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Urban RainCatchers Gazette: Frontpage

QUOTE
Judging by what's covered in the media, it would appear that so-called "green" developers are leading the way when it comes to sustainable water and stormwater practices. But there is plenty of evidence to debunk that myth.

This website will showcase innovation in the public sector, leadership from the grassroots, inspiration from NGOs and - above all - partnerships that empower citizens to become part of the solution to floods, droughts and stormwater problems.
UNQUOTE

Tags: raincatchers, urban_design, water, stormwater_management, green_strategies, sustainability on 2008-12-27 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Introduction: By Paul Hawken - SustainLane

Great defense of cities by Paul Hawken.
QUOTE
Urban migration represents a kind of collective wisdom, and how we configure our cities will be critical to our survival. Regardless of the myths about living close to the land, cities are where human beings have the lowest ecological footprint. It takes less energy, wood, material, and food to provide a good life for a person in a city than in the country. Rather than perceive the city as an ecological sink sucking up the resources of the countryside, which cities can do, cities can also be a kind of ecological ark, places where humanity gathers while we peak in population and develop ecological intelligence for a new civilization. There is wisdom in this that is rather extraordinary. It was not predicted that cities might be the best strategy for our long-term survival and well-being. Yet that is exactly what is happening.
UNQUOTE

Tags: sustainlane, paul_hawken, sustainability, cities, urbanization, environment, ecology on 2008-11-20 -All Annotations (9) -About

more fromwww.sustainlane.com

For most of the 19th and 20th century, cities, despite the hardships and suffering experienced in ghettos, were seen as places where culture and intelligence concentrated and evolved. In the latter part of the 20th century, urban decay, environmental problems, and ethnic riots created a rush for the exits and rampant urban sprawl. Cities became more dangerous and inhuman. Post-war modernist planners and architects made matters worse by creating concrete monuments to themselves, hollowing out downtowns into commercial centers that felt like mausoleums at night.
Ehrlich predicted England would cease to exist by the end of the 20th century and India would have collapsed while mass starvation swept the globe.
Add Sticky Note
- All predictions of the future turn out to be hare-brained, it seems...
  posted by lampertina on 2008-11-20
Birth rates steadily declined and are still declining. In the developed world, they average 1.6 children per woman. In the developing world, the rate is 3 per woman. In countries such as Japan , authorities even ask women to have more children. Given existing trends, population will peak sometime at or before the middle of the 21st century, and then will begin to draw down for decades, possibly leveling out at 2 billion late in the next century.
One of the reasons population rates continue to drop is because of cities. A contributing factor to birth control in the world is the urban environment. Population planning is an individual act, but the incentive to plan a family is heavily influenced by urban migration. People are leaving rural areas where children are an asset, and relocating in cities where too many children are a liability.
Urban migration represents a kind of collective wisdom, and how we configure our cities will be critical to our survival. Regardless of the myths about living close to the land, cities are where human beings have the lowest ecological footprint. It takes less energy, wood, material, and food to provide a good life for a person in a city than in the country. Rather than perceive the city as an ecological sink sucking up the resources of the countryside, which cities can do, cities can also be a kind of ecological ark, places where humanity gathers while we peak in population and develop ecological intelligence for a new civilization. There is wisdom in this that is rather extraordinary. It was not predicted that cities might be the best strategy for our long-term survival and well-being. Yet that is exactly what is happening.
The viability of the urban environments, however, is not a given.
The sustainable city is a place that interacts with its region and resources in a symbiotic way so as to increase the quality of both environments.
For too long, we believed that more meant better, that energy-, concrete-, and automobile-intensive cities would bring us a better life. That tall tale is being replaced by common sense understanding that what makes for a fulfilling urban existence is neighborhoods, farmer’s markets, parks, mobility, quiet, greenery, and meaningful livelihoods, all of which require less resources and better design.
The worldwide diaspora of immigrants, refugees, and peasants to urban slums is growing. The World Bank has predicted that more than five billion people will be receiving less than $2/day by 2030 in today’s dollars.
In Darwinian terms, the slums and squatter cities are a rapid breeding pool for human evolution. Leaders, activists, and scholars will emerge from these places, but so too will demagogues, jihadists, thieves, and mobs. That famous lyric “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose” may be true for seekers and monks, but it is not true for the bulk of humanity. Freedom and the rule of law are valued and honored when people have something to lose. Neighborhoods work, and are safe and livable because there is a “we” there. The greening of the world’s cities is a profound act of social healing and justice, because sustainability addresses whether people feel hope or despair, are secure or threatened, want to cooperate or compete.

