Renew Tucson: Investing in People, Infrastructure, and Well-Being
Mission
With Renew Tucson, Tucson can invest in itself – creating local jobs, reducing household and business costs, and building the infrastructure that makes us more resilient. This enhanced productivity will enable a more robust, resilient and prosperous local economy for everyone’s well-being.
Impact
Renew Tucson will discuss investments that drive more benefits than costs. Tucsonans currently spend billions annually on energy, water, and resources that flow out from Tucson to remote shareholders. A more efficient and more productive local energy infrastructure could be used to enable a more circular economy, better jobs and healthier lifestyle for all citizens.
Objectives
Tucson residents will improve local energy, water and resource productivity, achieved through smart investment, planned metrics, and the circular use of resources to assure continuous progress.
The community will co-create a robust and just local economic vision that provides training and living wages to the workforce in a full array of needed services (such as energy, water, labor skills, and others), while enhancing the vibrant arts and cultures of Tucson.
Methods
Participants can co-create more productive use of energy, water, and other resources in ways that increase domestic production and use of local goods and services. Design desert-appropriate policies and practices for resource productivity, skills development, and job opportunities in these major sectors of the economy:
- Energy – Regionally prioritize annual improvement in energy productivity at a cost-effective pace
- Water – Adapt policies to reduce flooding, restore waterways, and ensure our water supplies are secure into the future
- Transportation – Make the urban form more convenient and accessible in order to reduce forced motorized mobility
- Agriculture – Realign priorities and land sustenance practices to adapt to reduced water availability, including developing an efficient, productive, and innovative urban food system
- Buildings – Upgrade and retrofit the current stock of pre-1980 housing and commercial structures to more productively last another hundred years, and encourage the more productive design and construction of all new buildings
- Industry – Continue exploring and improved industrial productivity through smarter system processes, desert-adapted materials and design, and renewable resources