| Headline |
Author |
Published |
Section |
Slow your city Like they do it in Italy |
Tom Philpott |
08 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| From Der Spiegel:It's not easy to be punctual for a meeting with Stefano Cimicchi. Parking places are hard to come by in Orvieto, even if cars are still legal. Cars in the city center stick out like a sore thumb among strolling pedestrians, who move to the sides of the streets with studied slowness. After a couple of twisty laps though the narrow medieval alleyways of the old town center, you might find a parking place on the edge of the small Umbrian town -- and pay ha ... |
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| Topics: cars, green living, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics) |
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Congestion pricing saves more than it costs Bloomberg’s law: Environment equals economic growth |
Grist |
28 Jul 2007 |
Gristmill |
| This guest essay comes from Steven Cohen and Jacob Victor. Steven Cohen is executive director of Columbia University's Earth Institute and director of its Master of Public Administration Program in Environmental Science and Policy at the School of International and Public Affairs. Jacob Victor is an intern at Columbia's Earth Institute. After overcoming numerous obstacles in Albany, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's controversial congestion-pricing plan finally appear ... |
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| Topics: cars, green living, New York, New York City, placemaking, politics, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics) |
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Social engineering, Soviet style There's more to freedom than free parking |
Eric de Place |
08 May 2007 |
Gristmill |
| I keep seeing the phrase "social engineering" used to describe policies that don't kowtow to the car. See, for example, this inexplicable subhead about a third of the way through this Seattle newspaper story. Not only is this usage annoying, it's exactly backward (as others have noted before me). First, let's look first at specifics. The paper reports that the city will put parking meters on some formerly-free spots in a rapidly urbanizing district near do ... |
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| Topics: cars, green living, placemaking, Seattle, urban planning (all these topics) |
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Putting a price on congestion Realizing that freeways are not free |
Eric de Place |
03 May 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Every once in a while there's a truth that everybody knows, but that no one will acknowledge. And when someone finally says it aloud, it sounds shocking. Like this: ... what we're doing now isn't working. Not for drivers, taxpayers or the environment. We can't tax and build our way out of this. That's Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat in his column this week, talking about what most people in Seattle already know: the area's freeway system is flat broke an ... |
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| Topics: cars, green living, placemaking, Seattle, urban planning (all these topics) |
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Another refreshing change: Taming the auto Cities find that people like not being killed by cars! |
JMG |
02 May 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Good story in the Christian Science Monitor about places that are taking steps (albeit tiny, tiny baby steps) to take back some of the public space given over to cars and letting people use it: The auto's demotion at Golden Gate Park follows dozens of similar moves in at least 20 American cities in the past three years. It's a trend that is gaining ground rapidly in the US, say urban planners. New York is proposing to shut down perimeter roads of Central Park and Brookly ... |
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| Topics: cars, climate, green living, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics) |
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What a green wants: An index-card manifesto (first draft) A positive environmental program that can (almost) fit on an index card |
David Roberts |
17 Feb 2006 |
Gristmill |
| Without further ado, here's the first draft of my index-card manifesto. It turned out to be two index-card manifestos, with five points each: one for stuff I consider immediately urgent, and a second for what I consider longer-term goals. Feedback is welcome -- nay, requested. (I'll discuss the whole project more in a subsequent post.) WHAT A GREEN WANTS: IMMEDIATE PRIORITIES Energy efficiency: Proven techniques can get the same amount of work with 50% of the oil. ... |
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| Topics: agriculture, cars, electricity grid, energy, environmental movement, green living, messaging, placemaking, renewable energy, urban planning (all these topics) |
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