the opportunity in b~irig composed of many non-communicating but mutually supportive parts? The simples't and most basic thing is just to look to the whole system to see the boundaty~crnssing·relationships·that develop, fostering th.ose w~ care to. We might even do this sort of thing strongly enough to have it become a new method for planning--:planning by·6bserving relationships and opportunities. This kind of planning would be a discovery process in knowing the whole of a city and its many interests so that it could respond well when times for choice arose, rather than attempting to force present convictions on the future. From this sort of planning might evolve new attitudes towards things such as zoning or resource and land development. We could evolve a way to replace ordinances which tell us how some ill-informed authority a long time ago thought we should act within a set of guidelines for how to understand what healthy action is. With a broad enough scope, any development or resource use which enhances the breadth of opportunity for the future might be allowed; any which restricts, not allowed. We would continually develop new and more creative ways rather than be stuck in tracks apprppriate • largely for some power play decision-moment of the past. There are lots of other possible trends that parallel and contribute to such a new approach of asserting an interest in meaningful city-wide communication, how does it come to a unified and healthful response to its regional neighborhood? How can we use our skills and interests to help our cjties ·find small proportion of land influenced by the great ocean, the maritime climate region, is predominated by areas \hat get rainfall roughly on a par with the most highly developed areas in the U.S. The areas that actually receive rainfall greater than 40 inches are few and represent a very small proportion of the overall land area. In fact, the predominant effect of living in the maritime northwest "is not so much the rain as it is the gray. Most of the region is under something like a 70 percent cloud cover for 9 months of the year. When people complain about the rain, in most cases one could easily substitute the gray. It grays a lot in the Northwest.· A lot of our awareness of climate is influence·d by this kind of mass hallucination, based on broad summaries of climatic conditions that do not take into account local variations. Just in Portland, there are dramati'c variations in rainfall amounts ranging from 27" to 64", depenJing on where one 'Iives. Persons living in the east part of the city are much more under the stu'pendous effects of the Columbia Gorge, which cah bring in gusty hot and dry winds in the summer, and frigid dry air in the winter. Then there are the u~ique climatic conditions created by urban environments themselves. An average American town with a population of 1000 or more creates a heat island. A large metropolitan area will often have a nighttime temperature 8 to 10 degrees warmer than those in surrounding rural areas. "What to Do about Urban-Generated Weather and Climate Change," (by Stanley A. Changnon, Jr., American Planning Association Journal, January '79) is a good summary October 1979 RAIN Page 9 the breadth of future opportunity. Not only the whole en- ,vironmental movement and a.t. efforts, but also basic economic and behavioral forces drawing us in this sort of direction. The localizing of travel is one. New business investment patterns are another, where profit margins are becoming less important as the unpredictability o'f high-profit, non-renewable energy supplies become worse. This is guiding business •to more frequently choose the dependable lower profit, ten-year pay-back of renewable energy development over the undependable high profit·two-year pay-back for non-renewable energy development. Again, the trend is toward considering breadth of future opportunity as a basic value. Who knows-one thing may lead to more things to lead to others. The taking hold of things to come is a learning pro.cess. While the exact shapes of things to come and the specific opportunities we'll find remain unknown, one thing is clear: we will have choices to make and will make them better for seeing all our relationships more clearly. As our communities begin to let go of their illusion of isolation from the environment, a.t. 's feeling of separateness and isolation from an unresponsive society will begin to let go as well. As our individual communities form and re-form and take hold of the challenge of building from what America has built for them and making it home, so will the rich way of a.t. discover new environments to take hold in. ■ A lot of our awareness of climate is influenced by a kind of mass hallucination based on broad summaries of climatic conditions that do not take into account local variations . of some current research on the unique qualities of urban climate, like the six-year-long METROMEX project, an exhaustiv~ study of the climate of St. Louis. The study uncovered such ·astounding effects as the fact that the east part of the city has higher summer precipitation, 10 percent more clouds, 30 percent more rain, 50 percent more heavy rainstorms and 100 percent more hail than nearby rural areas. The conclusions drawn in this article don't really speak to long-range solutions to urban-induced climate change, but take a more accommodating view that speaks to how to plan around known effects-like warning farmers to stay clear of the easter~_,<.;dge of the city unless they don't mind being struck by 100 percent more hailstorms! More complete information on the METROMEX study is available from Stanley A. Changnon, Jr., Department of Geography, University of Illin'ois, Urbana, Illinois. ■
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