REMEMBERING STORM CUNNINGHAM: The Father of Restoration Economics

CLOSING SHOT
Over the past two
decades, Strom
advised many
organizations,
spoke at dozens
of events across
Canada, and
wrote three
books.
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system in the 1990s. That insight was a foundation of his
seminal book, The Restoration Economy. Published in 2002,
it is widely credited with advancing many of today’s
largest economic, professional, and scienti昀椀c trends that
redevelop cities, remediate contaminated properties, adaptively reuse buildings, and restore natural resources.
William H. Hudnut III, former four-term mayor of
Indianapolis and Senior Fellow at the Urban Land Institute said, “Cunningham convincingly demonstrates that
tremendous markets for new products and services hide
just beneath the surface of the deteriorating assets in our
natural and built environments. He points us toward
restorative development as a smarter, more economically
compelling alternative to sprawling new development.”
Storm went on to publish reWealth (2008) and further
established himself as the world’s thought leader on
community revitalization and natural resource restoration.
Half a chapter of that book was devoted to the story of how
ReNew Canada was launched in 2005. Storm often wrote for
the publication; his “favourite magazine on the planet.” His
third book, RECONOMICS: The Path to Resilient Prosperity
(2020), described the resilient prosperity process for nations,
communities, organizations, and careers.
Storm was a keynote speaker at dozens of conferences
and events across Canada over the last two decades
including the Canadian Brown昀椀elds Network, TRCA’s
Partners in Project Green, The Calgary Foundation, Nova
Scotia Community College, Urban Land Institute, Seneca
College, Clean Air Partnership, Niagara Economic Development Corporation, the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI),
and many other associations and government councils.
Glenn Miller, FCIP, Senior Associate for the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) and co-founder of the Brownie Awards
said, “Brown昀椀eld redevelopment has gone through many
di昀昀erent stages over the past quarter century, but few people managed to a昀昀ect the trajectory of how we think about
brown昀椀elds more positively than Storm. In the early years,
after the CUI’s annual brown昀椀eld conference outgrew ‘recovering brown昀椀eld’ buildings like former rubber factories
and distilleries; we wanted to inspire our diverse audience
with self-sustaining momentum for driving change. Luckily, Todd introduced us to Storm. I’ll never forget the 昀椀rst
keynote that he delivered—the 昀椀rst of many—hammering
RENEW CANADA – MAY/JUNE 2024
home the principles that underscored The Restoration Economy. He captured the imagination of hard-boiled municipal
treasurers, skeptical policy makers, and earnest young
technical consultants alike. Most important, we began to
hear the echoes of Storm’s words played back in the text of
submissions to the annual Brownie Awards. Storm succeeded in creating the broader context to expand ideas about
brown昀椀elds beyond individual buildings to the community
scale and the economy as a whole.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of these awards
which celebrate brown昀椀eld renewal projects and champions—proof that Storm’s ideas have true staying power.
William Humber, C.M., retired Director of the O昀케ce
of Eco-Seneca at Seneca College, recalls his excitement in
reading The Restoration Economy for the 昀椀rst time. “It was
like discovering a great idea never before told so directly,
convincingly and with enough evidence to convince even
the skeptic. It was required reading for years in our Civil
Technology program at Seneca. We wanted our students
to see a bigger world than the one too often assumed to be
the only one, namely widening roads, tearing things down
simply to make something bigger, or destroying some precious natural resource which often did far better service
than the things with which it was replaced. Storm Cunningham succeeded in making this vision come alive for
our students and for this we will all be eternally thankful.”
Hope and optimism through the power of revitalization
and resilience prevailed in all that Storm wrote and spoke
about. His urgent and highly intelligent demeanor sometimes rubbed people the wrong way, but he was adamant
that governments and organizations should quickly adopt
these processes and take advantage of the many bene昀椀ts.
He always provided a reinvigorating, refreshing look at
the positive directions and actions that can be taken to
generate wealth by restoring assets instead of depleting
them. It wasn’t the enviro-psycho babble that is sometimes
still prevalent today, it was real world work for rebuilding our economy and society, that perhaps for Storm, just
wasn’t happening fast enough.
Rest in Peace Storm—we will continue your legacy to
ReThink, ReBuild and ReNew.
ReNew Canada (With input from Todd Latham, Bill Humber,
Glenn Miller and www.stormcunningham.com.)
RENEWCANADA.NET

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