Green Design » Cities

More People, Less Driving: The Imperative Of Curbing Sprawl

WorldChanging Team — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:59:00 +0000

By Ryan Avent

Experience with case studies has made it clear to many urban planners and environmentalists that to maximize the benefits of transit investments, and to slow growth in traffic congestion, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and carbon emissions, you have to focus on land use.

This knowledge has begun working its way into the policymaking world, to the extent that local and state legislatures are beginning to craft rules that explicitly factor the carbon impact of land use effects into decisions about new development and infrastructure construction. In a few years time, the federal government may follow.

But there's not as much in the way of hard studies of the effects of land use as we might like -- mainly because it's been a non-issue, so far as most of the country is concerned, for much of recent history.

Aiming to address this (and acting under a congressional mandate), the Transportation Research Board recently completed a study that has now resulted in a very large report: "Driving and the Built Environment: The Effects of Compact Development on Motorized Travel, Energy Use, and CO Emissions."

The report is actually five mini-papers, and at nearly 200 pages long it makes for a lot of reading. But the findings reported in the introduction give an idea of what it's all about.

The authors conclude that compact development is likely to reduce VMT: "The effects of compact, mixed-use development on VMT are likely to be enhanced when this strategy is combined with other policy measures that make alternatives to driving relatively more convenient and affordable." No surprises there.

Finding No. 2 is: "The literature suggests that doubling residential density across a metropolitan area might lower household VMT by about 5 to 12 percent, and perhaps by as much as 25 percent, if coupled with higher employment concentrations, significant public transit improvements, mixed uses, and other supportive demand management measures."

They note that were you to move the residents of Atlanta to an area built like Boston, you'd lower the Atlantans' VMT per household by perhaps 25 percent.

Better land use results in reductions in energy use and carbon emissions, the authors report, from both direct and indirect causes. (Direct causes would be a reduction in VMT; indirect include things like longer vehicle lifetimes from reduced use and the greater efficiency of smaller or multi-family housing units.)

But one of the crucial pieces of data included in the report is this:

As many as 57 million new housing units are projected to accommodate population growth and replacement housing needs by 2030, growing to between 62 and 105 million units by 2050 - a substantial net addition to the housing stock of 105.2 million in 2000.

Critics of smart growth efforts or rail and transit investments often wave off the potential gains from building differently by noting that so much of the current housing stock is of the sprawling, single-family home, auto-oriented sort. Convincing the people who currently live in such places to give that up for something different, they say, is sure to be an extremely difficult sell.

But that's not the issue. No one is suggesting we rip down all of suburbia. Rather we, or at least I, am pointing out that between now and mid-century, the country will very nearly have to build itself all over again to accommodate population growth. In addition to the 100 million homes now in America, somewhere between 62 and 105 million more will be built.

The critical question is what the balance of that new construction will look like. The TRB report suggests that if 75 percent of this new construction is of a more compact variety, that emissions could be reduced 10 percent or more from the baseline scenario (and that is not taking into consideration the deployment of cleaner electricity generation and other potential sources of savings).

Ed Glaeser argued -- and this is kind of hard to believe -- that land use shifts from building high-speed rail between Dallas and Houston would not provide much in the way of benefits, since, he guessed, only 100,000 or so people in each city would move from the suburbs to the central city. But this entirely misses the point.

Houston and Dallas may each double their current housing stock between now and 2050. Where are those homes going to go, with what climate impacts? That's the critical question.

Demographic shifts and changes in energy prices are sure to encourage some households that are currently living at low densities to move to more compact developments, and that's a good thing. But that's not the main reason to begin focusing on the significant available savings from smarter land use decisions.

The main reason is the growth that America will continue to face. It's difficult to imagine that the nation can double its housing stock while building in a sprawling fashion without facing major environmental costs and economic difficulties. Land use patterns will need to change. And as this report documents, there will be considerable advantages to facilitating that change.

This piece originally appeared on Streetsblog NYC.

Photo credit: Flickr/Daquella Manera, Creative Commons License.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 12:59 PM)

The Fate Of Times Square

WorldChanging Team — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:17:27 +0000

By David Bollier

Benjamin Barber, the long-time critic of market culture and champion of democratic renewal, has a thoughtful meditation on “the art of public space” in the most recent issue of The Nation.

It is a much-needed reminder of why we need such spaces, but also how each space is peculiar unto itself. He cites, for example, a variety of beloved public thoroughfares in cities around the world that enliven people, community and markets in countless ways: Las Ramblas in Barcelona, the Hackesche Höfe in Berlin, Millennium Park in Chicago, Gunpowder Park outside of London, and so on.

Barber’s piece has a specific goal, however: to prod readers to consider the fate of Times Square, which, as an experiment, has prohibited cars for the past several months. What might we do with this very special space?

