Innovative Mayor Sam Adams builds cleaner Portland

In honor of our Fast Cities Breakfast coming up on June 22, we spoke with Portland mayor Sam Adams, who, in his first State of City address last February, vowed to make Portland "the most sustainable city in the world." And this wasn't some populist politician's empty promise. In his first year in office, Adams implemented the Climate Action Plan, a roadmap to cutting Carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050; he's merged the Office of Sustainable Development with the Bureau of Planning to infuse all city plans with sustainability; he's worked toward allocating $20 million for new "bicycle boulevards"; and he's started a pilot program for clean energy retrofitting. Adams has proven that even in slow economic times, he's still moving Portland forward as a Fast City.