San Francisco

Cities are cool

Cool images from the Center for Neighborhood Technology show that people who live in dense urban areas -- downtown San Francisco, the denser parts of L.A., or the Chicago city core -- emit less CO2 for transportation. See for yourself:

I'm showing San Francisco above because it's closest to my heart, but I think the Chicago map is coolest.

The greening of San Fran

I knew some cool stuff was going on down in San Francisco, but this report from Clean Edge is pretty amazing. Apparently, when mayor Gavin Newsom said last year that he wanted to implement Clean Edge's recommendations, he wasn't kidding. Joel Makower reports on the past year's progress:

• The Mayor has named a clean-tech manager, Jennifer Entine-Matz, to coordinate citywide clean-tech initiatives, market and execute San Francisco's clean-tech business attraction strategy, and work with the new advisory council.

• The Board of Supervisors last month approved a payroll tax exemption for qualified clean-tech companies doing business in San Francisco.

• Several city agencies are working to create a fast-track permitting program for new commercial buildings that meet the LEED green-building standards.

• The Mayor recently signed the Precautionary Purchasing Ordinance, which creates a comprehensive system for the city to identify, purchase, and use environmentally preferable products. San Francisco is the first city in the U.S. to adopt an ordinance of this kind.

There's plenty more -- check out Joel's post and the report.

Looks like San Fran is on track to become the country's greenest city, and Newsom is on track to become one of my political heroes.

Another case of copyright infringement?

Riding public transit is a good thing, right? And you would think that easily accessible maps would encourage more people to ride the bus or subway, or current customers to ride them more often. And you would also think that transit authorities would be thrilled to hear that their maps are now available to millions of iPod users. There, you'd be wrong.

From Wired we learn that William Bright, creator of IPodSubwayMaps.com, was asked to remove maps of the New York City subway system as well as San Francisco's BART. Both New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority and Bay Area Rapid Transit claim that William was guilty of copyright infringement.

After complying, William produced his own map of each system. The one for BART is now available on his site, while he is awaiting legal advice on the one for NYC since his map used the same fonts and colors of the MTA.

And unlike BART, William is "offering it up there for anyone to use and modify."

Update [2005-9-26 13:55:44 by Chris Schults]: I'm not sure why, but you get "This Account Has Been Suspended" when you try to visit IPodSubwayMaps.com. Hopefully William simply forgot to pay his web or domain hosting bill while fending off the MTA and BART.

Update [2005-9-26 15:18:45 by Chris Schults]: The site seems to be working fine now.

San Francisco takes the first step

San Francisco, or as I like to call it, number one, is already sinking its teeth into the Accords. City officials must have gotten an early copy, or taken a look at the wiki used to draft them before they were finalized, since the SF Examiner article reporting that officials will consider making green purchasing a reality for the city is dated May 30, before the Accords were finalized. Nevertheless, SF will be well on their way to knocking out Accord number five with this step.

While both the Examiner and Treehugger categorize the action as falling under the "precautionary principle," I don't know that I would do the same. From what I could gather the things to be eliminated from purchases are already known to be problems. San Francisco did adopt the principle in 2003.

On another note, how cool is it that there was a wiki for the Accords?

(Thanks to TH for the link!)

Distributed generation

Next American City has an informative piece about what cities like San Francisco and Chicago are doing to encourage distributed generation and solar power. I'm a little more skeptical than author Jeff Perlman about whether photovoltaics are indeed ready for prime time, but that's no reason not to experiment.

A new language is needed to win the day for native species

This cold morning at the Presidio, elegant terns wheel over the lagoon at the edge of the San Francisco Bay, screeching like a fleet of squeaky bicycles. In the distance, fog blots out the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. On the strip of beach closest to the water, dogs chase tennis balls into the […]

Kristin Casper, Greenpeace Clean Energy Now!

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Compost-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat

San Francisco this year is becoming the first major U.S. city to offer curbside recycling for food waste, one sign of a growing nationwide trend toward composting. Communities across the U.S. are finding it difficult to meet the recycling goals they set in the early 1990s, and some are now pushing composting as a way […]

Greens Mourn Brown

Americans have been transfixed these last few days by the passing of a dazzling cultural icon, son of one of the most compelling — and tragic — political figures of the 20th century. A Green Brown Far less remarked upon has been the death last week of California Rep. George Brown (D), one of the […]