Camping in Times Square. Photo by Zach Klein, via Flickr, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Barber reminds us that some commons are inherited and some are invented. In this case, he writes:

“[P]ublic space is not merely the passive residue of a decision to ban cars or a tacit invitation to the public to step into the street. It must be actively created and self-consciously sustained against the grain of an architecture built as much for machines as people, more for commercial than common use. In a word, public spaces are built, not natural; they are the result of constructive intervention rather than laissez-faire disinterest. This is an ‘art of public space,’ which requires more than no-car signs, traffic cones, concrete barriers, tables and chairs.”

In trying to re-imagine Times Square, Manhattanites have a distinct advantage: a city full of artists. Barber muses that the city might create an open-mini-bandstand or stage for performers; or a life-size chess set; or benches for people to watch each other and the promenaders; or art exhibits by schoolchildren. Barber asks:

“What will fill the empty streets and turn the famous piazza into a true commons, a place whose ‘public’ brand reflects the reality of artistic imagination and the public’s ongoing participation in the civic republic? Getting rid of the traffic was the easy part. Now comes the real work: to secure adequate funding, to enlist artists, to fill the newly created residual void.”

This piece originally appeared in On The Commons.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 3:17 PM)

The Fate Of Times Square

WorldChanging Team — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:17:27 +0000

By David Bollier

Benjamin Barber, the long-time critic of market culture and champion of democratic renewal, has a thoughtful meditation on “the art of public space” in the most recent issue of The Nation.

Camping in Times Square. Photo by Zach Klein, via Flickr, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Barber reminds us that some commons are inherited and some are invented. In this case, he writes:

This piece originally appeared in On The Commons.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 3:17 PM)

Wanted: Cool Roofs For Hot-And-Bothered Town

Green Futures — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:14:24 +0000

By Garry Campbell

With urban green space at an absolute premium, Groundwork is taking it to the rooftops.

High above Hammersmith’s frenetic high street sits an oasis of calm. Right there on the top of the Lyric Theatre is a living, breathing roof garden [right], where locals can enjoy a much needed retreat from the concrete jungle.

It “offers a gentle idyll – such a contrast to everything else nearby”, explains Adam White, Principal Landscape Architect for Groundwork West London. Situated next to a social housing estate, the garden can be accessed by residents, weary shoppers and theatre goers via a street-level staircase.

But the Hammersmith garden is for wildlife, too, he adds. “We’ve deliberately used elements that are good for encouraging biodiversity – for example, a big proportion of flowering plants, as well as timber and evergreen trees.”

Creating inner city green space has been at the heart of Groundwork’s projects for the past 25 years. It’s clear that urban communities find such places invaluable, says the charity. People use parks, nature reserves and gardens to get fit, to get to know one another, or simply to escape the hustle and bustle of the city. As it gets harder to squeeze in any more of these places at street level, there’s no reason why people can’t enjoy the same benefits on rooftops.

Green roofs aren’t only useful in maximising land; they’re a great way of adapting to, and helping mitigate, climate change. For example, they cool cities, which can be a staggering 7ºC hotter than the countryside, by reversing the ‘urban heat island effect’. And in doing so, they reduce the need for artificial cooling systems, such as air conditioning, in hot weather, thereby helping cut carbon emissions. They also retain rainwater, so reduce run-off and the risk of flooding.

Cities desperately need more rooftop gardens, says Anna Cooper, Green Roof Development Officer at Groundwork Sheffield – for the sake of environmental justice. “Deprived urban areas are more likely to be vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, such as increased flood risks and temperatures,” she points out. “Communities in these areas will be most affected by its impact, yet less able to cope with its effects.”

She’s heartened by recent recommendations from the UK Green Building Council urging the construction industry to recognise the benefits of green roofs and to have the confidence to fully embrace them. But she’d like to see more public acknowledgement of their role as a climate change solution.

That’s one of the missions of the Green Roof Centre, which was set up in 2007 by Groundwork Sheffield, in collaboration with the university and several local authorities. “When people experience green roofs for the first time they instantly see the benefits they have to offer and how they fit into the UK’s green infrastructure agenda,” Cooper says. But the word still needs to spread.

The construction industry also needs better technical guidance. “As every green roof is unique, it must be installed to a high specification to reap maximum benefits,” Cooper explains. British builders currently have to rely on European standards, such as those designed for Germany, because there are none issued in the UK. This is problematic, because each country has different climatic conditions.

But now, the Green Roof Centre is working to create a Code of Best Practice that will raise the standard of green roof design and installation. It’s a £640,000 EU-funded project run in partnership with Groundwork Sheffield and the University of Sheffield.

The UK has a lot to learn from Germany, believes Cooper. There, it’s a legal requirement to include green roofs on new flat-roofed buildings – and, to help developers along, there’s a generous grant system that typically pays up to 50% of the installation cost. Fortunately for the Hammersmith garden, private sponsors and non-profit companies came forward, including Marks & Spencer and Hammersmith London.

Cooper hopes the Code will become the ultimate standard for these vital spaces and be a first step towards their wider recognition as a solution worth significant investment. “We want green roofs to become a national phenomenon.”

