May 17, 08
From The Book
Cities: Introduction
We live on an urban planet. For the first time in history, a majority of us live in cities. How we grow those cities, how we build neighborhoods, how we provide housing, how we choose to get around, how well we incorporate nature into the places we live - these are the challenges that will largely determine our future.
And with millions and millions of people moving every year from the countryside to the city, all of these difficulties seem even more insurmountable. Appearances, however, can be deceiving. For, along with the boom in urbanization, we're seeing a boom in urban innovation. Simply put, we're getting better at building better cities.
image from ed burtynsky
Using Disasters for Systemic Change
After reading Justus Stewart’s recent article about a BIM collaboration I immediately thought of the Earthquake in China, the Cyclone in Myanmar, Hurricane Katrina and the SE Asian Tsunami, and last year’s mini-disaster in the San Francisco Bay Area where...
TerraPass' New and Improved Flight Emissions Calculator
Carbon offset dealer TerraPass (with whom we're working on our Clean Slate offsets) recently launched a new version of their flight emissions calculator. The updated calculator uses data from go-to travel resource TRX to provide a more accurate, personalized...
SUV Rollover
by Clark Williams-Derry From the Sightline Institute's Daily Score Gas guzzlers are losing their resale value--fast. Via Calculated Risk, USAToday is reporting that SUV resale value is plummeting. [W]holesale prices on big SUVs such as Chevrolet Tahoes, Ford Expeditions and...
BIMstorm: Honing Bureaucracy, Giving Urbanism an Edge
by Justus Stewart As the recent discussions in the blogosphere attest – Andrew Rivken and Joseph Fromm in two prominent examples – we are at an interesting hurdle for climate action. Post-tipping point, we are in the exciting phase...
Book Review: Verb Crisis
Verb Crisis, edited by Mario Ballesteros, Albert Ferré, Irene Hwang, Michael Kubo, Tomoko Sakamoto, Anna Tetas and Ramon Prat. Design by Twopoints.net (Amazon UK and ) USA Publisher Actar says: Verb Crisis examines architectural solutions to the extraordinary conditions...
Cities of the Future, Today
As cool as ultra high-performance green buildings are individually, the real action is all with districts. Individual buildings may blaze paths, and as we engage in acupunctural infill (changing sprawling or underused areas into walkable, compact mixed-use communities by adding...
Book Review: Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems: Principles and Practices
By Peter Newman and Isabella Jennings Reviewed by: Davidya Kasperzyk AIA Architect and Bioregional Planner Searching for a universal theory to save our precious orb is a compelling action pursued by many. In this noble effort Peter Newman and Isabella...
Highlights from the 7th EcoCity World Summit
"In order to transform our cities, we need to move from ego-culture to eco-culture." —Rusong Wang President, Ecological Society of China The EcoCity World Summit (see my intro here) wrapped up on Saturday afternoon in San Francisco. An incredible assemblage...
The City is the Solution: The EcoCity World Summit
"Cities are part of what it means to be human. We need to build cities as much as birds need to build nests. And if we want to have a future, then EcoCities must be part of who we are...
The Top Stories, Earth Day 2008
On previous Earth Days, readers were sure to expect some startling statistics about pollution, global climate change and environmental destruction from most mainstream newspapers. But on Earth Day 2008, we at Worldchanging noticed that much of this year's coverage was...
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