EFCL Living Local Campaign

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Do you Live Where you Live?

Shop close to home ~ Work close to home ~ Play close to home ~ Truly Live close to home

What does it mean to you to Live Local? What is stopping you from Living where you Live? The EFCL Living Local Task Force has been building alliances with partner organizations and is excited to report that a fall October conference on this topic is in the works.

In conjunction with the Office of Great Neighbourhoods, consultations have been held with various partner organizations from all sectors (crime prevention, environmental/conservation, health promotion, development, recreation, shopping and many more) regarding steps that we can take in Edmonton to help people reconnect with their local community and do more things, more often, closer to home.

No matter where in Edmonton you live, the hope of living local is that you can live in a vibrant community, reduce travel times and have more time to spend on the things that matter (such as volunteering for your local community league!)

Through the suite of City of Edmonton strategic plans (The Ways) the city and many other stakeholders have recognized the need to build a more compact, environmentally and economically sustainable, walkable, livable city. The Living Local task force has taken a grassroots approach to the challenge and is working with partner groups to see how we can help people reduce the amount of travel (both in time and kilometres) in their daily lives and help them live where they live.

Some of the outcomes of the conference are expected to be measurement tools (how to know if we are living local), policy recommendations for stakeholders, a shared lobby/advocacy strategy for various levels of government, and the identification of more trailheads for local leaders to make decisions that can help people work, shop, eat, and play, closer to home.

What does living local mean to you? If you would like to be involved in our living local task force, please email michael.janz@efcl.org for the next meeting date.

What leagues are doing

Grovenor Gardens and Grows

Steele Heights Partners with Businesses

Living Local Summit

OCTOBER 28TH, 9AM - 4PM WOODVALE COMMUNITY HALL

4540 - 50 Street - Google Map - be sure to drive all the way in to the golf course building

A very successful information sharing day, the Living Local Summit was a summit of sustainable minds with a vision to creating a better place to live locally. Download the comments and collected information here - presentations are linked by the speaker bios below.

A one-day gathering brought to you by the Office of the Mayor, Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues, and the City of Edmonton.
Help your organization, customers, and members reduce transportation time, save money, and increase their quality of life.
Help us develop a strategy to help Edmontonians do more daily activities closer to home and reduce the amount of time spent driving.
Please register by October 24th. Registration includes Lunch, Coffee, and Refreshments. To register call #311 or visit http://ereg.edmonton.ca Course Code 431435 **NOTE: The event is free however, those who register and do not attend will be billed

The partnership between the City of Edmonton and The Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues (EFCL) works with member leagues, various orders of government, partner organizations and other stakeholders to encourage Edmontonians to Live Local.
The Living Local approach -- to shop, eat, play and work closer to home advances many of the City of Edmonton's long term goals. EFCL's Living Local initiative advances Edmonton's 10-year goal of improving livability by:

Cutting commuting times and diverting time spent driving to provide more opportunities for leisure, recreation and volunteering
Creating safer communities
Encouraging healthy lifestyles that promote wellness.
Connecting people and generations to create a sense of belonging
Caring for the environment
Building communities with the ability to care for themselves and others through times of celebration and times of challenge

Speakers:

Download Tony's Presentation

Engineering to Create Community: Tony Druett, Former Director of Engineering and Development Canada Lands
Tony Druett has over 40 years experience as a land development engineer. He has pioneered innovative urban design in a wide variety of situations. Tony has worked extensively in Western Canada, notably for both Griesbach Neighbourhood in Edmonton and Garrison Woods in Calgary. Tony possesses a philosophy of building communities that are unique, attractive and vital places to live. He has an extensive track record of developing neighbourhoods and urban spaces that include customized service innovations, public architecture, legacy features, mixed land uses, varied modes of mobility, traffic calming and environmentally sensitive design.

Location Efficiency: Kurt Borth, PhD candidate in Human Geography
I’m a PhD candidate in Human Geography at the University of Alberta. My research involves investigating household’s attitudes regarding their own ‘Location Efficiency’ in order to discover any barriers (normative, structural, behavioral or economical) that may exist for homeowners in choosing more ‘livable’ or location efficient housing. I believe that although personal behavior is important it is the built environment and people’s changing perceptions of it that will be most influential in the times ahead. I’m also interested in environmental behavior in general and why people do the things they do.
The Centre for Neighbourhood Technology defines ‘Location Efficiency’ as: Compact neighborhoods with walkable streets, access to transit, and a wide variety of stores and services have high location efficiency. They require less time, money, and greenhouse gas emissions for residents to meet their everyday travel requirements.

Download Kurt's Presentation

Download Esther's Presentation

Aging in Suburbia: Esther McNairnay, MA candidate Human Geography
I’m an MA candidate in Human Geography at the University of Alberta . My research looks at the experience of aging in new suburban neighbourhoods. My aim is to understand why older adults choose to age in outer areas, and what their current and future needs might be. As the oldest of the baby boomers turn 65 this year, the “senior surge” will hit Canadian cities. This means older adults will play a larger role in shaping these traditionally young-family-oriented environments. My wider research interests involve how people develop a sense of – or attachment to - place, and how we talk about those attachments.

Agenda:
830 Continental Breakfast, Coffee, Networking
900 Introductions
915 Environment Scan: Are we living local?
1000 Tony Druett
1045 Health and Wellness Break
1100 Kurt Borth and Esther McNairnay
1200 Buffet Lunch (please indicate vegan, veg, special dietary)
100 Action Plan: Collection of Ideas
- What steps can be taken so we can LIVE LOCAL?
- How would this benefit our individual organizations?
- What can our organizations do?
200 Sharing findings
215 Health and Wellness Break – coffee, torts, squares etc.
230 Prioritization, Resourcing and Implementation
315 Reporting back
330 Next steps & concluding remarks

Food and Beverage
There will be a continental breakfast with coffee and baking in the morning. Lunch is a soup and sandwich buffet. Please indicate any special dietary needs.
Attendees:
Attendees have been invited from the leadership of various non-profit and government organizations.
Municipal Departments
Provincial Government
Crime and Safety
Health and Wellness
Environment and Sustainability
Active Transportation
Seniors and Families
Education and Post-Secondary
Commerce and Private Sector
Developers and Realtors
Multicultural and Indigenous partners
For more information:
What’s your Walkscore? www.walkscore.com
GOOD – Cities www.good.is/category/cities
EFCL www.efcl.org
City of Edmonton Office of Great Neighbourhoods http://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/city_organization/office-of-great-neighbourhoods.aspx
Edmonton Neighbourhood Watch www.watch.edmonton.ab.ca
Project for Public Space www.pps.org
Live Local Alberta www.live-local.ca
Registration is open to the public. If you know of other partner agencies that would strengthen the conversation, please invite them.
Register by phone: #311 or www.edmonton.ca/ereg (code 431435)
For more information, Call Allan or Joanne 780-437-2913