Sustainability

Chuck Wolfe admires the creative thinking which has reinvented the dramatic setting between two Italian hill towns.

December 14, 2011 - The Atlantic Cities

Walmart talks big about climate action, but its land-use strategy is anything but climate-friendly: It builds massive new stores on virgin land in sprawling areas, then abandons them in favor of still newer, still bigger stores, says Stacy Mitchell.

December 2, 2011 - Grist

Go ahead, define sustainability.  Everyone knows countless, tangled and unconvincing definitions for this word which is quickly losing steam.  The problem is that we’re not sure about how sustainability relates to us except in planetary ways. We’re bombarded with many concepts that if we reduce this by 20%  then we’ll get that in 30 years which helps the earth survive. All’s well, except we’re almost numb because we won’t feel the aggregate effects for quite some time. Obviously, we’re an impatient lot. 

November 29, 2011 - Rick Abelson

Pilgrimages to holy sites around the world have caused large amounts of waste and pollution because of the large amount of people gathering together for one event and consumeristic habits, writes George Webster for CNN

November 10, 2011 - CNN

The Web Urbanist counts down twelve of the best ultra modern home designs with a descriptive slideshow.

November 4, 2011 - Web Urbanist

In its 5th year, the Solar Decathlon had submissions from 20 different countries and from schools like SCI-Arc/Caltech's and Appalachian State University, writes Diana Budds for Dwell.

October 26, 2011 - Dwell

Galina Tachieva's new Sprawl Repair Manual creates a narrative and visual process for making suburbs more sustainable. The book's first chapter is available now online.

October 11, 2011 - Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments

The Dubai Executive Council has approved the Dubai Urban Development Master Plan 2020, and will establish a 'Supreme Urban Planning Council,' to streamline the process.

October 4, 2011 - Constuction Week

Ecopolis Plaza is a former industrial site that has become an inventive children's park, located roughly 12 miles from the center of Madrid. Nicole Jewell checks it out.

October 1, 2011 - Buildipedia

With Missouri's Historic Preservation Tax Credit on the chopping block, Citiography outlines seven reasons the state should keep this program. Creating local jobs is just one.

September 8, 2011 - Citiography

Summer travel took me out of the US and back to Sweden for the first time in five years.  While my initial reaction was that things seemed much the same, I quickly realized that the Swedes had quietly pushed forward a number of projects that, if located in the US, would be on the vanguard of sustainability.  But over there it's just called urban planning.

September 7, 2011 - Walker Wells

The town, designed by DPZ Associates, uses traditional building techniques (most of which are completely illegal in US hurricane zones) and fared better in the eye of Hurricane Irene at its strongest point than any other town.

September 2, 2011 - The Original Green Blog

Paul Mason takes a tour of Manila's 10-year-old Estero de San Miguel slum to test the theory that slums have upsides and finds that understanding the question's realities is as important as trying to find the answer.

August 16, 2011 - BBC

Freiburg, Germany has become a stunning model of sustainability, thanks in part to Wulf Daseking, the city's Head of Urban Planning since 1984. Sven Eberlein vists Daseking in Freiberg for this interview.

August 11, 2011 - Sven Eberlein

In the Philippines, "eco-entrepreneur" Ilac Diaz is spreading an idea from MIT using 2-liter soda bottles and bleach to bring a 60 watt light bulb's worth of light into the building below.

July 21, 2011 - Reuters UK

Whether in Cupertino, Calif. or Curitiba, Brazil, cities are starting an aggressive move toward sustainability in the Americas. In this evolution, technology, citizen involvement and innovation will play a role transforming cities, Leon Kaye writes.

July 5, 2011 - Guardian

Portland leads the nation is sustainability and in fact, may be responsible for starting this movement, but its economy remains mediocre and it is one of America's least diverse cities. Urbanophile's Aaron M. Renn explains why.

July 4, 2011 - Urbanophile

Of the 27 high-ranking cities, repeat offenders like San Francisco, NYC, Seattle, and Denver earned top spots. Conspicuously absent from the list is Portland.

July 1, 2011 - USA Today

Providing wifi on public transit and encouraging people to Check In with their smart phones are two of the three examples cities could implement to bring people closer together.

July 1, 2011 - Mashable

The personally rewarding and healthy activity of urban farming continues to solidify a foothold on Hong Kong high rises, in spite of the lack of support from the government.

June 30, 2011 - CNN