Grist | Topics | 152 Results

RESULTS		Results 101 – 125 of 152
Page:1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Headline	Author	Published	Section
Galbraith says what he really thinks Economist goes over to the dark side	biodiversivist	15 Aug 2007	Gristmill
Some facts to hang your hat on: Good governance might save the day. Bad governance could just make things worse. I generally agree with Galbraith's opinions. However, there is always a reasonable probability that some of his opinions are wrong (as is true of anybody's opinions, including my own). He's quoted in David's post: 'Planning' is a word that too many in this debate are trying to avoid, fearful, perhaps, of its Soviet overtones. But the reality of cl ...
Topics: climate, energy, placemaking, politics, urban planning (all these topics)

15 Green Buildings		10 Aug 2007	Main Dish
Green building has grown up, from a tiny movement of hands-on idealists to an increasingly mainstream business sector that erects office towers and research centers. Sure, the structures on this list aren't as low-impact as yurts or straw-bale homes, but they represent green building on a broader, more public scale -- where energy efficiency and sustainably sourced materials come together to touch the lives of the many rather than the few. Read through the list, t ...
Topics: green building, lists, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

World's first carbon (and car) free city planned Can it happen here?	Jon Rynn	09 Aug 2007	Gristmill
From CNNMoney.com: It may seem strange that the emirate of Abu Dhabi, one of the planet's largest suppliers of oil, is planning to build the world's first carbon-neutral city. But in fact, it makes a lot of financial sense. The 3.7-square-mile city, called Masdar, will cut its electricity bill by harnessing wind, solar, and geothermal energy, while a total ban on cars within city walls should reduce the long-term health costs associated with smog. Masdar will be filled ...
Topics: green living, placemaking, United Arab Emirates, urban planning (all these topics)

Did climate change contribute to the Minneapolis bridge collapse? The question must be asked	Joseph Romm	07 Aug 2007	Gristmill
The thought didn't cross my mind until my Minneapolis-based brother suggested it. I had asked him for his thoughts on the collapse, and that is the question he posed. I was skeptical at first, but after doing a Google search -- and after NBC reported Sunday that National Transportation Safety Board investigators are 'looking at everything' including 'the weather' -- I think it is a legitimate question to ask. First, though, why is it an important question to as ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, James Hansen, urban planning (all these topics)

Death Wish Why the Gulf dead zone won't go away any time soon	Wayne Curtis	07 Aug 2007	Dispatches
is a freelance writer who's written for The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, American Scholar, Preservation, and American Heritage, and is the author of And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails. He recently traded Maine winters for New Orleans summers. Dispatch: 1 \| 2 \| 3 \| 4 Tuesday, 07 Aug 2007 NEW ORLEANS, La. It's summertime in New Orleans. Time slows. Backyard gardens demand to be weeded near ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Oil, Dispatches, Louisiana, Mississippi River, placemaking, severe weather, urban planning, water pollution, wetlands (all these topics)

Our brittle infrastructure, our nonresilient economy Bridge to the 21st century?	Jon Rynn	03 Aug 2007	Gristmill
Since 1998, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has been publishing an 'infrastructure report card' detailing the sorry state of the various parts of our infrastructure. Unfortunately, national attention on the physical infrastructure only rises when something catastrophic happens, as it did in New Orleans in 2005, in Minneapolis on Wednesday after the collapse of a large bridge, or during an electrical blackout. Like our ecosystems, the physical infrastruct ...
Topics: placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

Piquing interest How does the Home Interest Mortgage Deduction affect sprawl?	Clark Williams-Derry	31 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Now that the housing market is tanking, is it a good time to talk about the absurdity of the Home Interest Mortgage Deduction? I mean, it's truly crummy social policy. The biggest benefits go to the people in the highest tax brackets, own expensive homes, and earn enough income that they can itemize their deductions. So in essence, the HIMD is a ginormous housing subsidy for the well-off -- and one that dwarfs all of the housing subsidies to lower-income ...
Topics: placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

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 ...
Topics: cars, green living, New York, New York City, placemaking, politics, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

Walk score Calculate how walkable your home is	David Roberts	26 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Some of you may have missed it, as Odograph introduced it down in comments, so I thought I'd bring it up front: Check out Walk Score, where you can plug in your address and find out how walkable your home is, on a scale of one to 100.My old place -- a condo near the heart of Ballard in Seattle -- scored a 94. My new place, a house north of Seattle, just south of Shoreline, gets a 66.I wonder if it knows whether you have sidewalks? Because that obviously affects walk ...
Topics: urban planning, placemaking (all these topics)

