Tag: environment
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Lavasa: The Tumultuous Progress of an Aspiring Eco-City
India is urbanizing at an unprecedented rate; it is predicted that its urban population will grow from 308 million to 750 million by 2050. However, India’s current cities are ill-equipped to accept such large numbers of migrants. Plagued by inadequate social and physical infrastructure, congestion, pollution and therefore poor livability and expensive real estate, these…
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International Urban Development and Transportation
T.O.D. should not only be about transit-oriented development, but about transit-owned development. When I was a child, I was the first in my classroom to notice that the World Trade Center (Tower 1) had been struck, and I later helped to close our windows, watching as it collapsed. The World Trade Center was a transit-owned, transit-oriented development,…
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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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Glimpse: NYC Harbor
“Glimpse” is a new PYC series for on-the-go readers interested in concise, image-laden posts… Water is NYC’s 6th borough. Our water defines our social, economic, political, environmental, and physical infrastructures. Think about it: NYC would definitely not be NYC without our islands of density and diversity, interconnected by world famous structures, and interconnected to the world by…
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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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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…