Portland
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Smart cities are (un)paving the way for urban farmers and locavores
Across the U.S., cities are buckling up their green belts and introducing legislation to foster local-food production of everything from cucumbers to yellow limes, reports Kerry Trueman for Grist's Feeding the City series. Because nobody wants to get caught with their pantry down?
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Three of our favorite politicians on two wheels
While oil continues to gush in the Gulf of Mexico and the future of federal climate and energy legislation looks dim, there remains one relatively easy solution for those interested in saving the planet: riding your bike. And it’s nice to know we’re not the only ones who think so. Here are a few of […]
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Portland Mayor Sam Adams wants ’20-minute neighborhoods’
Newish Portland Mayor Sam Adams wants to build more “20-minute neighborhoods” in his fair city. From a Fast Company interview: We’re also working to make every section of Portland a complete 20-minute neighborhood to strengthen our local economy. Two-thirds of all trips in Portland and in most American cities are not about getting to and […]
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Living Buildings, Living Cities, and $125,000 up for grabs
$125,000 to play SimCity? Sort of. A new contest from the Cascadia Region Green Building Council is offering serious cash for the best visual renderings of an existing city transformed into a place that’s sustainable. Like, really sustainable. The Living City Design Competition is calling for: Photo-realistic three-dimensional modeling and renderings (a napkin sketch won’t […]
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A movement far larger than the Tea Party
As an antidote to news of the oil spill on the Great Barrier Reef, here’s Paul Hawken giving last May’s commencement address at Portland University. From the entrepreneur, author, and ideas guy: There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode […]
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Carbon neutral caution
There’s been a lot of ambitious talk lately about carbon neutrality. It’s exciting stuff, but it’s worth pausing to consider just how huge that challenge is. And what, precisely, does it mean? Zero emissions, or lots of offsets? I thought it was interesting to take a look at the climate action plan from the city […]
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Inspired transit: Portland gets around
Photos: flickr users b and Jason McHuff Portland, Oregon, is consistently ranked as one of the country’s most livable cities (and it was a Fast City in 2007). And it continues to show solid growth despite having the second lowest per capita transit spending of the 28 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. A system of trains, […]
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Energy Trust and the Big Hope
If you’re like me, and spend a lot of the day drinking coffee and getting increasingly paranoid with the creeping suspicion that solving climate may not be possible, it’s good when you find glimmers of hope in the wreckage. One of those glimmers (actually more like a tractor beam) is called Energy Trust, an organization […]
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Weatherizing Portland
Clean Energy Works Portland is a groundbreaking new program that enables Portland residents to improve the energy efficiency of their homes and pay for the improvements over time through their utility bills. A contractor performing a blower door test to identify air infiltration and leakage throughout a home.Energy Trust of OregonBut the most exciting and […]
