[Massplanners] A challenge to a Monday morning

[Carolyn Britt]

All,

Below is a link to a movie that has been making the rounds of the North 
Shore to sold out audiences.

https://www.inundationdistrict.com/

Inundation District - a play on Innovation District -  is a film made by 
David Abel of the Boston Globe, the Barr Foundation and others about 
investment and flooding in the "Innovation District". Its focus is on 
the decisions made by the City of Boston and private developers to put 
hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in an area that already 
floods and will clearly get worse in the future. It is a cautionary tale 
for planners (yes, one is interviewed in the trailer). David Abel has 
accompanied the film on some occasions and provided further explanation 
and details. It has been sponsored on the North Shore by Storm Surge in 
Newburyport and I believe a consortium of folks on Cape Ann in Rockport.

This film (although I must admit I have not yet seen it - might get to 
next week) should be required viewing for planners throughout the state, 
but certainly in coastal communities.

As a retired planner, I have gotten involved in some demonstrations, 
including in the Innovation District when there was a meeting at the 
Seaport Hotel of the Northeast Gas Association. I chatted with the 
unfortunate hotel employee who was assigned to keep an eye on we 
well-over-60 somethings demonstrating out front. I asked him if he ever 
saw flooding in the streets, and he, of course, said yes. I then told 
him the real threat to his hotel was upstairs at the Gas Assoc. meeting. 
Demonstrators are at least given a decent role in the trailer, as are 
environmental organizations, and city officials.

Please watch the trailer, then set up an event, lunch, or afternoon at a 
movie theater for us all to see it together.

Carolyn Britt AICP

Ipswich Climate Resiliency Committee

1 Shagbark Woods, Ipswich, MA 01938

978-356-9881