Grist | Topics | 152 Results

RESULTS		Results 51 – 75 of 152
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
Biloxi Clues A post-Katrina homebuilding project gives hope for weathering severe storms	Emily Gertz	20 Mar 2008	Grist Feature
When Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Mississippi on August 29, 2005, the storm's 125-mile-an-hour winds and 25-foot wall of seawater ground homes, boats, and businesses into matchsticks across the state's three coastal counties: Jackson, Hancock, and Harrison. The cities of Waveland and Bay St. Louis, roughly 20 miles east of the Mississippi-Louisiana state line, were practical ...
Topics: Army Corps of Engineers, green building, Mississippi, Mississippi River, placemaking, severe weather, special series, urban planning (all these topics)

Tempting Fate Fifteen years after the Great Flood of 1993, floodplain development is booming	Emily Gertz	19 Mar 2008	Grist Feature
Once it was a cornfield; now it's a Wal-Mart, a Taco Bell, a Target. Here along a stretch of Missouri's Highway 40, in the Chesterfield Valley area just west of downtown St. Louis, what's said to be the largest strip mall in the country sits on about 46 acres of Mississippi River bottomlands. Less than 20 years ago, the land was open space. Press Play to watch with narration, o ...
Topics: Army Corps of Engineers, Mississippi River, placemaking, severe weather, special series, urban planning (all these topics)

All close together now A post-petroleum American dream	Jon Rynn	13 Mar 2008	Gristmill
'This craziness is not sustainable,' concludes The New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert, and he's talking about the economy, not the environment. He continues: Without an educated and empowered work force, without sustained investment in the infrastructure and technologies that foster long-term employment, and without a system of taxation that can actually pay for the services provided by government, the American dream as we know it will expire. And without pet ...
Topics: agriculture, cars, energy, placemaking, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

The Way You Move Climate change has it out for transportation infrastructure, says report		11 Mar 2008	News
Posted at 5:08 PM on 11 Mar 2008 Climate change is likely to wreak havoc on U.S. transportation infrastructure, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Research Council. Think bridge joints weakened by too-high temperatures, flooded tunnels, shipping disrupted by heavy storms, roads threatened by erosion, and much, much more! Coastal regions are likely to be especially hard hit, as more and ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, news, placemaking, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

Driving in circles A fun traffic simulator and lessons learned	Clark Williams-Derry	11 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Via Brad Plumer: a traffic jam in in a bottle. To me, it's pretty remarkable how closely the real-world experiment above matches up with this java-based computer traffic simulator. Warning: if you click the last link, and you're at all geeky, prepare to lose your afternoon! A few years back I wasted hour after hour playing with the java settings, and watching "traffic" jams materialize and melt -- just like in real life. My favorite quirk: fo ...
Topics: cars, urban planning (all these topics)

Green building certified! Again! New certification planned by safety group	Katharine Wroth	07 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Maybe this all makes more sense to green builders than it does to me, but I see news today of plans to develop another new green-building certification, this one sponsored by the International Code Council. It seems like only yesterday three weeks ago that the National Association of Home Builders launched its own 'education, verification, and certification' program, and of course our pal LEED keeps chugging along. Oh wait, look what happens when you read the who ...
Topics: green building, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

Gas up The next generation of infrastructure should help more Americans go carless	Ryan Avent	04 Mar 2008	Gristmill
It appears that oil has reached a new all-time high in real terms. Given that gas prices normally peak during the summer season, the stage could be set for some ugly pump prices this year, although expensive oil may not be the most painful part of the current commodity price boom for consumers (an honor which may go to the exploding cost of grain). With oil so expensive, commuters may wish they had better transportation options. Some of them may even begin to wonder ...
Topics: energy, oil, placemaking, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

It Takes a Village Protests arise over British government's		22 Feb 2008	News
"eco-town" plans Posted at 10:00 AM on 22 Feb 2008 The British government is preparing a shortlist of sites for high-density, carbon-neutral eco-towns, but is coming under consistent protest from villagers who don't want 'em nearby. Many residents living near the proposed sites have concerns that, eco or not, new development will take over agricultural land, increase traffic, and burden local infrastructure. Says Mark Sulliva ...
Topics: England, news, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

Deep thought of the day	David Roberts	21 Feb 2008	Gristmill
As rising energy prices and better urban planning push the affluent back to city centers, the poor and working class will be pushed out to the suburbs. Soon, we'll see blight, crime, the drug trade, and other social pathologies where we have been accustomed to seeing the American Dream. 'Inner city' and 'outer suburb' will flip their cultural connotations. It will be confusing.
Topics: placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