Read more about green roofs in the Worldchanging archive:

WC Retro: Green Roofs
Canada's Largest Green Roof
Living Walls And Green Roofs Pave Way For Biodiversity In New Building
Green Roofs: The Urban Jungle's Upper Canopy

This piece originally appeared in Green Futures. Green Futures is published by Forum for the Future, one of the leading magazines on environmental solutions and sustainable futures. Its aim is to demonstrate that a sustainable future is both practical and desirable – and can be profitable, too.

Photo credit: Flickr/416style, Creative Commons License.

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(Posted by Green Futures in Cities at 12:14 PM)

Summer of Solutions 2009

Christa Morris — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0000

During the school year, energetic and creative college students rally together in countless important movements, from renewable energy to LGBT rights to recycling fraternities' notorious red plastic cups. But as soon as summer arrives, students disperse ... and the good work they've been doing takes a vacation, too. Who can blame them? I know that, personally, I need to make enough money during the summer to pay for school in the fall, and volunteering to plant community gardens doesn't always do the trick. We need more real jobs in a new green economy, where students and professionals alike can make a living and make the world a better place.

In 2008, a group of students from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., decided to tackle this issue. Instead of scattering to the far corners of the world, or to summer jobs that would pay the bills but not save the planet, they would use the break from classes to work together, in their own city. This was the birth of Summer of Solutions (SoS), a new but quickly growing collaborative effort to envision and create sustainable, equitable and thriving U.S. cities. By brainstorming ideas for greener cities and launching practical, local projects to make these visions real, participants learn the techniques of effective activism. Their initiatives make a difference: for example, the first Summer of Solutions in 2008 generated Cooperative Energy Futures, an energy efficiency project connecting local contractors with neighborhood groups to insulate large numbers of houses in the Twin Cities. While improving their communities, the students are improving their own futures as well, with the goal that projects emerging from the summer will provide green jobs for other passionate and skilled students once they graduate.

Last winter we talked to the Summer of Solutions organizers about their plans to expand in 2009, and now we have a report on their success. Timothy DenHerder-Thomas and Abbie Pluoff, two of the national organizers, let Worldchanging know about the most exciting outcomes (which you can read about in depth on their blog):

Gardening
A Twin Cities program established and managed three community gardens as a pilot project for developing a community-based gardening business, while in Omaha, NE, students planted a number of community gardens as a major local food and sustainability awareness-building tool.

Home Energy Efficiency
In Worcester, Mass., participants coordinated a number of energy efficiency "barn-raisings," where trained volunteers and community members made energy-efficiency improvements to a house, including caulking, lighting upgrades, and weatherstripping. The Austin, Texas, program managed community outreach for the local municipal utility in low-income communities. Students in Eugene, Ore., signed up local residents for energy audits through the Northwest Institute of Community Energy. In the Twin Cities, participants continued to coordinate outreach in 12 neighborhoods for Cooperative Energy Futures, an energy cooperative developed through the 2008 program.

Green Jobs
In Minnesota's Twin Cities, participants analyzed the green manufacturing and mixed-use design scenario of a closing local Ford Plant site. Through financial modeling, land use analysis, and job-creation studies that are being used by the City of St. Paul, the SoS team came up with a proposal utilizing the manufacturing capacity for the site by putting in a wind or solar production plant. The site would also have high-density, affordable, eco-housing as well as mixed-use buildings split between housing and business. The Ford Site plan serves as an ecosystem model of what a new green economy would look like.

Listening Projects
Through Listening Projects, where participants gather, record, and share community stories, SoS programs provide a forum for those people who have been traditionally left out of decision-making processes. For example, volunteers in Nebraska used this strategy to engage North Omaha community members in a discussion about the local coal plant and potential alternative energy sources. In the St. Louis, Mo., community of Northside, where a notorious developer has been seeking to completely redevelop a neighborhood without the consent or input from the people living there, a listening project helped citizens create their own vision for their community.

Community Engagement Projects
In the San Francisco Bay Area, organizers helped mobilize the Heartbeat of Oakland Parade and Block Party to deal with community tensions and generate momentum around the opportunities of a green economy. In Burlington, a major focus was deploying pellet-stove heaters to low-income residents to reduce reliance on fossil energy.

The summer has just ended for the Solutionaries, as they call themselves, but the projects they worked on will continue operating through the seasons. We’re impressed here at Worldchanging by their think-and-do tank philosophy: thought without action is meaningless, and action without thought is even worse. Like every innovative student movement, there is a long way to go, but here’s to a second summer of getting there!

Congratulations, also, to Timothy DenHerder-Thomas, a national co-director of this project, who has been nominated for the Nau Grant for Change award.

Photo credit: Flickr/Creative Commons

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(Posted by Christa Morris in Cities at 3:00 PM)

City of Fees And Services

Geoff Manaugh — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:09:12 +0000

A story I missed earlier this summer reports that Oakland, California, is making up for falling tax revenue by "aggressively enforcing traffic violations."