Eco-towns Britain's gonna build some	David Roberts	25 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Britain's building five new "eco-towns": The towns, each with a minimum of 5,000 to 10,000 houses, will be built to meet zero carbon standards and will each showcase a specific project promoting energy preservation or green technology, the Communities and Local government office said. Projects to be showcased could include use of communal heat pump systems or car pool schemes, the office said. Also, Housing Minister Yvette Cooper says all new homes bui ...
Topics: urban planning, placemaking, United Kingdom, green building (all these topics)

Step right up, get your 'lifestyle center'! Walkable town centers are hip	Jon Rynn	24 Jul 2007	Gristmill
In 'Center points: Urban lifestyle gains foothold in growing list of suburbs,' a Chicago Tribune journalist describes the beginnings of a new phenomenon that could have a bigger impact than better CAFE standards, carbon taxes, or cap-and-trade of emissions, in my humble opinion: walkable town centers. If people could actually walk from their residence to a store, train station, or even work, perhaps the constant rise in miles driven in automobiles would start to come d ...
Topics: green living, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

Alternatives to auto-mobility Necessary	David Roberts	23 Jul 2007	Gristmill
This op-ed from Rick Cole, city manager of Ventura, Calif., will be music to the ears of all you Gristians: The feel-good stage of California's leadership on global warming is unsustainable. Kudos to the pop stars with their calls to switch lightbulbs and unplug cellphone chargers when not in use. But we can't pretend that we will actually reduce 2020 greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels without tackling our region's embedded patterns of auto dependence and subur ...
Topics: cars, climate, green building, placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

15 Green Cities		19 Jul 2007	Main Dish
These metropolises aren't literally the greenest places on earth -- they're not necessarily dense with foliage, for one, and some still have a long way to go down the path to sustainability. But all of the cities on this list deserve recognition for making impressive strides toward eco-friendliness, helping their many millions of residents live better, greener lives. If your favorite green city didn't make the list, tell us why it deserves recognition in the comment ...
Topics: Chicago, lists, London, placemaking, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, urban planning, Vancouver (all these topics)

Jam Plan Is Toast NYC mayor's traffic-reducing proposal shot down, for now		18 Jul 2007	Daily Grist
Jam Plan Is Toast NYC mayor's traffic-reducing proposal shot down, for now New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion-fee proposal, reportedly down to the wire on Monday, is now just down, period. The plan would have charged a fee for Manhattan-bound vehicles during peak hours, but the state Senate adjourned without voting on the measure after Democrats made it clear that th ...
Topics: New York City, news, placemaking, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

Leo, I've Got a Feeling We're Not in Hollywood Anymore DiCaprio-produced series will rebuild tornado-ravaged Kansas town		16 Jul 2007	Daily Grist
Leo, I've Got a Feeling We're Not in Hollywood Anymore DiCaprio-produced series will rebuild tornado-ravaged Kansas town It's official: Nine months after the rumors began, Leonardo DiCaprio has confirmed that he and a partner will give birth to ... a reality series on green building. DiCaprio will executive produce the 13-part Eco-Town on the Discove ...
Topics: celebrity, green living, Kansas, Leonardo DiCaprio, news, placemaking, severe weather, urban planning (all these topics)

No Rush Hour New York hems and haws over Manhattan congestion fees		16 Jul 2007	Daily Grist
No Rush Hour New York hems and haws over Manhattan congestion fees Today is a make-or-break, do-or-die, fish-or-cut-bait, poo-or-get-off-the-pot, we-wish-we-could-think-of-more-hyphenated-clich�s day for New York, as state legislators, Governor Eliot Spitzer, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wrestle over Bloomberg' ...
Topics: climate, health, innovation, New York City, news, placemaking, politics, public transportation, state politics, urban planning (all these topics)

Valuing the commons: Congestion pricing's hidden payoff The connection between congestion pricing and carbon taxes	Charles Komanoff	15 Jul 2007	Gristmill
I wrote this piece linking NYC Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal with a carbon tax, in June. I shopped it around but none of the big papers took it. Now, NY Times columnist Tom Friedman -- perhaps the second-most visible supporter of carbon taxes (after Al Gore) -- has written a column backing the Bloomberg pricing plan. "Crunch time" for the plan may come as early as the next day or two. So it's time the piece saw the light of day. Eve ...
Topics: carbon tax, New York, New York City, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