Let buildings heat and cool themselves How to kill coal in 10 years	Jon Rynn	20 Feb 2008	Gristmill
We know that coal is the enemy of the human race, what with carbon emissions, deadly air pollution, and unsafe and destructive mining practices. The supply of coal is becoming more problematic as well: recently, a Wall Street Journal article described a 'coal-price surge,' and Richard Heinberg has warned that coal may peak much sooner than most people expect. So what's to like? Not much. But since coal-fired plants provide almost half of our electricity, we can't ge ...
Topics: coal, energy, energy at home, energy efficiency, green building, placemaking, renewable energy, urban planning (all these topics)

Urban Legends Cities run into roadblocks in attempts to reduce CO2		08 Feb 2008	News
Posted at 8:21 AM on 08 Feb 2008 Announcing an ambitious plan to reduce a city's greenhouse gases is the easy part; when it comes to putting goals into action, local officials tend to run up against significant roadblocks. To take just a few examples: The subprime mortgage crisis has left taxpayers across the country unable to fund efficiency-minded proposals. Across the country, homeowners' associations have vetoed plans for ho ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, greenhouse-gas emissions, local politics, news, placemaking, politics, urban planning (all these topics)

Give and Lake Fast-growing Atlanta loses rights to major source of drinking water		06 Feb 2008	News
Posted at 3:27 PM on 06 Feb 2008 An 18-year water war between Georgia, Alabama, and Florida has come to an end of sorts: A federal appellate court has voided an Army Corps of Engineers agreement that would have given Georgia the rights to nearly 25 percent of federal reservoir Lake Lanier as a source of drinking water for metro Atlanta. Alabama and Florida had sued over the plan, saying it would siphon off water t ...
Topics: Alabama, Army Corps of Engineers, Florida, Georgia, news, placemaking, urban planning, water conflicts (all these topics)

Gridlock Step Commission approves NYC congestion charge		31 Jan 2008	News
Posted at 4:30 PM on 31 Jan 2008 A New York commission has approved a plan to charge a fee to drivers entering Manhattan during peak hours. The proposal, aimed at reducing traffic congestion and pollution, differs only slightly from what Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed in April; it would charge $8 to drivers entering a certain area between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., and put the funding toward public transit. The plan must now be approved by the c ...
Topics: New York, New York City, news, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

Moving on out There are limits to the positive environmental change we can expect from high gas prices	Ryan Avent	22 Jan 2008	Gristmill
You can scarcely pick up a paper or turn on the television these days without hearing the word recession. Leading economic indicators have wiggled in different directions over the past few months, but the general trend appears to be negative. The conventional wisdom points toward an economic downturn of some kind during 2008, and businesses in all sorts of consumer markets are bracing for the inevitable tightening of purse strings. A funny thing happened on the way tow ...
Topics: consumerism, economy, energy, gas prices, oil, placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

No joke Land-use policy is not a laughing matter	Ryan Avent	14 Jan 2008	Gristmill
It was just a fleeting moment amid the hours of presidential debate that have taken place through this longest of election cycles, but it nonetheless warmed my heart. No-longer-a-candidate Bill Richardson, in response to a question on climate policy, said of the fight against climate change: It's going to take a transportation policy that doesn't just build more highways. We have to have commuter rail, light rail, open spaces. We've got to have land-use policies where ...
Topics: cars, politics, public transportation, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Monstrosity or innovation? World's largest building approved in Moscow	Katharine Wroth	03 Jan 2008	Gristmill
Catching up on some late-December news (how dare the world keep spinning during vacation?): The city of Moscow approved plans for Crystal Island, a 27-million-square-foot complex designed by the fellow behind London's notorious Gherkin. Set to include 3,000 hotel rooms, 900 apartments, an international school for 500 students, theaters, offices, and stores, the gargantuan development is, said architect Norman Foster in a company press release, 'a paradigm of compact, ...
Topics: green building, placemaking, Russia, urban planning (all these topics)

Green building is the new black Rising hopes for 2008	Katharine Wroth	03 Jan 2008	Gristmill
Remember how, way back in 2007, green was the new black? Watch for a new new black in 2008: green building. The press is gushing with green-building news: According to a report from the American Institute of Architects, the number of cities with green-building programs has increased 418 percent since 2003, and AIA -- which has issued a list of 50 strategies for reducing buildings' fossil-fuel consumption 50 percent by 2010 -- says more cities are on track to ...
Topics: green building, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

