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The Planetizen News Brief - 8/6/09

6 August 2009 - 5:00am
Smart City Radio

The Planetizen News Brief is a weekly rundown of some of the most interesting and important news and issues of the past week.

The Planetizen News Brief airs every week on the nationally-syndicated radio program "Smart City", which is broadcast in cities across the U.S. Learn more about Smart City and listen to archived shows.

Full Transcript

San Jose, California is getting closer to becoming the first energy-independent city in America. It’s on its way to deriving all of its energy needs from renewable resources, much of which will be locally produced. USA Today reported on the city’s plans to reduce its per capita energy needs and meet its diminished demand solely through renewable energy sources. Much of that renewable energy is planned to come from biogas, a methane-rich power source generated by converting 100% of the city’s waste into energy. The biogas facility proposed to perform this energy conversion would be the largest such facility in the U.S. As the city moves forward with these plans for energy independence, other cities are sure to be watching closely.

Meanwhile, two of America’s biggest cities are also looking to try something new. Following on the success of bike sharing systems in cities like Paris, Barcelona and Montreal, the American cities of San Francisco and New York are taking babysteps towards implementing similar systems here in the states. But Americans are a bit slower to embrace bikesharing. On a recent weekend, officials in San Francisco brought out a sample of the proposed system to the city’s main park. With only 7 bikes, the trial was not exactly a good representation of the ubiquitous systems those other cities have, but it gave some residents an idea about how the plan might work. And in New York, operators of bike sharing technologies will be demonstrating their systems to New Yorkers during three weekend street closures in the city. Officials there hope that by showing people how the systems work, they can generate the public interest and political will to make bike sharing a reality.

And there’s been a lot of talk about Detroit lately, but the problems there go beyond city borders. They’re even crossing international lines. Just across the Detroit River sits the Canadian city of Windsor, Ontario, which some are now calling the Detroit of Canada. Due to its proximity to Detroit, Windsor was also a big auto manufacturing town, and the downfall of the Ameri can auto industry has crippled the Canadian city. According to a recent report from the Economist, Windsor now has the highest unemployment rate in Canada, at more than 14%. Despite its location in Canada’s biggest provincial economy, the pains of the U.S. economy are playing a bigger role in determining the health of Windsor. Until the U.S. economy gets back into shape, Windsor is likely to remain one of the hardest hit cities in Canada, just like its American counterpart across the river.

Stories discussed in this week's Planetizen News Brief

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“
Maybe we should blame Thomas Jefferson. He was the godfather of the urban sprawl racket in America.
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