The decision is driven by the city's budget woes, which deep cuts to city services alone did not solve. Falling sales and property, property transfer and hotel taxes have contributed to a $51 million decline in revenues.It's worth asking, though, whether paying "aggressively" increased fees and fines for our everyday use of the city – whether this means road tolls and garbage collection fees or suddenly unaffordable parking meters – is the best financial model for a post-taxation metropolis.

Put another way, if the ongoing recession has revealed, amongst other things, that a new type of city, run along very different financial lines, looms just weeks away – a kind of make-your-own-omelette city of fines, fees, and services, where every ingredient is individually priced – then perhaps the recession might also stimulate a wider debate about what could be called method of payment.

That is, what method of payment do we wish to use when it comes to living in a functioning metropolis? If we find ourselves paying no tax at all, for instance – no income tax, no sales tax, no property tax – would we be happy to pay parking tickets that hit upper limits of, say, $2000 or more each time, if this is what it takes to keep the city running? Conversely, would we be happy to pay more sales tax in order to avoid things like road tolls altogether? How exactly do we mix and match these urban outlays and receipts?

This would seem to cut to some of the most basic questions of what services constitute a city in the first place: what a government might provide and how it is that we will pay for what it offers.

In a distant way, and by means of a long digression, I'm reminded of the oft-repeated idea that nationalized health care would be a mere "hand-out," not a central platform of what any government might do to protect its citizenry.

For instance, one man at a recent but quite bizarre anti-health care rally – during which a U.S. senator apparently praised this very man for his publicly announced support of terrorism – said that "he could trace his ancestors back to the Mayflower and said 'they did not arrive holding their hands out for help.'" Ergo, this man should not "hold out his hands for help" and ask the government for a doctor's visit. Of course, this same argument would surely never be advanced against, say, calling the police, calling the fire department, or accepting the defense of the U.S. military. Yet these are all tax-funded government services.

Indeed, the bizarre irony for me throughout all of this has been that police officers, fire crews, and members of the military are all, to use this language very deliberately, the most socialized subsector of the U.S. economy. That is, they are paid through what many people would call "government hand-outs." On the other hand, it is these very social positions that are often held up – by these same critics – as triumphant examples of national service and personal heroism. Indeed, it is not entirely inaccurate to say that The Greatest Generation was a generation of near-total tax-funded employment.

If the recent health care debates are to be believed, doctors are not subject to this same sense of national appreciation; they are mysteriously yet fundamentally unlike the police, we are meant to believe, offering services that only private money can afford. But where is the line between private health (diabetes) and public safety (tuberculosis) – and when might this solidify into actual government infrastructure?

Doctors are not like the tax-funded fire departments who we freely call to save us from wildfires, this logic goes, and they are quite unlike the government-supported soldiers who we have stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Surely, then, anyone who relies on the U.S. military to protect them is "holding their hands out for help"?

In this context, it's worth speculating what might happen today if fire departments had, until now, been entirely privatized, motivated to protect you only if your insurance policy was up to date (as, indeed, was the case with the first urban fire departments, and as is now re-emerging in places like California). What would be the reaction, then, if someone proposed that these services be folded into a more general package of government services?

If fire crews, in this model, suddenly became tax-funded and available to all citizens – indeed socialized as part of a shared, city infrastructure – would there be the same level of outrage? One wonders if fire crews might ever attain the entirely deserved levels of public adulation that they now receive, if their tax-funded nature was, once and for all, revealed. Protesting citizens, like the gentleman cited above, might never have the stomach to "ask for help" from the government, even if their houses are burning down around him.

In any case, I mention all of this because of the urgency with which we need to rethink the world of urban services and the economic basis through which we pay for them. If the tax system, as it is currently operated, cannot pay for the very activities that we once thought synonymous with urbanity, are radical increases in one-off fees a permanent, economically viable solution to this problem or simply an irritating and only mildly effective band-aid? Is it better to pay more, once a year, in order to avoid such fees altogether?

Further, how are we best to judge the effectiveness of increased fines and pay-as-you-go services: by the psychological sense of irritation that a penalty-based system might cause – I'm reminded of parking attendants required to wear bulletproof vests during streetwork – or by the comfort that a lack of taxes might provide?

Or, more measurably, do we judge them by their physical effect on the city?

(Original article spotted via the denialism blog).

This piece originally appeared on BLDGBLOG.

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(Posted by Geoff Manaugh in Cities at 3:09 PM)

Eyes On The Street: Try A Bixi Bike On For Size At Union Square

WorldChanging Team — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 19:50:58 +0000

By Ben Fried

A reader sends this photo taken on the west side of Union Square this morning. You're looking at a temporary installation of a Bixi bike-share station. Bixi is one of three bike-share providers that have set up short demos this month at DOT's invitation -- the other brands are Eco-Trip and BCycle.

