLAPSE 8UNDERLYING REASONS 8STAKEHOLDER MEETINGS 8

VIBRANT URBAN TOURISM AND LEISURE SPACES 9HISTORY OF URBAN SHARED SPACES 91 HAVE A PLAN 92 CLUSTERING AND CRITICAL MASS 93 HAVE ANCHOR TENANTS 94 LEASE AGREEMENTS INCLUDE DEFINED OPERATING HOURS AND DAYS, USUALLY EVENING HOURS 105 PEOPLE LIVING AND STAYING DOWNTOWN IN CONDOS AND APARTMENTS 106 PIONEERS WITH PATIENT MONEY WERE CONVINCED TO INVEST AND WAIT 107 START WITH ONE BLOCK, A DEMONSTRATION BLOCK 108 SOLVE THE PARKING DILEMMA 109 PUBLIC RESTROOMS 1010 DEVELOPMENT OF GATHERING PLACES 1111 NARROW ROADS, WIDEN SIDEWALKS, MAKE CROSSWALKS AWESOME, STREET TREES EVERY TEN METERS 1112 CREATE COMMUNITY GATEWAYS 1113 UNIFY WAY FINDING WITH CLASSY DESIGN, CLEAR BRANDING 1114 GATEWAY TO THE SMALLER DOWNTOWN AREA 1115 BLADE SIGNS PERPENDICULAR FROM THE FACADE 1216 OUTDOOR DINING AS THIRD PLACE AFTER BEDROOM AND OFFICE 1217 VERDANT SHOP FRONTS 1218 ?? 12

19 GIVE THE DOWNTOWN DISTRICT A NAME 1220 EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING 12

The Power of StorytellingWe deeply understand stories

Statistics don’t move or motivate us [or grant funding sources], stories do. Statistics are required and ubiquitous after funding is secured.

The canonical storyline Once upon a time…[setting] And every day…[introduction] Until one day…[hook] And because of this…[rising action] Until finally…[climax] And ever since that day…[resolution]

Cigarette Butts Litter Prevention

Four highly tested strategies Support/advertise local anti-littering laws Build awareness with public outreach Install ash receptacles at transition points Distribute portable pocket ashtrays

Partnerships multiply reward : effort ratioUsual suspects:

City agencies, public works Business improvement districts Town councils, city councils Hospitality groups Main street associations County board of Supervisors Volunteer groups: Rotaries, Kiwanis

Get on their public meeting agendas and talk about pairing up to extend matching funding

Media blitz to get the word out to the public and serve your project partners’ metrics as well

Small business impactsMarinas and small businesses concentrate butts at the land/water interface.

Butts are a direct fire hazard to boats Butt cleanup is a direct impact to small businesses’ bottom lines

Talking Trash Plenary Session

Handling trash250 M tons of waste generated per year in the USAGetting people to think about what happens to the waste beyond the curb, and the workersNew York City has added entire city blocks extending beyond geologic shoreline by building atop dumpsPolitical and class divisions meant New Yorkers endured disease and trash problems solved long ago by other similar cities (Paris)The mix of litter and manure was called corporation “pudding”A colonel (Waring) was put over street sweeping

White uniformso Esprit o Hard to sneak off to pubo

Standardized horse breeds Replaced wood carts with durable metal carts Setup curbside recycling Permitted women to be employed by the city for gleaning recyclable scrap Before/after photos used as PR in Harper’s Weekly Staged a parade before a reviewing stand, invited press, awards given Trash loaded onto scows

o Families could trim the scows looking for recyclableso Manure, ash, refuse

Snow removal Horse, then ICE powered First piled in street Then dumped in river Now treated as sewage then discharged Tandem plowing used to clear entire multilane roads at once using trucks in

chevron formation

Disposal of material Landfills noted as parks on public maps Barges no longer used Maxed-out landfills re-contoured into public parks and wetlands(!)

Emergency response Sanitation was the first department onsite, last to leave after hurricane Sandy

steamrolled New York Outpouring of public gratitude for their efforts

Demographics and social commentary 7000 workers, several hundred women Legacy work, not uncommon to find generations of families working in it Much more likely to be injured on the job as sanitation versus being police or fire Fatalities receive less press, if any, but draw hundreds of workers in “class A’s”

(dress parade uniform). Police and fire museums, etc. but no explanation or celebration of sanitation

workers

Logistics and deployment Still using paper-based and handwritten records In the process of being computerized Delays in construction of a transfer station near a recently residentialized area, city

has won legal cases to continue

Alternatives Green markets with organics recycling bins available Many restaurants pulled into organics recycling program All hard plastics recyclable as of 2012 Food waste composting, urban facilities

Getting the Most Out of Re-TRAC

Information management platform for recycling and waste managementGazillions of client orgs big and smallKAB affiliates can use free accounts to report up to KAB; 4000+ already are

