The intersection of health, transportation and climate change
The top ten reasons we need a great (convenient, affordable, clean, fast, dependable, beautiful, walk/bikeable) public transportation system in Vermont/New England/ the US of A:10. Who doesn’t love...
View ArticleEating the City and Town: Todmorden and Beyond
A few months ago, some people in Cambridge, MA were inspired by the example of Todmorden in the UK between Leeds and Manchester, a town that decided to grow as much of its food as possible within the...
View ArticleThe Good Food Revolution Goes Vertical
This is a story about something that is right in this world. It's a story of inspiration and real world solutions, a down to earth celebration of the most basic yet profound connection we have to the...
View ArticleHOLY SPOKES!!!!! London commits £1 BILLION to new bicycle infrastructure,...
From the Department of Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, last week the city of London announced one of the largest cycling transportation development budgets in the history of the bicycle,...
View ArticleBe a "Do" Tank: Will Allen, The Good Food Revolution
This isn't my usual reading material, but after reading citisven's diary, The Good Food Revolution Goes Vertical, I knew this was a book I had to read. I brought it on the bus to my class at College of...
View ArticleWhat's the matter with "The Google Bus?"
A couple of days ago I went to a panel discussion entitled A Story of Shuttles at SPUR, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. For those of you not living in SF (and the Bay Area),...
View ArticleCities Scale: Regenerative Development
The majority of the people in the world now live in cities and that will probably only increase as this century goes on. We need to imagine cities that are sustainable and, even more, regenerative,...
View ArticleCanal Restorer to River Restorer?
This greenhouse at the former historic Fisherville Mill in South Grafton, Massachusetts, sits on the banks of a canal by the Blackstone River. It is cleaning stormwater runoff and water contaminated...
View ArticleLessons for building an ecocity culture
Quick: Name a few cities that come to mind when you think of France...Paris? Bien sûr, but you can do better than that. Cannes? Mais oui, you've been reading the entertainment pages. Marseille?...
View ArticleOn the road to Cairo, Casablanca, and Medellín, Ecocitizen World Map in hand
Hola! Bonjour! As-salam alaykom! Hello! It's been a busy four months since I went into woodshed mode to help create the Ecocitizen World Map Project, a portal where citizens can map their communities...
View ArticlePostcard from Medellín: A Big WUF for Urban Equity
“Is this your first WUF?” is a question commonly asked at the World Urban Forum, a gathering for, by, and about city people that was first convened by UN Habitat in Nairobi in 2002 and descended on...
View ArticlePostcard from Medellin, Part 2: Are we better off being better off?
A Day in a Less Developed Life. Parque Biblioteca España, Medellín.The desire to create comfort and security for ourselves probably counts as one of the most rudimentary motivations in the human...
View ArticleThe Urban Metabolism: Understanding Your City by Understanding its Flow
Note: Climate change is the overarching environmental issue of our time and I'm a huge proponent of urging national and world leaders to take action. However, I often wonder what it is they're going to...
View ArticleWARNING: Graphic Humor May Cause Severe Climate Change Awareness
So here I am, fresh off the proverbial boat to witness Week 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Lima, Peru, aka COP20, or the 20th session of the Conference of the...
View ArticleHow Gondolas and Hip Hop Transformed the Most Dangerous City in the World
Medellín went from being ground zero of Colombia's drug war to UN poster child for urban equality—and the people made it happen, by designing the city they wanted.Note: This article appears in Cities...
View ArticleWays in which your garden is like a city
An urban ecosystemIf you’ve ever tried to grow anything in your garden you’ve probably had your share of unrealized visions. In your rookie year perhaps the tomatoes never turned red or the...
View ArticleCarsick Planet, Part 1: Why the world needs FEWER not better cars
“Carden of Eden” at Flora Grubb Gardens, San Francisco. All photos by Sven EberleinWith the upcoming 21st UN Climate Summit in Paris (COP21) this December promising to be a multi-lane highway towards a...
View ArticleCarsick Planet, Part 2: Reducing the fleet through personal, infrastructure &...
If indeed the continued proliferation of the personal automobile is not compatible with the future we want as I have suggested in Part 1 of this series, the question naturally becomes: How exactly are...
View ArticleCarsick Planet, Part 3: Get around. Not too fast. Mostly walk.
Getting around not too fast on the New York High Line.The previous segment of this series left off discussing how lifestyle choices, infrastructure, and a new economic thinking must work in tandem to...
View ArticlePostcard from Abu Dhabi: On the Road to Masdar City, a Desert Ecocity in the...
Masdar City, the world's first zero-carbon city under construction.Last month saw the 11th edition of the International Ecocity Conference Series that was first held 25 years ago in Berkeley,...
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