You can't get the full bike-share experience without a whole network of stations, but if you want to see how the check-out mechanism works and get a feel for how these Bixi bikes ride, today's demo will be open until 8 p.m. There are more Bixi and BCycle demos on tap for this week, including sites at Saturday's final Summer Streets installment.

Bixi gobbled up a big slice of the urban bike-share market last week, when London and Boston both announced they would use the Montreal-based operator for their respective systems. If New York follows the lead of those cities and makes a serious commitment to bike-share, you may see thousands of these bikes on the street in the not-too-distant future.

After the jump: Guys in shorts set up the demo.

This piece originally appeared in Streetsblog.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 11:50 AM)

Wanderlusting No. 2: Livability

Chris Turner — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:41:00 +0000

Wanderlusting on The Sustainability Trail
Postcard No. 2: Livability

“Quality of life” is by nature a pretty subjective term. Whose life? What kinds of quality? Add another layer of arbitrary judgment – ranking cities by livability, for example – and the subjectivity’s so thick it might as well be a stew of things we say we like. So what, then, does it mean that Copenhagen routinely sits near the top of such lists? (The most recent livability ranking from London’s achingly hip Monocle, for example, ranks the Danish capital as the second most livable city on the planet behind Zurich; Copenhagen was No. 1 in the 2008 Monocle ranking.) Is it all just fashion, hype, opinion? Is there any way to, you know, demonstrate livability?

Short answer: of course there is. It’s a bit ephemeral, yes, but unmistakable at close range. Here’s one way it goes: Arrive in the Danish capital on an intercontinental flight with a four-year-old in tow. Find your accomodations, grab a bite to eat up the block, try to get some rest. In our case, this last agenda item was thwarted by preschooler jetlag, which manifests itself as a 2.5-hour dead-of-night bout of chatty restlessness, with the subject of why nights are so much longer in Denmark as a recurring theme.

Anyway: Carry on. Awaken the next morning, lay in some basic supplies, and then try to figure out something to do that: 1) will entertain an overtired, hyperactive four-year-old completely bewildered by her surroundings; 2) will require minimum effort from the utterly exhausted, equally jetlagged parent; and 3) doesn’t involve an outlay of nonrefundable admission money, in case either party decides 20 minutes in that they’re way too tired for it.

I submit that the truly livable city will have a quick, easy answer for this problem, and in any case Copenhagen does – a one-word answer that goes like this: Strøget. The tourist brochures claim the Strøget is the world’s longest pedestrian thoroughfare, and in any case it’s the anchor of Europe’s most fully pedetrianized downtown, a linked web of car-free, cobblestoned avenues that take you just about anywhere you want to go in downtown Copenhagen.

My four-year-old and I headed that way after making a reservation at the central station. I had no plan other than to show her some Lego at the big BR toy store, but I had an inkling that just maybe the Strøget might itself be sufficient entertainment. I billed it as the Magical Street Without Cars, which she could explore without reprimand or handholding from her wary, weary dad. I’m not sure if she bought the hype, but even before we reached the Strøget the built-in livability of Copenhagen had done the job for me.

In the main square in front of City Hall, a crowd of Chilean soccer nuts had gathered to chant and celebrate (must’ve been some international friendly vs. Denmark that day), and several of them were conducting an impromptu skills demonstration at the centre of the undulating crowd. We watched the action for a few minutes, then headed across the plaza to the Strøget itself. We duly gawked at Lego and got an ice cream, and at the moment preschooler boredom was about to descend, we reached the next broad public space – Gammeltorv, the old market square.

At one end of Gammeltorv, next to a handful of trinket hawkers, three primary-coloured sea containers had been installed next to a fountain. My daughter caught sight of the harpist set up at the front of one of them while she was trying to dunk her fists in the fountain, and we spent most of the next hour happily hopping from one container to another to listen to exceedingly high quality classical music. This, it turned out, was Musirkus, a two-week series of classical mini-concertoes inside brilliantly repurposed industrial shipping containers. Stuff like this fills the squares and avenues of the Strøget throughout the warmer months.

Though the harp was initially the most intriguing, it was the classical guitarist Jesper Lützhøft’s baroque tunes she dug the most. She sat in rapt, gawking, grooving silence for nearly half an hour. (If you’re a parent of a four-year-old, I’m sure you’ll re-read that last bit with the same sense of amazement with which it was written – my perpetual motion machine of a preschooler sat, without prompting or any kind of obligation, to listen to almost half an hour of baroque guitar. Many of us pay professionals – and/or the Baby Einstein franchise – handsomely to instill the illusion of such disciplined appreciation in our toddlers.)

A little further up the Strøget, we found pigeons to chase. At the far end, the giant anchor at the head of the old harbourfront (Nyhavn) turned out to be an hour’s worth of makeshift jungle-gym fun. We watched boats and threw rocks in the canal and ate pølser (the tasty Danish take on the street-vended hot dog). Our time wasn’t forced, strained or structured. There was no admission fee. No worry about passing cars, no roar of exhaust to drown out the baroque guitar. The afternoon yawned into evening, and eventually we packed it in and took the Metro home.

