The Urban Growth Seminar Series is hosted by the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and the USC Center for Sustainable Cities. The topic of this semester's series is "The Future of Sustainable Cities: Planning, Policy and Technology."

More information is available at http://urbangrowth.usc.edu/ or https://www.facebook.com/events/186751084776751/.

Date: April 10th, 2012

Time: 12:15pm to 1:30pm

Location: USC Campus, Ralph and Goldy Lewis Hall, Room 101

Speaker: Russell Fortmeyer, Senior Consultant, Sustainability, Aurp

Title: Urban Infrastructure Planning in the Ecological Age

Topic Overview: The last 10 years has brought the concept of the "eco city" to the forefront of planning discussions in industrially developing countries, where considerations of sustainability and environmental performance have been instrumentalized as planning and building codes reliant on new layers of infrastructure planning inspired by systems thinking. Eco cities adopt closed-loop systems models for efficiency and conservation under the guise of "net zero" or "low-carbon" or "resource positive," as well as social and political compacts to maintain them. These models have also found use in mature cities, where legacy infrastructure is now over-taxed and local economies cannot support further investment. This lecture will explore best practices in urban infrastructure planning through a consideration of several case studies from throughout the world.