The Italian Job Milan, Italy, institutes congestion charge		03 Jan 2008	News
Posted at 12:39 PM on 03 Jan 2008 In Milan, congestion pricing is the new black. (Oh, like you have a better fashion pun?) Under Milan's new plan, which kicks off as a one-year trial, vehicles driving into the urban center on weekdays between 7:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. must pay up to $14 per day; low-polluting cars are exempt from the charge. Milan has the third-highest number of cars per capita in Europe, and some 89,000 cars enter the cit ...
Topics: Italy, news, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

The greening of Greensburg How one small town in Kansas is turning disaster into progress	Maywa Montenegro	28 Dec 2007	Gristmill
There wasn't much to be happy about on today's media spectrum. So I thought I'd share one heartwarming story about one Kansas town's efforts to pick up the pieces after a devastating tornado:Townhomes are beginning to rise from the ragged tree trunks, weeds and ruins off Main Street. They mark a radical departure from traditional low-income housing, according to Duncan Trahl, who is from Pennsylvania and on contract with the National Renewable Energy Labs.The to ...
Topics: green building, Kansas, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

Balkin' in Memphis The riverfront in Memphis needs help -- but what kind?	Katharine Wroth	20 Dec 2007	Grist Feature
May God bless Memphis, the noblest city on the face of the earth. -- Mark Twain To visit Memphis, Tenn., is to visit a place that is slowly waking from a decades-long stupor. The things that define this city in the popular imagination -- the glamorous life of Elvis Presley, the shocking assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. -- happened decades ago. Some of the young professionals the city ...
Topics: Mississippi River, placemaking, Tennessee, urban planning (all these topics)

Gateway to Heaven St. Louisans turn a working river into a river that works for them	Sarah van Schagen	20 Dec 2007	Grist Feature
"The fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up." -- Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn As the sun rises over the city of St. Louis, an arch-shaped shadow moves eastward over the city's bustling downtown and toward the Mississippi River, where it will leave its invisible mark until early evening. The 630-foot steel structur ...
Topics: Mississippi River, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

Dubuque's Not Bluffing An Iowa river town develops a real relationship with the Mississippi	Sarah van Schagen	20 Dec 2007	Grist Feature
"The care of rivers is not a question of rivers, but of the human heart." -- Tanaka Shozo Arriving in Dubuque, Iowa, is a bit disorienting. After passing acres and acres of the heartland's flat soybean and cornfields, you suddenly come upon a small city (pop. 60,000) with a surprising landscape. Gazing east to west, you see the muddy Mississippi meandering sou ...
Topics: Iowa, Mississippi River, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

Mississippi Keen Three river cities reimagine their waterfronts, and themselves	Katharine Wroth	20 Dec 2007	Grist Feature
It was dark when we first crossed the Mississippi, and we caught only a glimpse of its swirling mass beneath us. The next day was gray and windy, and the dark mass had turned into a steely, uninviting barrier. The day after that was cloudless and blue -- and the suddenly friendly river was too. Sarah van Schagen and I had only just begun our weeklong reporting trip, but already we'd ...
Topics: grassroots activism, Mississippi River, placemaking, politics, special series, urban planning (all these topics)

Banking On Change Up and down the Mississippi, communities are reinventing their riverfronts	Sarah van Schagen, Katharine Wroth	20 Dec 2007	Grist Feature
By Sarah van Schagen and Katharine Wroth 20 Dec 2007 Gone are the days when the Mississippi River was just a shipping route and flood risk that happened to run through a city's back yard. Increasingly, the legendary waterway is becoming recognized as a prized attraction, worthy of front-yard status. Here's how a few communities are drawing attention to a natural feature they once shunned. View Larger Map ...
Topics: Mississippi River, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

Where the Streets Have No Name -- But the Skyscrapers Do Environmentalists upset over Dublin's planned U2 Tower		05 Dec 2007	News
Posted at 10:14 AM on 05 Dec 2007 Bono and his fellow U2-ers are stuck in a melee (and they can't get out of it) over a plan to construct a skyscraper in band members' native Dublin. The tower, monikered U2 Tower in the name of self-love, would be the highest building in Ireland. Ian Lumley of heritage group An Taisce says the building is not the sweetest thing -- it would "be an ...
Topics: celebrity, green living, Ireland, music, news, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

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