Also thanks for Jeff Friedman for alerting me to the launch of the new car sharing program in Wilmington. The program allows residents to relatively inexpensively use highly fuel efficient vehicles just paying for the time they use them. The Wilmington program is based on the model dveloped in Philadelphia as PhillyCarShare by the non-profit organization of the same name. Check the press release here.
Many thanks to Jeff Friedman for alerting me to the recent challenge issued by James Baker, the mayor of Wilmington, Delaware, for the residents to "Think Green for a Change." Read the press release at:
http://www.ci.wilmington.de.us/newsroom/2007/0523_thinkgreen.htm
I am pleased to see so many northeastern cities finally starting to express concern about the bio-physical environment, and this announcement by mayor Baker certainly seems to move Wilmington a step closer to having a comprehensive sustainability initiative. Even though the press release outlines a fairly large number of different kinds of activities that promote being green in the city, there is a sense that as a matter of local public policy, the environment is something that is separated from other important issues. Cities that are really serious about sustainability have a deep understanding of how interrelated the environment, the economy and economic development, and liveability are, and they act on this understanding by providing comprehensive approaches to achieving sustainability. Let's hope that this is the direction that Wilmington is moving in.
I saw an AP story this morning reporting that NYC has decided to make its entire fleet of taxis hybrids by the year 2012. New York has had a number of hybrid taxis since sometime in 2005, and the city has approved a number of different specific hybrid vehicles for use as taxis. Mayor Bloomberg has now announced that city is going completely hybrid. That means going from the current 375 hybrid taxis to well over 13,000.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GREEN_TAXIS?SITE=KPUA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
This seems to me to represent another way that NYC has decided to be aggressive about trying to become more sustainable. I suspect that in most cities, decisions about what kinds of vehicles taxi companies operate is considered largely "private" decisions. The idea that the city government would get involved in such decisions would probably seem somehow out of bounds. But cities can and should take increasing responsibilty both for the vehicles that it buys or leases, and for other vehicles that they have some authority for regulating, such as taxis. The fact is that hybrids emit so much less carbon and sulfur than vehicles powered only with gasoline engines, this makes a tremendous amount of sense.
One of my students, Jonah Kaplan, alerted me to the New York Times Magazine from Sunday May 20, 2007. The entire issue is dedicated to green building and some related issues. Many thanks to Jonah for this.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/magazine/
Over the last year, we have some something of an explosion in interest in green building, green architecture and green design. Especially with regard to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to improve energy efficiency, green building is where the action is. Wouldn't it be great if we have a national leader who made it a goal to seriously upgrade the energy efficiency of our entire stock of buildings over the next 20 years? I don't know what would make sense in terms of an overall national goal, but just the idea of having a nationwide effort toward this end would be a terrific idea.
What I think tends to be missing from many discussions of green buidling and related issues is the local context in which that building takes place. Sometimes these green building efforts are embedded in the context of citywide, regional, or state government efforts to promote sustainability. Although there is no real serious research on this, I strongly suspect that when green building is done in the context of a broader sustainability effort, it turns out to be far more effect. I'm thinking, for example, of Grand Rapids, which has the largest number of green buildings per capita in the country. And this fact works symbiotically with the city's sustainability initiative, spearheaded by Mayor George Heartwell, Grand Valley State University's Sustainability Director Norman Christopher, and city Sustainability Coordinator Corky Overmyer. I'm also thinkinng of San Francisco, where all the innovative green building efforts I mentioned in previous postings are part of that city's impressive sustainability initiative. What's your sense of this? In what ways is it easier and/or more effective to do green building when the city government is on board?
Congratulations to the Clinton Foundation and its Clinton Climate Initiative chair, Ira Magaziner, for the new initiative to support carbon reduction in 15 cities around the world.
