Climate Cities

All Stories

  • Salt Lake mixes sacred space and sustainability

    An artist’s rendering of City Creek CenterPhoto courtesy of City CreekSalt Lake City is the world headquarters for the fastest growing church in America, and the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is everywhere. The six gray spires of the Salt Lake Temple rise above the city. A gleaming granite convention […]

    Richard Markosian Cities

  • Part 1 of interview with local-food economist Ken Meter [PODCAST]

    Local food economist Ken Meter(Jerry Carlson/Agri-Energy)Ken Meter, director of Minneapolis-based Crossroads Resource Center, is probably the country’s foremost thinker on the role of food in creating robust local and regional economies. I first encountered him at a Community Food Security Coalition conference in Atlanta in 2005, where he gave a presentation that forever changed the […]

    Tom Philpott Cities

  • Does New York City’s High Line park matter in the fight against climate change?

    1 hr photo via FlickrThe best use for elevated transit tracks is running trains on them. But the next best use might be beautiful, innovative green space, like the newish High Line park built on a defunct railway trestle that runs through Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood and Meatpacking District. Cities around the nation want to emulate […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Cities

  • These heating and cooling engineers are licensed to make you laugh [VIDEO]

    The admirable folks at the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) have put out the most unintentionally hilarious/awkward recruiting video I’ve ever seen. In case you’re not familiar, ASHRAE’s engineers are aiming to “advance technology to serve humanity and promote a sustainable world.” And, you know, keep the fridge running. So what […]

    Ashley Braun Cities

  • Long Island town threatens to sue Fannie & Freddie over clean-energy program

    Here’s the latest in the dispute with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), a finance tool that helps homeowners cut energy waste: Babylon, N.Y., Supervisor Steve Bellone tells Fannie and Freddie to stop hating on his town’s clean-energy program at a rally with local building workers and homeowners.Courtesy Town of […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Cities

  • Energy efficiency helps homeowners avoid foreclosure

    Energy-efficient homes have significantly lower default and delinquency rates than typical homes, according to an internal analysis conducted for a major financial institution last year. Here’s yet another reason why it makes no sense that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have effectively killed Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), a financing tool that has helped make […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Cities

  • Retrofitting suburbia: The task at hand?

    “The big design and development project of the next 50 years is going to be retrofitting suburbia,” architect Ellen Dunham-Jones says in an interesting TED talk. Much of that work will be repurposing shuttered retail spaces — redeveloping dead malls and big box stores and turning empty parking lots back into wetlands, she says. For […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Cities

  • Brooklyn’s Eagle Street is poster child for urban farming

    January 2011 update: Many of the photos have been removed from this series so they can be published in a Breaking Through Concrete book, forthcoming this year from UC Press. Karen Turner, 25, wants to farm 100 acres in Texas. Her family has lived on 10 acres in San Antonio since she was a child. […]

    Breaking Through Concrete team Cities

  • Portugal’s eco-city, Amazon’s ugly HQ, and more urban notes

    Progress toward a sustainable future may be stalled in the Senate, but there’s a ton of news and interesting research happening at the local level on the broad topic of improving built spaces — cities, towns, buildings, transportation systems, etc. A quick roundup from the local solutions beat: Living-PlanIT.comPlanIT Valley: Portugal’s planning to build a […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Cities

  • Fannie and Freddie bring down Boulder clean-energy finance program

    Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac claimed the first casualty in their attack on a promising clean-energy financing tool when Boulder County, Colo., canceled the latest round of its popular ClimateSmart Loan Program on Tuesday. “We are extremely disappointed by the lack of flexibility and vision we’ve encountered with the FHFA [Federal Housing Finance Agency], and […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Cities