Milwaukee’s newest trendy neighborhood is likely to become one of its best, and almost certainly its greenest. The Brewery, an environmentally sensitive restoration and adaptation of historic structures among the decaying wreckage of the former Pabst Brewing Company, is already home to striking residential lofts, a great beer hall, a range of offices, Cardinal Stritch University City Center, and a small urban park.
[Link to Green neighborhood in Milwaukee]
How do green cities help in the effort against climate change? Eco-cities all share similar characteristics: They aim to reduce or eliminate fossil-fuel use, adopt sustainable building practices, promote "green space" and clean air quality, implement energy-efficient and widely available public transportation, create walkable city designs and develop well-organized mixed-use neighborhoods that combine living, working and shopping. These qualities add up to sustainableurbanism.
[Link to 5 Green Cities of the Future]
The system includes 236 heating electrodes that heat soil and groundwater to the boiling point of water. The water and contaminants are then converted into a noxious gas that is pumped to the surface via 16 extraction wells and treated with granular activated carbon to remove the chemicals. There are 27 temperature-monitoring wells to monitor the below ground operations.
[Link to California Superfund First to Use 100% Solar Energy in Groundwater Cleanup]
…the company boasts of illuminating its stores with low-wattage lightbulbs but positions outlets far from city centers, where taxes are low and commuting costs high—the average IKEA customer drives 50 miles round-trip. Cleverly, IKEA transfers transport and energy costs onto consumers, who are then handed the additional burden of assembling their purchases [source].
I’m a self-professed fan of Ikea but everything cited in this article is true. Consumers often fail to judge the true cost of their purchases; just because it is cheap doesn’t mean it costs less. Even to the consumer (assembling time is an opportunity cost).
Street parking, driveways and home garages are generally forbidden in this experimental new district on the outskirts of Freiburg, near the French and Swiss borders. Vauban’s streets are completely “car-free” — except the main thoroughfare, where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community.
An innovative experiment is current in progress in Vauban, Germany where residents of an upscale community, no less, are learning to live without cars in a suburb.
This blog will follow U.S. local governments that are curbing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing energy consumption, utilizing renewable energy sources, adapting to the impacts of climate change, and developing more sustainably. It will showcase their challenges, accomplishments, innovations, strategies, and lessons learned.
ICLEI’s Local Action Blog launches to make available information on cities and counties on the front lines of climate, sustainability, and energy action.
Much is being said about the grand libertarian experiment in rebuilding New Orleans. We saw how reforming the education system was considered a case against public education and overall government intervention. Nicole Gelinas at the City Journal looks at the urban renewal efforts in New Orleans that are taking a similar libertarian slant and at how the city is evolving post-disaster. Although also a firm believer in the free market mechanisms and individual choice, it is not that simple in New Orleans and the rant against planners might be slightly misplaced. The decentralized planning system hasn’t exactly worked wonders in Houston at least in terms of creating a sense of place or identity.
As John McQuaid at Huffington Post points out, the basic problem of New Orleans is “its siting, mostly below sea level, on an eroding, hurricane-prone river delta.” This context demands state and federal intervention if at all New Orleans should be considered suited for habitation. Man’s desire for controlling nature to suit his habitation needs does not necessarily triumph’s nature eventual dominance. I’ve no strong opinions whether New Orleans should or should not be developed but if it is meant to be built through a bottom up approach, it should continue on that path even in eventuality of a natural disaster.
Update: Nicole writes in to mention that she believes in good government that maintains flood control infrastructure and protect citizens from crime. I agree but like any rational entity, government will not giveth unless it can taketh even it means control over planning processes. Extremes in governance systems be it totally state-controlled or completely individualistic may not work and efforts should be made to find an amicable middle-ground.
A new swanky possibly the greenest building comes up in Athens:
The five-story structure in southern Athens produces zero emissions, uses no fossil fuel and meets virtually all its own energy demands — in winter and in summer — thanks to a computerized system that draws on both solar and geothermal sources. It even produces electricity on the side, some for selling back to the state [source]
I hope you didn’t imagine a building with terraced gardens.
New Urbanism incorporates neighborhood walkability as one of the pivotal factors in improving quality of life as well as working toward conservancy. Considering that obesity is one of the rising health problems in the United States, walkability measures are also used to promote healthy living. Walkability measures in a neighborhood usually include calculating distances to amenities like schools, grocery stores, parks, libraries, etc. Considering the rise of online mapping services like Google Maps and cross referencing of various locations via innovative mashups, it was only a while before someone came up with a tool to measure the walkability of your neighborhood.
Walk Score is an extremely user-friendly website that lets you measure how walkable is your neighborhood (although the tag line mistakenly mentions how walkable is your house). The website even lists the various benefits of walking; all of which I agree with. All you do is plug in your home address and the website spits out a score between 0 and 100 to measure walkability of your neighborhood; with 0 being completely unfriendly and 100 being extremely friendly. So naturally I put in my home address and got the following result:
As you observe, the tool gave my neighborhood got a score of 54 which is not bad considering I live in a Texan town where everyone loves their cars especially if it is a pickup. Most of the amenities listed are within a mile [a one-mile walk is considered as a standard].
However, I must mention that I live in a relatively amenity-friendly neighborhood and the location was one of the primary factors in choosing this residence. At the same time, if you actually live in their neighborhood, walking to the grocery store isn’t as easy as it sounds even when the measured distance is 0.29 miles. Why? Lack of sidewalks and pedestrian-friendly crosswalks spanning major roads. If you have to go to HEB Grocery, the store mentioned on the map, you have to cross Texas Avenue which has been perennially under construction ever since I got to College Station. Moreover, due to the construction mess, you simply cannot dream of crossing over to the other side without your heart pounding in fear of being run over. This actually is quite a big deterrent to walking to nearby amenities even if you want to. Thus proximity isn’t the only factor in measuring walkability and urban features that actually promote such behavior are important as well.
Proximity to the Wolf Pen Creek park however has made the city of College Station build sidewalks on the way to the park but these are purely meant for exercise or recreational purposes. I would like the city to put in sidewalks not only for recreational purposes but also to facilitate walking to the stores. Like they say, build and they’ll come actually makes perfect sense in creating a walkable community. If you do not have sidewalks, how can you expect people to walk even if the distance is not much?