Summer property rights update A smorgasbord of campaigns in various states	Eric de Place	15 Jul 2007	Gristmill
There's something energizing about midsummer. If it's not the camping trips, or the afternoon concerts in the park, it must be the flurry of property rights campaigns gearing up for the fall election. Here's the latest: In Oregon, the 'Yes on 49' campaign kicked off yesterday. (Measure 49 is the state legislature's referendum that will trim back some portions of Measure 37.) I can't find a website for the 'No on 49' campaign, so no link today. But if you want the ...
Topics: business, placemaking, politics, urban planning (all these topics)

Bowled Over Mayors of 29 Great Lakes cities vow to cut water consumption		13 Jul 2007	Daily Grist
Bowled Over Mayors of 29 Great Lakes cities vow to cut water consumption What's a Friday without some toilet talk? The mayors of 29 Canadian and U.S. cities in the Great Lakes region have agreed to cut water consumption 15 percent from 2000 levels by 2015, and one of their solutions is banning inefficient potties. "We need provincial legislation about low-flow toi ...
Topics: Canada, local politics, news, politics, United States, urban planning, water crisis (all these topics)

Drink Me A New Orleans transplant traces the source of his tap water	Wayne Curtis	26 Jun 2007	Dispatches
is a freelance writer who's written for The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, American Scholar, Preservation, and American Heritage, and is the author of And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails. He recently traded Maine winters for New Orleans summers. Dispatch: 1 \| 2 \| 3 \| 4 Tuesday, 26 Jun 2007 NEW ORLEANS, La. I was hiding out from New Orleans' early summer heat in a Magazine Street bar ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Oil, Dispatches, Louisiana, Mississippi River, placemaking, severe weather, urban planning, water pollution, wetlands (all these topics)

Sprawl's well that ends well Conservatives wage war against smart growth	Kate Sheppard	12 Jun 2007	Gristmill
Who doesn't love placemaking? Well, a growing band of conservatives who are getting all bent out of shape about the smart-growth movement. They're getting so worked up about it that the Heritage Foundation even pulled together an event on the subject featuring public policy consultant Wendell Cox (best known for fighting public transit and promoting America's highway system) and Ron Utt (the guy who lead Reagan's privatization efforts). The title of the summit: 'Wa ...
Topics: jackassery, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics)

Visualizing density Images of dense development	Eric de Place	02 Jun 2007	Gristmill
Just wanted to point out a great website, 'Visualizing Density,' a product of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (LILP). I'm not feeling like my usual prolix self today, so I'll let them do the talking: Sprawl is bad. Density is good. Americans need to stop spreading out and live closer together. Well ... that's the theory, anyway. But, as anyone who has tried to build compact development recently will tell you, if there's one thing Americans hate more than sprawl ...
Topics: placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Banner day for B.C. Lots of good stuff north of the border	Clark Williams-Derry	25 May 2007	Gristmill
The Vancouver Sun has the scoop. First, the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, just released a draft "eco-density" plan that sounds, at least to my ears, like exactly the right way to deal with the city's expected population increase: curbing sprawl by concentrating new housing in compact, transit-friendly neighborhoods: Vancouver should put high-density housing next to its major parks and along every one of its major streets, suggests the first d ...
Topics: Canada, placemaking, public transportation, sprawl, urban planning, Vancouver (all these topics)

Postcard From the New Atlantis On moving to New Orleans, a city defined by water	Wayne Curtis	24 May 2007	Dispatches
is a freelance writer who's written for The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, American Scholar, Preservation, and American Heritage, and is the author of And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails. He recently traded Maine winters for New Orleans summers. Dispatch: 1 \| 2 \| 3 \| 4 Thursday, 24 May 2007 NEW ORLEANS, La Someone once wrote that eating a tomato grown on a fire escape dem ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Oil, Dispatches, Louisiana, Mississippi River, placemaking, severe weather, urban planning, water pollution, wetlands (all these topics)

What "bike friendly" looks like Is your town?	Alan Durning	19 May 2007	Gristmill
What if cities had no sidewalks and everyone walked on the road? Or, for urban recreation, they walked on a few scenic trails? What if the occasional street had a three-foot-wide 'walking lane' painted on the asphalt, between the moving cars and the parked ones? Well, for starters, no one would walk much. A hardy few might brave the streets, but most would stop at 'walk?! in traffic?!' Fortunately, this car-head vision is fiction for most pedestrians, but it's not ...
Topics: bikes, green living, placemaking, Portland, Seattle, urban planning, Vancouver (all these topics)

Page:1 2 3 4 5 6 7		Results 101 – 125 of 152

Stories About: urban planning