Green Infrastructure (GI) is more than just the laundry list of sustainable applications, like green roofs, bigger tree planters, and frequent curb cuts. It’s also about conservation, citizen engagement, and the economics of having a livable community. It serves as both a proactive and reactive measure to insure the environmental health of a community.
 
With all its social, environmental, and economic benefits, why has it been so slow to catch on in southern urban areas? Much of it has to do with the culture of municipal engineering departments, which are often quick to say no to “new” ideas. Graduating engineers and landscape architects don’t view GI as something new and different, or even very innovative – it’s just how streetscape design is being taught.
 
But until these emerging P.E.’s and L.A.’s are managing local design projects, what can be done in the meantime to move the needle?  Athens-Clarke County, GA, and Nashville, TN seem to have figured it out. What follows are some ideas to borrow:
 

1.) Be reactive: respond to climate change effects with some guidelines.
In response to severe flooding and increased State water quality regulation, Nashville developed a plan to design, fund, and implement GI. Now, other cities take their engineers to see how it can in fact be done, in spite of clay soils, karst, seasonal detritus, and all the other reasons the south “can’t” pull it off. It’s a report that speaks to both the benefits and drawbacks of each GI practice, making it less like an advocacy publication and more like a how-to manual.

 
2.) Be pro-active: create a green space / riparian acquisition program. 
Often local administrators don’t have the luxury of thinking much about the future, so it’s easy to get stuck in a reactive cycle - though being pro-active is more efficient and cost effective in the long run.  Citizens can serve as a key conservation catalyst, as they did in Athens-Clarke County. They mobilized and worked with council and the administration to fund the purchase of undeveloped areas, The goal is to improve quality of life, community health, and economic prosperity.   
 

3.) Be affirmative: everyone loves positive press. 
Each year, the Athens-Clarke County Stormwater Management Program presents the Stormwater Steward Award to an organization, business, individual, or community group that has gone above and beyond to reduce stormwater runoff. Think of it as kind of a Green Business program that targets capital investment more than behavior change.

 
Bottom Line
You don’t have to enter the endless meeting cycle that occurs when a department doesn't want to do something.  If you want to incorporate GI into your streetscapes, you can go to the private sector.  You can go to community organizers. You can lean on the experience of regional peer cities and counties who are past the why and have moved on to the doing and maintaining.