WATT: World's 1st Sustainable Dance Club (SDC)

Page for WATT, Rotterdam's Sustainable Dance Club. Includes a really cool video (one guy, quoting verbatim, talks about how we're "leaving the tree hugger age" and moving into a whole new era that embraces innovation etc.). Found via Inhabitat (see http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/10/02/sustainable-dance-club-opens-in-rotterdam/), which includes more images.

Tags: dance_club, sustainability, innovation, rotterdam, environment on 2008-10-03 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.sustainabledanceclub.com

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Architecture of Change - Sustainability and Humanity in the Built Environment (PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things”)

Ping Magazine interview with Berlin-based Kristin and Lukas Feireiss on their book, _Architecture of Change - sustainability and humanity in the built environment_, regarding the "conscious contradiction in the title — changing and sustaining. But how can I change and sustain at the same time? This challenge is what we try to put across."

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There’s more to architecture than its simple purpose of shelter or protection, a cast to architecture. However they are creating social environments, urban spaces and the public spaces where people actually interact. So they are the catalyst for social interaction, for society to work in. This is a big topic and we can go from dictatorial architecture to that of social engagement.
(...)
This book gives a broad overview of what’s possible in sustainable building practices or social practices in architecture. So it ranges from economically speaking very simple, modernistic architecture to very free-flowing, avant-garde forms; from small, private houses to school buildings to skyscrapers, to federal buildings. It’s not restricted at all to one certain section. And secondly it comprises all these ideas that are in a state of research or initiative.
UNQUOTE
Bonus: gorgeous pictures/ illustrations.

Wouldn't mind having a copy of this book!

Tags: pingmag, ping_mag, architecture, sustainability, design on 2008-06-28 and saved by 2 people -All Annotations (0) -About

more frompingmag.jp

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» We will not save the environment until… • Spacing Toronto • understanding the urban landscape

- transcript of a talk by Pier Giorgio DiCicco; emphasis on the bodily; added two rather long comments.

Tags: anonymity, cities, embodiment, pier_giorgio_di_cicco, sustainability, urbanism on 2008-02-11 and saved by 2 people -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromspacing.ca

After the many seductions, logical and visionary, have been played—I shall make a plea for the salvific aspect of the act of walking. Yes, salvific. Not just to save the environment, but to save ourselves, and not just by regarding the environment. We will not save the environment until we have found a reason for living together. Until we discover civic care in each other, until we restore the city to its definition as a place of unexpected intimacies, not just as a place of amenities, convenience, business, and entertainment, we will not have sustainability. For sustainability is about replacing an ethic of entitlement with an ethic of sufficiency. And sufficiency is what we find in each other.
It is not cars that are the enemy of the pedestrian. The enemy is the absence of civic communion, the lack of empathic citizenship, our inability to see cohabitation as that place where we enjoy ourselves, by enjoying others. All human traffic is under siege, because it is becoming increasingly purposed, guarded, and negotiated. The body is not just a means of locomotion. It is our chief means of restoring a city to its raison d’être, its purpose. And that purpose is civil encounter.
The problem is to make people aware that anonymity is as toxic to the ecology of heart as hydrocarbons are toxic to the atmosphere.
The problem is how to restore intimacy, curiosity, trust, and play into the happenstance encounter of citizens, in an era when the happenstance and the unpredictable are a threat.

My Other Car is a Bright Green City - WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future

via CEOs for Cities, an article by Alex Steffen, which argues for dense, urban communities that will help curb (literally) car use. \n\nFrom his intro preamble: "This is a rough draft of a long essay about why I believe building compact communities should be one of America's highest environmental priorities, and why, in fact, our obsession with building greener cars may be obscuring some fundamental aspects of the problem and some of the benefits of using land-use change as a primary sustainability solution."

Tags: alex_steffen, cars, cities, environment, green_strategies, sustainability, urbanism, worldchanging on 2008-01-25 and saved by 8 people -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.worldchanging.com

SDTC The Funding Gap

SDTC = Sustainable Development Technology Canada; this particular page describes the Innovation Chain, particularly in Canada. Points out its weak spots, very interesting.

Tags: canada, funding, innovation, research, sustainability, technology on 2007-12-22 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.sdtc.ca

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