urban living
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Parking lots to parks: Designing livable cities
Can you spot the public transportation in Tel Aviv’s car-centric city?Photo: david55king via FlickrAs I was being driven through Tel Aviv from my hotel to a conference center in 1998, I could not help but note the overwhelming presence of cars and parking lots. It was obvious that Tel Aviv, expanding from a small settlement […]
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Green cars do not make green cities
Cross-posted from PubliCola. In response to last week’s post about how cars cause significant greenhouse gas emissions in addition to what comes out of the tailpipe, some commenters contended that even so, car-dependency is not a problem because cars can be as energy-efficient per passenger-mile as buses and trains. But that perspective is classic “can’t […]
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Anita Maltbia
Art: Nat Damm Anita Maltbia Director, Green Impact Zone Kansas City, Mo. Anita Maltbia is spearheading the transformation of 150 square blocks of Kansas City, Mo., from blight to bright. The Green Impact Zone project, which she directs, is resuscitating this economically depressed African-American neighborhood by putting local residents to work weatherizing the zone’s 2,500 homes and […]
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Mike Mathieu
Art: Nat Damm Mike Mathieu Founder, Front Seat Seattle, Wash. After working at Microsoft and founding an internet publishing firm, Mike Mathieu, 41, decided to put his software smarts to work for the greater social good. Seattle-based Front Seat, which he founded and chairs, has launched “civic software” projects like Walk Score, which shows you […]
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Teeny tiny tiny digs [slideshow]
Urban apartment dwellers are nothing if not scrappy. New Yorkers, of course, are famous for stuffing themselves into shoe boxes with hotplates. But there’s more to the story than affordability. More of us are choosing to minimize our footprint. Less space, less stuff, less stress. The cliche holds true in this sense: the less space […]
