Climate Cities

Abe Lincoln’s summer home goes green

Does this building look LEED certified to you? Well, look again. This is part of Abe Lincoln’s summer home complex near Washington, D.C., and after a seven-year restoration, it’s the first-ever historic monument to receive the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The National Trust for Historic […]

A poet takes the measure of Portland — on foot

Starting early this century, poet and professor David Oates set out to walk the boundary line that Oregon drew around the city of Portland decades ago to concentrate its development and discourage sprawl. What is today called "the New Urbanism" is not new in Portland: it's been part of the political process since l973.

As Oates writes in a forward to a book he recently published about his adopted state's experiment in urban utopianism:

We hope to grow in, and in some places, up. To get richer in connections and cleverness -- to get deeper -- instead of wider, flatter, and shallower.

That simplicity of language and depth of thought is part of the charm of City Limits: Walking Portland's Boundary. Like Thoreau, to whom Oates alludes in his first chapter -- titled "Where I Walked, What I Walked For" -- Oates has a knack for linking a bold action, such as walking over 250 miles around the city, to a self-deprecating description.

Oates lightly mocks himself for getting lost, for his fear of dog attacks in redneck neighborhoods, and even for his own occasional tendency to stereotype people. This willingness to reveal his flaws helps the reader trust Oates' discussion of the issues raised by Portland's boundary (known as the UGB, or Urban Growth Boundary). Oates also dares include in his book brief essays from others, including philosopher/writer Kathleen Deen Moore and winemaker Eric Lemelson, as well as a planner, a landscape architect, and even a developer -- the sort of voices not usually heard in "environmental" books.

Most surprising of all, on his walks Oates occasionally encounters legendary figures -- such as John Muir, Paul Shepherd, Italo Calvino -- who just happen to have inspired Oates. These ghostly figures turn out to be quite chatty, and yet utterly themselves, giving the book a jolt of originality to match its open-mindedness. Each encounter with these ghosts has a wistful quality; one can tell that Oates hates to see them go.

Calvino especially inspires, with his discussion of the city of the labyrinthian spiral, the city of multiple desires, the city "that fades before your eyes," he tells Oates. "Like all of Portland's inhabitants, you follow zigzag lines from one street to another ... all the rest of the city is invisible. Your footsteps follow not what is outside the eyes, but what is within, buried, erased."

It's a wonderful, original, eye-opening book. Although sometimes the multiple introductions and voices give it a patchwork quilt quality, in the end the book resembles the city Oates obviously adores: vibrantly alive, defiantly progressive, fearlessly contentious. For Grist, Oates kindly agreed to answer a few questions about Portland and its attempts to control its development:

Spearheading transit for livable cities at 93

I recently ended 100 days without Grist. And wouldn't you know, the title of the first post I saw, "No climate for old men," spoke directly to the reason I was away.

No, I wasn't with the McCain campaign. Rather, I was immersed in a project, spearheaded by a really old man, that could become a terrific tool for beating back the climate crisis.

That man is 93-year-old Ted Kheel, legendary New York labor-lawyer-turned-environmentalist. His project is a study of the feasibility of financing free mass transit in New York City through congestion pricing and other charges on driving. I directed the study (PDF), which has just been released, and I think its implications could be huge, not just for New York but for every city in the U.S. and around the world.

A little of this, a little of that

This week I am, officially anyway, on vacation, spending a week in a condo at the bottom of Mt. Hood, snowboarding by day, soaking in the hot tub by night. Yes: sweet. I will nonetheless be posting occasionally, because, well, I just don’t know how to quit you. Before I go I want to clear […]

We’ve borrowed more than we can afford to borrow, sprawled more than we can afford to sprawl

There are a lot of moving parts involved in the current, sputtering condition of the economy, which can’t yet be declared a recession but may well become one. I’ll summarize as best I can. Very cheap credit led to a housing upturn, which became a boom, which became, in many parts of the country, a […]

Reflections on death by SUV

It was just a matter of time before a World Trade Center survivor became a victim of a different sort of terrorism: death by automobile.

It finally happened last month, in lower Manhattan, when a speeding sport utility vehicle struck and killed a woman who had fled the Twin Towers on 9/11.

Florence Cioffi was leaving a dinner celebrating her upcoming 60th birthday when a Mercedes-Benz SUV slammed into her on Water Street at 60 miles an hour, according to a Manhattan assistant district attorney.

Six years, four months, and thirteen days earlier, Ms. Cioffi narrowly averted death when she ducked out of her office on the 36th floor of the North Tower to get a coffee minutes before the plane struck.

Enterprise and other rental companies move into car-share market

Enterprise Rent-a-Car is zooming ahead with a car-sharing program à la the successful Zipcar. The Enterprise venture, called WeCar, started on the campus of St. Louis’s Washington University last month, but will kick off in urban style in the city downtown next week. WeCar will begin with nine Toyota Prius hybrids and will target employees […]

Fast-growing Atlanta loses rights to major source of drinking water

An 18-year water war between Georgia, Alabama, and Florida has come to an end of sorts: A federal appellate court has voided an Army Corps of Engineers agreement that would have given Georgia the rights to nearly 25 percent of federal reservoir Lake Lanier as a source of drinking water for metro Atlanta. Alabama and […]

EPA set to kibosh Mississippi Delta boondoggle

Successive presidential administrations -- including the current one -- have tried to rein in the Army Corps of Engineers and its projects, which are mostly known for their tangy combination of high cost, arguable utility, and disregard for the environment. Tried -- and largely failed, thanks to the level-10 force fields erected by congresscritters who covet the flood of Corps project dollars into their districts.

So it's startling and welcome news that apparently, the EPA is initiating the process to veto a massive Corps project known as the Yazoo Pumps.

Polluting vehicles must pay to drive in London under new scheme

Starting today, high-pollutin’ trucks and buses will be fined for driving in London‘s new Low Emission Zone, which stretches for a not-too-shabby 610 square miles. Diesel vehicles weighing over 13 tons must register with the city transportation agency and have their emissions monitored; vehicles can be charged up to $400 for exceeding exhaust limits. A […]