Use casesWalkthroughData backs up funding requests, but costs gathering, processing, and presentation timeRe-TRAC automates everything but gathering and transcription

Analytics and reports generated automagically Charts Graphs Comparisons Ad messaging Sliced any way

BIBB Baseline Identify Build Better

Honeybees CollapseExample of tragedy of the commons

Underlying reasons Mites Too much/too little mitocide on bees Too much/too little insecticide/badly timed application on crops Fatigue Monoculture diet

Stakeholder meetings Big ag Small farmers Beekeepers Chemical manufacturers Researchers Facilitators

For KAB affiliates, local bee gardens and networking to beekeeping orgs are smart actions

Vibrant Urban Tourism and Leisure Spaces

History of urban shared spacesWWII created suburbs, which started mallsThen strip mallsDowntowns died.Vacancy is twice as high in urban vs suburbanBut major shift toward European model of carfree plazas and downtowns, street festivals, etc

Visitors don't hang out in downtowns where locals won't hang out. Shopping dining lounging in downtowns is 80% of tourism economicallyThis is why Disney built downtown Disney next to each of its parks

Twenty things roger brooks learned by studying vibrant downtowns. The best achieved seventeen

1 Have a planBranding, development, marketing, action planNot 300 page master plan, do a 50 page action planAssessment: secret shopping your downtownAsk roger for checklist of 60 things Make my own checklists to give as freebies

2 Clustering and critical massin three lineal blocks......ten places that sell food...ten destination retail shops ...ten things open after six pm bars bistros moviesAuto malls do seven times the business when clustered together

3 Have anchor tenantsLike nordstroms or Macy's at the mallAn anchor tenant is the place you go out of your way to visit.

Not the same as big box, gourmet rolls...

4 Lease agreements include defined operating hours and days, usually evening hoursSeventy percent of consumer retail spending happens after six pmMalls used to be closed on Sunday'sEating and shopping are shifting later into the nightFarmers market ran from ten to two, five hundred peopleShifted to staying open till p nine pm, went to ten thousand attendance

5 People living and staying downtown in condos and apartments

6 Pioneers with patient money were convinced to invest and waitThe big property owners can themselves cause the beautification

7 Start with one block, a demonstration blockGreat lighting, street trees, Garden club took over street corner gardens called bulb outsMust be with the collection of property owners and businesses most ready to work with you

8 Solve the parking dilemmaTwo hour parking is a good way to punish your customers and keep them awayOn the two hour parking sign put directional arrow to all day parking

9 Public restroomsNumber one need for people stopping in rural communitiesMcDonald's never puts a customers only sign up, seventy percent of bathroom stoppers buy something, many out of guiltPort o let sized single stalls with one way glass

NEVER SAY NO TELL ME WHERE I CAN GO

Relieved visitors spend more money

Info pamphlets right outside the door to provide reading material

Visitors four times more likely to spend once they are out of the car

10 Development of gathering placesThe age of third places, home work, plaza

Replacing a single sixty slot parking lot centrally located with a plaza/piazza. Rapid city matched the visitation of mount Rushmore in one year by doing this. Average age of home buyers dropped by twelve years after two years

11 Narrow roads, widen sidewalks, make crosswalks awesome, street trees every ten metersAlcoves in sidewalks for street musiciansAngle in parking can increase retail sales thirty percentStreet trees increased retail sales 18 percent by itself

12 Create community gatewaysRickety Kiwanis signs scare people awayThe entrance is the first impression and sets the norm gateways create the sense of exclusivity and luxuryReal estate sells faster for more

The sign goes where it makes the first best impression, not at the city limit

13 Unify way finding with classy design, clear brandingPedestrian maps and way finding, not just street signsNever more than five items on the sign

14 Gateway to the smaller downtown area Pole banners, physical archesDecorative sidewalks can be cut right into asphalt for 6.50$ per square foot, cheaper than pavers and resistant to snow plow blades

15 Blade signs perpendicular from the facadeConsistent height and sizeSignage says a lot about you... Misspelling a school sign, crooked sign saying alignment, slow church servicesNever use script writingNo lower than seven feet, no higher than nine

16 Outdoor dining as third place after bedroom and officeConvert intermittent parking spots during summer into cafe table seatingDoubles downtown retail sales

17 Verdant shop fronts We judge the book by its coverExtend window displays to exterior setups, not outdoor merchandising, which looks cheapPotted flowers and greeneryBuy out an entire nurserys leftover stock at the end of the year and string along the whole blockSeventy percent of first time sales come from curb appealAdding evergreen and blooming plants increase retail sales by thirty percent

Makes women, who spend eighty percent of expenditures, feel safe and welcome

So add benches against facade facing out, not against curb facing in. Flank both side with plantings

18 ??

19 Give the downtown district a nameNames are powerfulDistinguish the place and make it rare

20 Experiential marketingDeliver on the promise