Giving Compass' Take:

• Sustainable cities are going to change due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but initiatives to promote green space, CO2 reduction, and resilient infrastructure should not remain stagnant. 

• How can local donors help these cities innovate to stay on track with their sustainability planning? 

• Read about infrastructure resiliency during COVID-19. 

In recent years, sustainable communities have shared a variety of key similarities: comparatively high numbers of LEED and Energy Star buildings, increased renewable energy generation capabilities, wide-ranging "green industry" projects,brownfield remediation and restoration initiatives, innovation districts and more.

But how have things changed for the sustainable cities movement during the COVID-19 era? Will the changes wrought in response to the pandemic be merely temporary, or will they set the tone for the next decade? What will be the markers of successful municipalities in the future?

The answer to COVID-19, however, is not necessarily to empty out cities. The pandemic has taught us that one-size-fits-all solutions have been ineffective at stopping the spread of the disease, and that what works at one point in time may not be as effective later, as infection rates change and shift locations. With this in mind, elected and administrative officials, economic development specialists and urban planning leadership will need to emphasize flexibility.

In the infrastructure sector, for example, transportation projects should be developed that don’t involve baked-in, single-option solutions that the city and their suburbs will be required to live — and reckon with — for decades to come. Rather than building a new highway, light-rail system or bikeway, it is conceivable and may be worthwhile to build arterials that could be converted to (or shared between) multiple modalities, the use of which could shift as needs change (or as people decide to forgo crowded trains and buses).

During the current pandemic, cities including Oakland, CA and Minneapolis have closed miles of city streets to allow for pedestrian traffic. As economies gradually reopen, lessons learned amid the closure of businesses and offices could be applied toward the creation of more efficient avenues that combine pedestrian and automobile lanes.

Read the full article about investing in communities post COVID-19 by Raedtha Vasquez at Smart Cities Dive.