It was, in short, the very definition of livability. Maybe the real headscratcher is why we settle for anything less than this level of quality public space in our own cities. It’s infinitely cheaper, after all, than a shiny new science centre or water park.

Chris Turner is the author of The Geography of Hope, a Canadian bestseller and multiple award nominee detailing his 2005-06 travels in search of the state of the art in sustainable living. He has recently embarked upon a new global research tour for a forthcoming book on the structure of the sustainable twenty-first century economy. He is posting “postcard” blogs from his travels here on Worldchanging.com. This is the first posting in the series.

Read previous "Wanderlusting" postcards:
Wanderlusting No. 1: The Welcome Mat in Copenhagen

Photos by author.

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(Posted by Chris Turner in Cities at 3:41 PM)

Wanderlusting No. 2: Livability

Chris Turner — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:41:00 +0000

Wanderlusting on The Sustainability Trail
Postcard No. 2: Livability

“Quality of life” is by nature a pretty subjective term. Whose life? What kinds of quality? Add another layer of arbitrary judgment – ranking cities by livability, for example – and the subjectivity’s so thick it might as well be a stew of things we say we like. So what, then, does it mean that Copenhagen routinely sits near the top of such lists? (The most recent livability ranking from London’s achingly hip Monocle, for example, ranks the Danish capital as the second most livable city on the planet behind Zurich; Copenhagen was No. 1 in the 2008 Monocle ranking.) Is it all just fashion, hype, opinion? Is there any way to, you know, demonstrate livability?

Short answer: of course there is. It’s a bit ephemeral, yes, but unmistakable at close range. Here’s one way it goes: Arrive in the Danish capital on an intercontinental flight with a four-year-old in tow. Find your accomodations, grab a bite to eat up the block, try to get some rest. In our case, this last agenda item was thwarted by preschooler jetlag, which manifests itself as a 2.5-hour dead-of-night bout of chatty restlessness, with the subject of why nights are so much longer in Denmark as a recurring theme.

Anyway: Carry on. Awaken the next morning, lay in some basic supplies, and then try to figure out something to do that: 1) will entertain an overtired, hyperactive four-year-old completely bewildered by her surroundings; 2) will require minimum effort from the utterly exhausted, equally jetlagged parent; and 3) doesn’t involve an outlay of nonrefundable admission money, in case either party decides 20 minutes in that they’re way too tired for it.

I submit that the truly livable city will have a quick, easy answer for this problem, and in any case Copenhagen does – a one-word answer that goes like this: Strøget. The tourist brochures claim the Strøget is the world’s longest pedestrian thoroughfare, and in any case it’s the anchor of Europe’s most fully pedetrianized downtown, a linked web of car-free, cobblestoned avenues that take you just about anywhere you want to go in downtown Copenhagen.

My four-year-old and I headed that way after making a reservation at the central station. I had no plan other than to show her some Lego at the big BR toy store, but I had an inkling that just maybe the Strøget might itself be sufficient entertainment. I billed it as the Magical Street Without Cars, which she could explore without reprimand or handholding from her wary, weary dad. I’m not sure if she bought the hype, but even before we reached the Strøget the built-in livability of Copenhagen had done the job for me.

In the main square in front of City Hall, a crowd of Chilean soccer nuts had gathered to chant and celebrate (must’ve been some international friendly vs. Denmark that day), and several of them were conducting an impromptu skills demonstration at the centre of the undulating crowd. We watched the action for a few minutes, then headed across the plaza to the Strøget itself. We duly gawked at Lego and got an ice cream, and at the moment preschooler boredom was about to descend, we reached the next broad public space – Gammeltorv, the old market square.

At one end of Gammeltorv, next to a handful of trinket hawkers, three primary-coloured sea containers had been installed next to a fountain. My daughter caught sight of the harpist set up at the front of one of them while she was trying to dunk her fists in the fountain, and we spent most of the next hour happily hopping from one container to another to listen to exceedingly high quality classical music. This, it turned out, was Musirkus, a two-week series of classical mini-concertoes inside brilliantly repurposed industrial shipping containers. Stuff like this fills the squares and avenues of the Strøget throughout the warmer months.

Though the harp was initially the most intriguing, it was the classical guitarist Jesper Lützhøft’s baroque tunes she dug the most. She sat in rapt, gawking, grooving silence for nearly half an hour. (If you’re a parent of a four-year-old, I’m sure you’ll re-read that last bit with the same sense of amazement with which it was written – my perpetual motion machine of a preschooler sat, without prompting or any kind of obligation, to listen to almost half an hour of baroque guitar. Many of us pay professionals – and/or the Baby Einstein franchise – handsomely to instill the illusion of such disciplined appreciation in our toddlers.)

