Waste

Three grey trash cans labeled with Compost, Recycle, and Landfill in English and Spanish on a concrete walkway in a park in Austin, Texas.

Austin Reveals New Zero Waste Plan

The city aims to eliminate the majority of landfill waste by 2040.

November 8, 2023 - The Austin Chronicle

Nederlandsche Bank building, Amsterdam

The Cradle-to-Cradle Approach to Building

The circular economy. Cradle-to-cradle. The regenerative economy. Whatever you call it, an approach to building that eliminates waste would transform the next generation of the built environment.

October 14, 2022 - The New York Times

San Francisco Muni

Climate Change Law: A Primer for Cities

A report from the Sabin Center provides a legal framework for municipal-level action on climate change policy.

November 30, 2021 - Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica Designs Greenest Municipal Building in the World

Amber Richane, Project Manager for the city of Santa Monica's new City Services Building, on the city's commitment to building the world's most sustainable public building.

November 22, 2019 - The Planning Report

Kid on Train

The Moral Foundations of Public Support For Environmentalism and Public Transit

Why do green transportation policies attract less intense support than environmentalist policies related to waste and litter?

March 19, 2018 - Michael Lewyn

Streetcar

Calls to Bring the Olympic Streetcar Back to Vancouver

Vancouver's mile-long street car was built for the Olympics and ran for only 60 days, but some of the city's residents want that service back.

March 9, 2018 - Next City

Trash

Designing a Better Trash Chute

Programs that make folks pay for garbage services based on how much they throw away can cut down trash in landfills. Designers are looking for ways to adapt these programs to multiunit buildings.

August 8, 2017 - Medium

Garbage Truck

Atlanta Adopts Waste-Collection App to Improve Service

The city's public works department hopes the app will improve efficiency, sustainability, and customer service.

December 10, 2016 - Forbes

Kentucky Landfill No Longer Accepting New York's Trash

East Coast states will no longer be able to send their waste to a landfill in Kentucky—where regulators and residents clearly got more than they bargained for.

August 20, 2015 - The Courier-Journal

Confronting Our Culture of Overconsumption

Just in time for America's "annual season of excess", Lee Epstein looks at the well hidden consequences of our insatiable appetites.

November 28, 2013 - NRDC Switchboard

How Can We Provoke "Peak Waste"?

Because city residents generate four times as much trash as rural residents, the rapid growth of the world's cities is leading to the rapid growth of the world's garbage. A new study examines future trash troubles and potential solutions.

November 8, 2013 - Fast Company Co.Exist

China Confronts Troubling By-Product of Urbanization: Mountains of Construction Rubble

China's rapid rebuilding effort has produced mountains of debris as old cities are replaced with gleaming new metropolises. Illegal dumping is coming under fire as it gets more and more difficult to conceal the evidence.

October 25, 2013 - The New York Times

A Physicist's View of the City as Machine

Astrophysicist Adam Frank takes a bird's eye view of the beautiful and perilous ways in which cities - "the defining element of human civilization" - exhibit the laws of thermodynamics.

August 22, 2012 - NPR

$600,00 Pocket Park Completed, Then Bulldozed to Build School

Jessica Garrison reports on how the City of Los Angeles spent $600k designing and building a park that no one ever got to use when it was claimed as a site for a public school.

December 12, 2011 - The Los Angeles Times

Greening Pilgrimages in Holy Cities

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

Dubai's Dirty Problem

In Dubai, the Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world. But it shares one problem will all skyscrapers in Dubai - there is no central sewage infrastructure to accommodate the waste they produce.

November 8, 2011 - Boing Boing

Wasted Oil, By Design

This episode of public radio program 99% Invisible looks at oil, and how the way people move from work to home has been seemingly designed to waste fuel.

December 1, 2010 - 99% Invisible

Meeting Slum Sanitation Needs Sustainably

With a collective population of more than 10 million, Kenya's slums face major sanitation issues. A new project offers a sustainable solution.

November 30, 2010 - Gizmag

Honolulu Law Would Reduce Construction Waste

Legislation working its way through the Honolulu City Council could require construction companies doing work in the Hawaiian city to recycle or reuse as much as 60% of construction materials.

August 31, 2010 - Pacific Business News

Reducing Congestion and Saving Money

Traffic is expensive. This infographic from GOOD looks at how much congestion costs cities and what they are trying to do to cut down the traffic.

January 29, 2010 - Good

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HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research

Call for Speakers

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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools

This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.

Planning for Universal Design

Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.