Nicole Woodman could have found an easier place to be a sustainability director -- a place where left-leaning locals happily compost their kale stems and the mayor competes with other mayors to have the greenest city. A place like Minneapolis or Asheville, N.C. Instead, Woodman landed in Flagstaff, Ariz.

Her mountain boom town of 66,000, one of the gateways to Grand Canyon National Park, is facing water shortages so severe that officials are thinking of hauling water 40 miles uphill to supply the city during the dry season -- that is, seven months out of the year. And while Flagstaff is home to a mosaic of different cultures, including college students, Native Americans, and second- or third-home owners, its roots in the conservative interior West are unmistakable.

“Some people say Flagstaff is so liberal and green,” Woodman says. “It is still Arizona.”

Maggie Ullman takes an ecological approach to bureaucracy. “Everyone complains about silos in government, but it’s just like talking about monocropping,” she says. “If we cross-pollinate more and have richer diversity of thought and experience, we are going to have a more vibrant ecosystem.”

Ullman, 28, manages the office of sustainability in Asheville, N.C., a progressive city of 85,000 in the southern Appalachians. For episode 3 of Knope and Change, a series about the women working to make our cities more sustainable, I caught up with Ullman to chat about small-city government, groggy chickens, and what Coca Cola can teach us about getting people to go green.

Q. Your Twitter bio says, “I think government can be cool. I think sustainability is cooler. I think sustainable government is coolest.”

Katherine Gajewski.

Katherine Gajewski was just 29 years old when Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter asked her to take on the role of city sustainability director. “I was concerned that people wouldn’t take me seriously,” she says. Three years later, those fears have all but disappeared. Using limited staff and resources, her office works long days to earn Philly a green reputation. “Once people see that you’re really serious and you’re working really hard, age isn’t a factor,” she says.

Gajewski works to implement the ambitious city-wide Greenworks Philadelphia plan [PDF], directs a five-county energy-efficiency program, and even organizes a social group of city employees nicknamed the “Young-ish City Government Workers.” For episode 2 of our Knope and change series, about women who are leading the charge to make our cities more sustainable, Gajewski tells Grist about Philly’s lovely bones and her vision for the future (while also making everyone here feel a bit unaccomplished-ish).

Q. Philadelphia has a rep for being a gritty city.

A. And we’re a really old city. We have great bones -- modest-sized, energy-efficient row homes, an extensive public transit system, a really low car ownership rate, a 9,200-acre park system. Those are the type of bones that make for a sustainable city. We’re not a new city that’s building new. We were designed and built smart the first time around. That just happened to be 300 years ago.

At Grist, we love Parks and Recreation. The show is brilliant and funny -- and we especially admire protagonist Lesley Knope. As played by Amy Poehler, the wonderfully multidimensional Knope makes mistakes, but in the end she always manages to pull the Parks Department together to get the job done. And no one loves her hilarious, flawed city more than she does.

In fact, the way we see it, we could all use a little more Knope in our cities. So over the next few months, we will introduce you to the real-life Lesley Knopes of the world: the female city officials who work hard to make their cities more sustainable. Even if Parks and Recreation isn’t your speed, you’ll get a fresh look at the women on the ground fighting to implement real change in our urban environments.

Gayle Prest: "It's OK to be nice."

Episode 1 features an edited conversation with Gayle Prest, sustainability director for the city of Minneapolis.

Prest passes the Knope test in two big ways. First, she loves her city. (Sample question: “Are you a big fan of cities?” Answer: “I love Minneapolis. I really love Minneapolis. Have you ever been here?”) Second, she's incredibly friendly. (She offered me a personal tour of the city within the first five minutes of our call and ended the chat with, “and for crying out loud, get your butt out here.”)

While this butt has still not been to Minneapolis, the Minnesota native made the city sound awfully alluring. Prest, who has been with the Minneapolis sustainability office since 2006, told me why sustainability directors across the nation are working together, how Minnesota provides a unique approach to urban sustainability, and why the City of Lakes is just so darn lovable.

What does it all mean? Not all those who launder are lost.

