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urban planning

  • USA Today: oil prices drive up asphalt costs, derail road maintenance

    For decades, public cash has gushed into building infrastructure designed to get us around in those little (or not-so-little) privatized pods. Indeed, the mobilization to create and maintain our road and highway network probably counts as our greatest public achievement of the last half-century. Meanwhile, while the highway rode high, our rail-transportation network crashed. Attacked […]

    Tom Philpott Cities

  • Sustainability a big theme at the World Science Festival

    What do vertical farms, green roofs, soft cars, breathing walls, and Dongtan, China, have in common? They were all subjects of discussion at Friday's Future Cities event in New York City, part of the four-day 2008 World Science Festival.

    To a packed house, Columbia University microbiologist Dickson Despommier described his vision for feeding the planet's burgeoning, and increasingly urban, population. The vertical farm takes agriculture and stacks it into the tiers of a modern skyscraper. Instead of stopping at the corner pizzeria for dinner, Despommier suggested, you could pluck a nice head of lettuce, maybe some corn, and some tomatoes for a big salad, all in your own building, on the way to your apartment. You can't get fresher or more local than that.

    According to Despommier, the farms will be "grown organically: no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers." (Of course, being indoor, there won't be many insects to spray for.) The farms will also require much less irrigation since all water can be re-circulated, and they'll curb the growing pressure to turn forest into farmland.

    The vertical farm sounds (and looks) pretty amazing, and certainly Despommier deserves much credit for thinking boldly ... but I was left with several questions.

    Maywa Montenegro Cities

  • Smart-growth advocates offer tips for changing your neck of the woods

    This week we’ve profiled several cities that are changing the way their residents live, work, and get around — all with an eye toward fighting climate change and building a more sustainable future. So what can you do if your community hasn’t seen the light? We asked our sources for advice, and here’s what they […]

    Grist staff Cities

  • Smart(ish) Cities series ends, sustainability efforts march on

    By now, you may have forgotten that Portland was ever crowned the Miss Universe of Sustainability, and have started packing up your bicycles and solar panels for the big move to Syracuse or Tampa. OK, maybe you’re not thinking of uprooting yourself and your family. More likely, you’re evaluating your own city to figure out […]

    Lisa Selin Davis Cities

  • How three Rust Belt cities are changing

    For more on Rust Belt cities, see our full feature on sustainability initiatives underway in Cleveland. It may not be intuitive to link an area historically associated with steel mills, coal mining, and automobile assembly lines to sustainable development. But green growth is catching on in the Rust Belt, long an economically unendowed area of […]

    Grist staff Cities

  • Can Cleveland bring itself back from the brink?

    Still known for smokestacks and football, Cleveland is turning its ship around.Photo: Craig Hatfield“Most people know Cleveland by the Browns or The Flats,” says Marc Lefkowitz. From the roof of his office building, which is dotted with native wildflowers and grasses, he gestures to the downtown skyline — marked by the iconic Mittal Steel smokestacks […]

    Kristine Hansen Cities

  • Sprawling Atlanta seeks new routes to the future

    The City in the Forest hopes to get back to its roots.Despite its reputation as a city of wall-to-wall subdivisions, office complexes, and shopping centers, Atlanta’s not a complete stranger to matters of green. At the time of its mid-19th century founding, in the woods at the end of a railroad line, it was called […]

    Robert DiGiacomo Cities

  • How three Southeast cities are changing

    For more on Southeast cities, see our full feature on sustainability initiatives underway in Atlanta. With rapid population growth and increased climate vulnerability, the Southeastern U.S. would seem a prime place for sustainability initiatives. But the area has been slow to cotton on to the greening trend. We chalk it up to the South’s shade-shifting […]

    Grist staff Cities

  • How three Southwestern cities are changing

    For more on Southwest cities see our full feature on sustainability initiatives underway in Phoenix. Scan any list of “green U.S. cities” for winners from the Southwest, and you’ll find a geographical void. Sure, a liberal-leaning place like Austin or Santa Fe or Boulder might sneak onto the list, but in general, there’s a dearth […]

    Grist staff Cities