Climate Cities

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  • The social life of traffic

    This article is part of a collaboration with Planetizen, the web’s leading resource for the urban planning, design, and development community. Traffic is essentially “an engineering issue,” says author Tom Vanderbilt. “But there’s also a layer of culture.” That layer of culture determines, to a large extent, how traffic can become a problem. This idea […]

    Nate Berg Cities

  • Will a greener White House complex mean a more productive president?

    Arrrrr ye gettin’ more done now?Official White House photostream via flickr[UPDATE: A White House spokesperson called me to clarify that it’s parts of the White House complex, not the White House itself, that will be seeking LEED certification. Like many others in the blogosphere, I got swept up in the excitement of imagining hemp sheets […]

    Katharine Wroth Cities

  • Wal-Mart’s history of destroying sacred sites

    A re-consecration ceremony was held this past weekend at a damaged Indian mound in Oxford, Ala. As we reported last month, the 1,500-year-old sacred and archaeologically significant site was partially demolished during a taxpayer-funded economic development project, with the excavated dirt to be used as fill for construction of a Sam’s Club, a retail warehouse […]

    Sue Sturgis Cities

  • Blood, sweat, and vision: The JP Green House in its ugly duckling phase

    Innovation in progress. Excuse our dust. For more images from the JP Green House, visit Leise Jones Photography.I was bringing two new friends down the street for a tour of the JP Green House last week. “Now prepare yourselves,” I warned, as I always do, “it’s not bright shiny green yet. You’ll need to use […]

    Andrée Collier Cities

  • Portland’s newest high-rise has wind turbines on the roof

    The cermonial urban-turbine installation.indigo12west.comTwo weeks ago in Portland, Oregon, a new 23-story building added something you don’t usually see in an urban setting: a series of four Skystream wind turbines, with a total capacity of 9.6kW. There are several reasons why wind turbines are a rarity atop highrises — beyond the obvious one: our power […]

    Osha Gray Davidson Cities

  • Alabama city backing away from destruction of ancient Indian mound?

    Following local protests and international outcry, the city of Oxford, Ala. appears to be backing away from plans to destroy an ancient and archaeologically significant Indian mound in order to use the dirt as fill for a new Sam’s Club, a retail warehouse store operated by Wal-Mart. A local landowner says his property will now […]

    Sue Sturgis Cities

  • Competition dreams up new ways to harass suburbanites

    Dwell magazine and Inhabitat have teamed up to sponsor a “Reburbia” competition in which designers re-envision suburbia in ways that make environmentalists seem as scary and dingbatty as possible. The finalists include a lot of inspiring ideas, but my favorite by far is the proposal to have menacing 3,000-foot-tall robots stomp into suburban villages, rip […]

    Adam Stein Cities

  • Tim Halbur on sprawl, propaganda, and Obama’s approach to urban issues

    This marks the first of a series of interviews with people working to make U.S. communities smarter, greener spaces. Got a suggestion for an interviewee? Send it our way or leave it in the comments section below. Tim Halbur’s career has included a stint as a journalist for NPR, co-producer of an environmental-justice driving tour […]

    Katharine Wroth Cities

  • Neighborhood stores: An overlooked strategy for fighting global warming

    Our new neighborhood fresh food market.What I find most striking about my mother-in-law’s memories of the neighborhood where I live, and where she spent her childhood in the 1940s, is how many businesses our little residential section of town once boasted. Back then, there was a grocery store, hardware store, barber shop, two drugstores, a […]

    Stacy Mitchell Cities

  • Puppies and bunnies and carnivorous eco-curmudgeons

    Carl M via flickrThose of you following our last post (Should Kuba Have a Puppy?) can see that both votes and comments on this question are running 9 to 1 in favor of the gratification of pet ownership. This is even though eco-curmudgeon Ken has made the point, with hard statistics, that keeping domestic animals […]

    Andrée Collier Cities