Sustainability
Manhattan is the Greenest City
A review of GREEN METROPOLIS: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability by David Owen, expanding on his groundbreaking essay in the New Yorker in 2004 on why New York is the greenest city around.
New EcoVillages: Not Just For Hippies
The Whole Village in Ontario, Canada is an environmentally sustainable co-op made up of architects, doctors and teachers instead of draft dodgers and dropouts.
Creating 'Eco-Districts'
Green buildings are great, but don't do too much if they're located in grossly un-green places. The city of Portland is trying to address the issue by creating "eco-districts".
ASLA Creates Sustainability Guide
The American Society of Landscape Architects has released an extensive online guide to resources for sustainable urban development.
Poticha Appointed to HUD Position
Shelley Poticha, President and CEO of Reconnecting America and past executive director of the Congress for New Urbanism, has been appointed Senior Advisor for Sustainable Housing and Communities at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Where City Rankings Fail
Worldchanging's Alex Steffen looks at the recent city rankings compiled by the Natural Resources Defense Council and says the method of measurement doesn't really prove how sustainable a place is -- or how it's improving.
Most Sustainable Cities in the U.S.
Grist brings us this list of the top 15 sustainable cities in the U.S.
Getting Resilient
A paper published earlier this year by a team of professors argues that cities need to learn to become more resilient as resources become more scarce.
The 15 Most Sustainable Cities
The NRDC reveals the most sustainable large, medium and small cities in the U.S., after an extensive evaluation based on air quality, energy production and conservation, environmental standards, recycling and many more criteria.
Roadmap for a Sustainable Car Industry
John DeCicco, senior fellow for automotive strategies at the Environmental Defense Fund, and author of the Green Book--a rating system for the environmental impact of cars--talks about the regulatory reforms necessary for the car industry.
Cities Call Sustainability a Top Priority
Five out of every six major U.S. cities claims sustainability is one of its top priorities.
Vancouver's Sustainable Olympic Village
With goals of LEED-certification and plans for reuse after the games, Vancouver's Olympic Village is being called a model for event-based sustainability.
Nature Guiding Green Building
Builders, architects and designers are increasingly looking to nature for guidance as they try to build greener and more sustainably.
The APA needs a Sustainability Division
Many planners and even American Planning Association (APA) members are unaware that the APA has special member bodies called Divisions. These are essentially issue-focused member committees within APA that contribute to policymaking, develop conference sessions, publish newsletters, and generally act as focal points for like-minded APA members.
Thirteen Strategies for Sustainability
How is Kansas City to make itself sustainable? This blog offers 13 strategies, one posted a day, from experts in different fields.
Can Trade Reform Beget Economic Recovery, Environmental Sustainability?
Apropos to the debates dominating the G20 conference in London, former U.S. Trade Rep and Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor argues for trade as the centerpiece of economic and environmental sustainability.
Low Impact Development
A grad student in our program at Ball State told me several months ago that he wanted to do his creative project (a thesis alternative) on “low impact development.” His particular interest was in what we called “natural drainage systems” when I worked with the planners and landscape architects at Rahenkamp, Sachs Wells in Philadelphia 30 years ago. I told him that it was a great topic and suggested some contemporary and older resources, including an excellent 1975 publication by the Urban Land Institute entitled Residential Storm Water Management. I also told the student that the big issue with such systems is maintenance.
The 'Outdated Ethic' of Iconic Architecture
Many of the iconic structures designed by 'starchitects' are extravagant in their use of materials and the energy required to assemble them, writes Jack Diamond.
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.
Smith Gee Studio
City of Charlotte
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
US High Speed Rail Association
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
Municipality of Princeton (NJ)