Have you ever wandered down to the laundry room, pulled out a soiled shirt for inspection, and found alien hieroglyphics blinking back up at you? Are you secretly stoked when crop tops and ratty tights become trendy because you've got a closet full of dryer casualties?

The average American throws away around 68 pounds of clothing a year. Time to learn to take care of your clothes, America. It'll make your clothes last much longer -- which a) is more sustainable than buying more, and b) will make your mom (or rad dad) proud. Here's the Rosetta Stone for decoding laundry labels. (We know this is remedial algebra for some of you, but let's be honest: Some of us are 25-year-olds who can barely manage getting dressed.)

Damn, clothing industry, did you get a new haircut, too!?

The clothing industry is finally partaking in a little retail therapy, as a band of brands -- from Adidas to Patagonia to Walmart -- takes the first steps in measuring the environmental impacts of making our tees, ties, and toe shoes.

The Sustainable Apparel Coalition, which represents around a third of the world’s apparel dollars, publicly released its long-awaited Higg Index Thursday morning. The index measures the overall practices and policies of a company, specific product components (such as fabric), and the water, waste, and energy used to run facilities (millhouses, warehouses, etc.).

The Higg Index is a mashup of tools developed by Nike and the Outdoor Industry Association, a trade group for companies that make gear and clothes for the hiker/boater/climber set. The coalition piloted the index with over 60 companies and hundreds of products and spent over 1,300 human hours improving the tool, according to Executive Director Jason Kibbey.

If you’re waiting for an “organic”-style label for clothing, don’t hold your breath, however.

Jillian Owens dyes, snips, and sews landfill-bound secondhand clothing deemed too ugly or damaged to sell. The envy-worthy results are donated to a charity shop, where the proceeds go to a women’s shelter. Get inspired by her remakes -- and head to her blog for a look at the process.

Off Target: Your money goes further when you spend it on quality products -- and it's more satisfying, too.

I really thought I was above binge shopping. But on a recent trip to Target, the women’s clothing section quickly pulled me in with trendy pastels, $19 dresses. The moments clawing through racks under fluorescent lights are a blur -- but unfortunately, the resulting bright purple shorts are all too real. They remain at the bottom of my closet, a (literally) uncomfortable reminder of the irresistible pull of cheap fashion.

Ring a bell? It's no accident. The fashion industry has sped up and priced down to the point where a common shopping trip can make you feel like you’ve doubled down on a Double Down: bloated, unsatisfied, and foolish for indulging in something so trendy and cheap.

Elizabeth Cline was all-too-familiar with the feeling. “I had gotten to a point where I really wouldn’t buy any clothing if it was over $30 and I owned almost 400 pieces of clothes as a result,” Cline says. The Brooklynite was curious as to how clothing had gotten so cheap and why it felt like her huge closet lacked substance and any sense of personal style.

So she set out on a nearly three-year journey behind the scenes of the fashion industry, traveling from sweatshops in China to overflowing Goodwills to a mostly shuttered New York garment district haunted by ghosts of U.S. industry’s past. The resulting book, Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, is a revealing look at how fashion arrived at where it is today. Before you write off apparel as low-hanging Fruit of the Loom, keep in mind that clothing is easily the second largest consumer sector, after food. I chatted with Cline about how cheap clothing cramps our style, our economy, and our planet.

After nearly going extinct in the ’60s, vintage streetcars are returning to the rails in downtowns from Philly to San Francisco. These electric-powered trams are so painstakingly restored, they make classic T-Bird owners look like chumps. Here's what it looks like when mass transit goes retro.

Each year, U.S. taxpayers spend billions to subsidize affordable housing for low-income Americans. It’s an important part of the social safety net we’ve built to keep families and the elderly from falling through the cracks. But there’s a problem: A lot of that housing has been built far away from public transit, schools, and jobs. As a result, residents drive long distances, burning gobs of gas -- and huge holes in their wallets -- in the process.

For many residents of affordable housing, transportation and housing costs eat up over half of their income. For a struggling family, this can make healthy food, higher education, and health care seem as far-fetched as President Newt.

Lately, however, there’s been a push to alleviate transportation costs for low-income families. Efforts on the state level show some promise, and officials at the federal level are expressing interest as well.