A little further up the Strøget, we found pigeons to chase. At the far end, the giant anchor at the head of the old harbourfront (Nyhavn) turned out to be an hour’s worth of makeshift jungle-gym fun. We watched boats and threw rocks in the canal and ate pølser (the tasty Danish take on the street-vended hot dog). Our time wasn’t forced, strained or structured. There was no admission fee. No worry about passing cars, no roar of exhaust to drown out the baroque guitar. The afternoon yawned into evening, and eventually we packed it in and took the Metro home.

It was, in short, the very definition of livability. Maybe the real headscratcher is why we settle for anything less than this level of quality public space in our own cities. It’s infinitely cheaper, after all, than a shiny new science centre or water park.

Chris Turner is the author of The Geography of Hope, a Canadian bestseller and multiple award nominee detailing his 2005-06 travels in search of the state of the art in sustainable living. He has recently embarked upon a new global research tour for a forthcoming book on the structure of the sustainable twenty-first century economy. He is posting “postcard” blogs from his travels here on Worldchanging.com. This is the first posting in the series.

Read previous "Wanderlusting" postcards:
Wanderlusting No. 1: The Welcome Mat in Copenhagen

Photos by author.

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(Posted by Chris Turner in Cities at 3:41 PM)

On Big Day for Bike-Share, Boston Mayor Envisions World Class Cycling City

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:25:12 +0000

By Ben Fried

Several American cities have made halting strides towards implementing bike-share systems recently, but which will be the first to launch the kind of robust network needed for public biking to go mainstream? Right now, the runaway favorite is Boston.

The Globe reported yesterday that Boston's regional planning agency has awarded a contract to the same company that launched Montreal's Bixi bike-share system earlier this year. Boston planners say the system specs are still getting hashed out along with other contract details. Many questions remain unanswered, but signs are promising so far.

In a report on the Times' Green Inc blog this morning, a spokesperson for Bixi "indicated that the Boston system will initially offer 2,500 bikes at 290 stations in downtown Boston." A system of that size and density would place Boston in the ranks of cities like Barcelona and Paris, where public bikes have become a critical component of the transportation network. Officials hope to expand the Boston system to neighboring Cambridge, Brookline, and Somerville soon after it launches.

It's also worth noting that Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, running for re-election this fall, is not distancing himself from the city's bike-share plan. In fact, he's embracing it. "I think Boston is the perfect venue to roll out a forward-thinking bike share program," he said in a press statement released yesterday. "Boston is a world class city, and over the last two years we have made tremendous strides in turning it into a world class bicycling city."

A big part of Bixi's attraction is that it's solar-powered, requiring no electrical wiring or underground utility work. In addition to Boston, London also announced yesterday that it will use the Bixi system for an ambitious bike-share network: 6,000 bikes at 400 locations.

Stations that can be installed without a jackhammer are probably a prerequisite for bike-share operations in New York, where streetwork can turn into an expensive, bureaucratic tangle. DOT released a request for expressions of interest from potential bike-share operators last fall, and a study published by the Department of City Planning this spring recommended that New York start its network with 10,000 bikes.

Read more about bike sharing in the Worldchanging archives:

B-Cycle: Plug-and-Play Bike Sharing for North America

Bixi: the Bicycle-Taxi for a Bright Green City

Could Cell Phones Enable Bike-Sharing in the Developed World?

Paradise On Wheels

This piece originally appeared in StreetsBlog.

Photo credit: Flickr/amesis, Creative Commons License.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 1:25 PM)

Walkable Neighborhoods Are Worth More

Clark Williams-Derry — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:20:15 +0000

A new study shows that people will pay more for walkable neighborhoods.

You may have already heard of Walk Score -- an endlessly entertaining Internet tool that lets people discover how pedestrian-friendly their neighborhood is. Walk Score ranks neighborhood "walkability" based on the mix of stores and services that are within walking distance of any home in North America. If you haven't already, you should check it out -- but only if you've got nothing pressing to do, since it's pretty addictive.

Now, the good folks at CEOs for Cities have taken it on themselves to ask -- does Walk Score mean anything for real estate values? Are people really willing to pay more to live in a place where they can do daily errands on foot, rather than in a car?

According to their new report, "Walking the Walk," (pdf link) the answer is an emphatic yes: people value walkable neighborhoods so much that, holding everything else constant, each additional Walk Score point adds somewhere between $500 and $3,000 to the value of a home. In Seattle -- the only Northwest city for which there's data -- a point of walkability adds about $1,400 to home values.

Remember, the researchers who did this analysis controlled for all sorts of variables that affect housing prices: the size and age of the home, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, neighborhood incomes, the distance from major job centers, and so forth. So their results don't stem from some spurious correlation -- e.g., that walkable neighborhoods tend to be worth more because they're closer to downtown. Nope, this is the real deal: in just about every metro area they looked at, walkability adds value to property. (Las Vegas, NV and Bakersfield, CA were the two exceptions. What's up there?)

