Category: Sustainability
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Feeding the Sun Corridor: Exploring Arizona’s Zero Sum Game
Perceptions of Sustainability Sustainability is the paradigm of our age.i Architects, urban planners, real estate developers, technology companies, college campuses, food distributors, nearly everyone is doing it. Regrettably, conversation surrounding sustainability is commonly directed at one, shallow resolve: proclaiming whether something is or is not sustainable. Use these biodegradable sponges, they’re sustainable! Don’t buy a…
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Enabling Communities to Build Their Own Plazas
All over the country more and more cities are catching on to the idea that public space can be created quickly and cheaply; expensive master plans are becoming a thing of the past. Typically a community partner—a business improvement district or non-profit community organization—can apply through the municipality to transform an excessive roadway into…
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An Urban Green District – Jackson Heights
When perusing the internet, I stumbled upon the Ecovillage Ithaca a while ago. As a planner and as a New Yorker who has yet to suffer through another putrid summer in the city, I was mesmerized. Of course I could see myself sitting on the porch of my high-energy efficiency house, after a long day’s…
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Becoming the Cycling Capital of the 21st Century
Last year, we wrote about cycling in Amsterdam, the world’s most bicycle-friendly city according to the Copenhagenize Index of 2013. Whilst we don’t need to repeat how the city’s urban form is very conducive to cycling, or how the city’s high cycling rates are a result of decades of careful planning, it is worth noting…
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Counting the Carbon Foot Prints and Changing Our Behavior!
In a recent discussion with a planner the question of over-consumption came up and how it impacts the health of our planet. It is understood that we consume more raw materials than a sustainable eco-system can provide for. In 2007 our (global) Ecological Foot Print was 1.5 planet earth, i.e. we consumed earth’s resources 1.5 times faster than the earth…
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Moose are Dying Off
Mankind is often self-involved and indulgent. It becomes apparent when we talk about the perils of climate change, too; we are primarily concerned about how these changes will impact our economies, our cities, and our way of living. However there are thousands of other species of plants, insects, and animals who are at far greater…