Housing & urban design

-Outer Ring Suburbs and the Permanent Foreclosure
-Designing Cities for People: Farming in the City
-Cleveland’s Comeback
-The secret mall gardens of Cleveland
-10 Land-Use Strategies to Create Socially Just, Multiracial Cities

Driving down the broad avenues of Cleveland, Ohio, was like flipping through the pages of a picture book about the rise and fall of our industrial empire. Where demolitions had not removed things -- a lot was gone -- stood the residue of a society so different from ours that you felt momentarily transported to another planet where a different race of beings had gone about their business.

-Detroit Wants To Save Itself - By Shrinking
-Orange officials sue couple who removed their lawn
-Obama’s Nuclear Blind Spot
-Tory budget ‘walks away' from renewable energy, environmentalist says

A while ago now I was in London for the launch of the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment’s ‘Building a New Green Economy’ conference, where I was a speaker alongside Tim Jackson, David Orr and Stewart Brand. You can read about the event here, and films of our talks will be posted soon. I mention it today because I want to draw your attention to the report launched at the conference, Sustainable Supply Chains that Support Local Economic Development, available to download here.

Vertical farming has become a popular idea, but what is mostly forgotten is that the energy required for the operation and construction of vertical farms largely negates the ecological advantages. This also applies to small-scale systems, like those of Philips (a concept) or Inka Biospheric Solutions (a product).

Last post I covered some guiding principles for urban resilience planning in the face of climate change and diminishing resources (especially fresh water and oil). Considering these guidelines, what aspect of U.S. metro development stands out as the most ill-advised and risky? Short answer: exurban sprawl.

Most homeowners in the U.S. would come out ahead if they invested in energy efficiency improvements -- new insulation, sealed windows, more efficient boilers, and the like. So why don't they do it? Simple: the upfront costs are steep and the paybacks can take a long time. Many homeowners don't have access to the capital to cover the costs, or they worry that they will move before the the costs are repaid, thus leaving subsequent owners to reap gains they didn't pay for.

-Public safety means more than just cops
-Dominican Authorities Approve Container Cities For Haiti Housing Relief
-Detroit homes sell for $1 amid mortgage and car industry crisis
-Digital designer shows what future towns could look like

-Coventry to 'dim' city's street lamps in British first
-Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Hatch Massive Plan to DeCarbonize Chicago
-Imagining a Carbon Neutral Seattle: A Collection of Ideas

-Getting Your Family On Board With Food Storage
-The community-owned, timber-framed, self-heating village shop
-Nitrogen for Free

-Even Boulder Finds It Isn't Easy Going Green
-Ecocities Emerging Newsletter
-The Cleveland Model
-De-Industrializing the City
-Urban Form, Behavior Energy Modeling in China: Sim City for Real?

Monday night I was having drinks in downtown San Francisco with some seriously smart people—top-level IBM scientists and strategists involved in Big Blue’s Smarter Planet initiative. Given the room’s collective interest in creating smart electrical grids, smart water systems, advanced electric car batteries and other green technologies, the talk naturally turned to how to create sustainable cities.

Derek's book is a far cry from anything so conventional. He aims to inspire with his ideas, ideas that may well earn his book a place in tiny house history. What he ends up doing is reconstructing the mind into accepting what constitutes shelter. (Also "Build Your Own House")