In part, there's a straightforward economic rationale for spending more for a walkable neighborhood: reducing your car dependence can cut your transportation costs. This Reconnecting America study, for example, also found that housing is cheaper in distant suburbs and exurbs -- the sorts of places where most trips require a car -- but that every dollar saved on housing means an extra 77 cents spent for transportation. That's the average, and there are probably some families who are able to drop a car (or more) by living in a walkable neighborhood; for them, paying more for walkability may be a money-saving proposition in the long run.

Regardless, what the CEOs for Cities study shows is that there is a real and measurable pent up demand for homes in walkable neighborhoods. For decades, sprawl apologists have argued that low-density suburban development was somehow "natural," because it's what homebuyers "prefer." By now, though, it's clear that many homebuyers are wiling to pay a premium for walkability. The real problem is that the demand for walkable homes exceeds the supply -- which pushes up the price.

To me, that argues for policies that are designed to increase the supply of homes in walkable neighborhoods. That's good for affordability, good for reducing transportation costs, and a great way to help more people add walking to their daily routines.

This piece originally appeared on the Sightline Institute's blog, The Daily Score

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(Posted by Clark Williams-Derry in Cities at 1:20 PM)

Rails to Trails Conservancy Transforms Old Rail Lines into Routes for Walking

WorldChanging Team — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:43:41 +0000

Rails to Trails Conservancy

An organization led by Keith Laughlin, who helped guide environmental programs in the Clinton White House, works with communities to build hiking and biking trails out of former rail lines. One of Keith’s goals is safe routes for children to walk or bike to and from school.

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This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 3:43 PM)

Architecture 2030’s 2030 Challenge

WorldChanging Team — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:21:24 +0000

A challenge put forth by Architecture 2030, it has rallied key organizations in the U.S. building industry around the goal of making all new and renovated buildings carbon-neutral by 2030. Its leader, Ed Mazria, has developed guidelines for communities to modify their building codes to meet this goal, as well as dramatic visualizations of how much of the nation’s coastal areas will be lost with climate-related sea level rise.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives
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This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 3:21 PM)

Architecture 2030’s 2030 Challenge

WorldChanging Team — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:21:24 +0000

A challenge put forth by Architecture 2030, it has rallied key organizations in the U.S. building industry around the goal of making all new and renovated buildings carbon-neutral by 2030. Its leader, Ed Mazria, has developed guidelines for communities to modify their building codes to meet this goal, as well as dramatic visualizations of how much of the nation’s coastal areas will be lost with climate-related sea level rise.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives
CCphoto credit

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 3:21 PM)

U.S. Green Building Council: Creating LEED Ratings and Better Informed Builders

WorldChanging Team — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:18:33 +0000

U.S. Green Building Council

An internationally popular LEED rating system now involves not only green buildings, but also green neighborhoods. The USGBC has built a national network of local chapters and local green building experts, including some that may be near your city.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives
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This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 3:18 PM)

U.S. Green Building Council: Creating LEED Ratings and Better Informed Builders

WorldChanging Team — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:18:33 +0000

U.S. Green Building Council

An internationally popular LEED rating system now involves not only green buildings, but also green neighborhoods. The USGBC has built a national network of local chapters and local green building experts, including some that may be near your city.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives
CCphoto credit

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 3:18 PM)

ICLEI’s STAR Community Index

WorldChanging Team — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:59:19 +0000

A tool developed by ICLEI, STAR Community Index is a national system to help cities develop sustainability indicators and to certify their progress. Three new cities are joining ICLEI every week — but there are nearly 20,000 cities in the United States, and more of them should be working with ICLEI.

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This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 2:59 PM)

ICLEI’s STAR Community Index

WorldChanging Team — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:59:19 +0000

A tool developed by ICLEI, STAR Community Index is a national system to help cities develop sustainability indicators and to certify their progress. Three new cities are joining ICLEI every week — but there are nearly 20,000 cities in the United States, and more of them should be working with ICLEI.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives
CCphoto credit

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 2:59 PM)

ICLEI: Helping Communities Prevent and Deal with Global Climate Change

WorldChanging Team — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:57:19 +0000

Among other sustainability offerings, ICLEI operates one of the nation’s best programs to help communities prevent and deal with global climate change. Its Climate Resilient Communities Program trains local officials on adaptation; its Climate Mitigation program coaches cities through a five-milestone program that starts with an inventory of local greenhouse gas emissions and ends with the implementation of greenhouse gas mitigation plans.

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This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 2:57 PM)

ICLEI: Helping Communities Prevent and Deal with Global Climate Change

WorldChanging Team — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:57:19 +0000

Among other sustainability offerings, ICLEI operates one of the nation’s best programs to help communities prevent and deal with global climate change. Its Climate Resilient Communities Program trains local officials on adaptation; its Climate Mitigation program coaches cities through a five-milestone program that starts with an inventory of local greenhouse gas emissions and ends with the implementation of greenhouse gas mitigation plans.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Cities at 2:57 PM)