We can keep region vibrant and livable

An op-ed piece in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that about the Cascade Agenda and the need the surprises contained in it

If you are planning for tomorrow, it might be a good idea to talk with the leaders of tomorrow.

A simple idea, but it is one that looms large for the Cascade Land Conservancy. In December, the CLC was honored to work with the Seattle P-I's Newspaper In Education program, providing the ideas and content for the Zone, a full-color page that appears in the newspaper each Tuesday during the school year.

The obvious choice for content was The Cascade Agenda, the visionary program to keep what we value most about our region into the next century, by conserving 1.3 million acres -- working forests, farmlands plus lands critical to habitat and watersheds -- while revitalizing our cities and towns.

Working on the Zone pages -- aimed at students in grades 9-12 -- focused the CLC's thinking on students in school now. They are our "tomorrow" and soon will move into positions of leadership and vision, taking their turn at working to improve the region.

The CLC wants students to have a say about The Cascade Agenda, so included in the last Zone page was a student essay contest. The CLC asked the leaders of tomorrow to reflect on what they would do to advance The Cascade Agenda, about their vision for the future, the ways they would work to maintain our region's precious quality of life.

The agenda has always been about a "big tent." Supporters cross a wide range of groups, organizations and individuals -- Sam Anderson of the Master Builders, Aaron Ostrom of Futurewise and Mimi Gates of the Seattle Art Museum -- represent several of the surprising range of groups among the supporters of the agenda.

Surprise might be a good word for the agenda.

The CLC is a land trust so it started in the woods, but soon found itself in cities and towns. We realized we cannot accomplish 1.3 million acres of conservation unless we all work to make our cities and towns vibrant, livable places that act as magnets for population instead of spilling growth out into the countryside. A surprise.

Throughout 2006, Gov. Chris Gregoire has been at the forefront of leaders working on plans to rescue and restore Puget Sound. How could the agenda help? The Cascade Agenda plan to conserve working lands and key natural areas in watersheds would work as an "upland" component of Puget Sound rescue plans. A surprise.

We started in the woods but soon found ourselves at the Seattle Art Museum. Another surprise. We realized that one way a region remains vibrant and livable is with strong cultural, arts and entertainment organizations. The agenda needs to significantly expand arts and cultural organizations as agenda supporters. A surprise.

And our most recent surprise. A big tent is not just organizational. It is generational. Some of the far-reaching ideas that grew out of the agenda -- new ways of living compactly that actually advance a family's quality of life -- are in many ways generational changes. If the vision of the agenda -- conserving great lands, creating great communities -- is to be achieved, it will depend of those leaders of tomorrow.

We may start something today. Our children will have to finish it. No surprise there.

David Towne is the former director of the Woodland Park Zoo Society. Craig Ueland is the president and CEO of Russell Investment Group. Both are members of the Board of Directors of the Cascade Land Conservancy.