The City of Salem has been selected by the University of Oregon's Sustainable Cities Initiative as the site for students in different fields to engage in real world projects and help city council reach its goals. The students will travel to Salem frequently and are expected to present their research findings concerning fourteen projects in Salem at the end of the program in September 2011.

Salem was chosen among thirty-five cities that wanted to participate the Sustainable Cities Initiative. "Salem had the best application. It had a lot of staff commitment, time and the projects had real world components," said Nick Fleury, UO's program coordinator.

The City of Salem will invest up to with over $345,000 for the project. That is broken into three parts: $125,000 from urban renewal agency, $60,000 from Salem Housing Authority, and $160,000 from the City of Salem.

"The money will be used to assist students commuting to Salem, and to invite expert speakers [for example]," said Fleury.

Among other projects, the City expects the participating UO students to present their vision for the North Downtown waterfront area. "It's just outside a historic district. It's prime for development," said Fleury. A plan for the connection of downtown parks with urban trails and bike routes, as well as one for the restoration of Minto Brown park are also envisioned.

The UO departments of architecture, landscape architecture, arts and administration, planning, public policy and management, business management, journalism and law will be in charge of carrying out the initiative's proposals.

Jennifer Howard, a professor of industrial ecology will focus her class on the reusing of waste byproducts in Salem's industries. "One farm could use the byproducts of another, like using food scraps for animal feed," she said. The waste recycling program between industries will center around Salem's dairy, metal and food processing companies. "We're looking at existing exchanges and opportunities to have more," said Howard.

There will also be a market analysis aspect, where students will determine the potential growth of existing industries and examine Salem's demographics and other qualities in order to designate potential new ones. Other students will look at ways to improve civic engagement, representation and participation.

City of Salem's Project Manager Courtney Knox said, "Projects will begin when classes start in September, but there may be some meetings this summer for the community of Salem to get involved."