Category: Sustainability
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Climate Change – The Verdict Is In
United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just published their fifth assessment report and the conclusion is that the global warming is caused by human activity and the scientific evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific body set up in 1988 by the United Nations. It is charged to gather comprehensive scientific assessments of…
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End of the Suburbs by Leigh Gallagher
PRESS Pass: Leigh Gallagher. A couple of interviews with Leigh Gallagher have recently been published (including the above video link) about her new book The End of the Suburbs. Her book looks at the history of the suburbs and the recent demographic shifts that have been occurring and what it means for the future…
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Are we closer to utopia?
Last century, architects and urban planners had to deal with the fact that vehicles were rapidly increasing their presence in cities. To solve the relationship between cars and pedestrians, some proposed to separate them. A relevant example of these urban planners was Clarence Perry, who developed a concept in the early 1900’s called the “Neighborhood Unit”…
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CSO Resources
So far this June has been pretty rainy, so it seems timely to provide some resources on a problem that New York City and many other municipalities are struggling to deal with: Combined Sewer Overflows or CSOs. Why should this be of interest to you? Well, you don’t swim in your toilet, but do…
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Amsterdam: The Bicycling Capital of Europe
Amsterdam is the most bicycle friendly city in Europe with 881,000 bikes in a city of 780,559 people. Amsterdam has approximately 280 miles of cycling lanes, and close to 58% of its residents use bicycles on a daily basis, 43% of them are commuting to work by bicycle. There are two reasons why Amsterdam is such a conducive place for bicycle use: Firstly, the topography…
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10 Best Cities for Urban Forests
Urban Forests seem like a contradiction in term. In our minds urban settlements and forests stand far apart at the opposite end of a spectrum. So how can they be brought together in support of each other? Apparently, as cities grow hotter and spew more carbon into the atmosphere the more trees a city needs, a forest…