The US cities include New York, Chicago, and Houston. Outside of the US, they include Toronto, Mexico City, London, Berlin, Tokyo, Rome, Karachi, Seoul, Bangkok, Melbourne, Sao Paulo, and Johannesburg.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2007-05-16-climate-summit_N.htm?POE=click-refer
This is an exciting new development in the world of sustainable cities. The Clinton Foundation has apparently leveraged over a $1 billion to help cities ensure that their own city government buildings are energy efficient. Many people have been talking about the importance of cities for redressing climate change problems, and this represents a huge step toward providing the resources and know-how to make cities the cornerstone of reductions in carbon emissions. Some of the selected cities have been at this for some time -- New York City under Mayor Bloomberg has had a very impressive green building program for its municipal buildings for several years. So have Chicago and Toronto. This new program should be able to demonstrate how far cities can go, and from my perspective, will make it possible for serious analysis of the true financial and environmental impacts of such efforts.
I see that Yahoo has announced its Greenest City in America challenge where the winner will receive either a fleet of hybrid taxis or the cash equivilent.
http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=242653
I think this is a great symbolic gesture to raise awareness of the need to curb air emissions and greenhouse gas emissions (and of course good publicity for Yahoo in the launch of its new pro-environment web consumer services). The problem is that it is not at all clear how the challenge defines "greenest." The press release provides a few hints, but little else.
If the issue is which city is doing the most to be green, especially in terms of local government policies and programs, there really is not contest. Seattle is already at the top of everyone's list. See my rankings in the "Our Green Cities" web site. http://ourgreencities.com
But there are a number of other cities that are closing the gap. Chicago, Grand Rapids, Denver, New York City, and others are moving fast to become greener. Perhaps no city has burst forward faster that Philadelphia. What is your sense of the objective criteria that should be used to make a judgment about what is the greenest city in America?
Many thank to Michael Watson, one of my sustainable cities students at Tufts, for forwarding this story about the new green building project for the California Academy of Sciences Museum in San Francisco. SF has long been a leader in the sustainable cities world, and this project represents yet another major step forward in that city.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/12/MNGGTPPKM01.DTL
Thanks to Erik Johanson, from the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, for information about the City's new climate change plan.
On April 25, Mayor Street announced the city's "Local Action Plan for Climate Change."
http://ework.phila.gov/philagov/news/prelease.asp?id=310
This seems to me to reflect the fact that Philly is starting to put the pieces together into what is emerging as a coherent plan for sustainability. Congratulations to the City, to Mayor Street, to Janice Woodcock, the City's Planning Director, and all the other people who contributed to this new action plan.
Of course, Philadelphia is in the process of selecting a new mayor. The danger is that a new mayor may not be as supportive of the move toward trying to become more sustainable as Mayor Street now seems to be. I have seen the change of mayoral regimes quickly dampen enthusiasm in other cities. Typically, newly elected mayors do not see the political advantage in continuing the initiatives of their predecessors, so they often allow such initiatives to wither on the vine. I have also seen examples where new mayors have seized upon the sustainability initiatives of their predecessors and have given them real depth. My sense is that there is enough momentum, and there are enough people pushing for sustainability, that it will make it hard for the new mayor to let climate change and sustainability die. Tell me what you think.
I think one of the most impressive recently announced sustainability plans comes from New York City. At the end of April 2007, Mayor Bloomberg announced the City's PlaNYC, a pretty comprehensive strategic plan for moving toward becoming more sustainable. As an aside, Mayor Bloomberg will be the commencement speaker here at Tufts later this month, and I'm looking forward to any comments he might have about this new plan.
Check out the Plan's web site at
http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/home/home.shtml
I'm sure everyone recognizes the enormity of the challenge for a city as large as New York to actually make progress toward sustainability. Yet other large cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles have also started to get serious about sustainability, and I will discuss some of these in forthcoming posts. When New York decides to embark on policies or programs related to sustainability, they do it in a big way. As one NYC official told me, when the city did its green building program and focused just on city-owned buildings, they probably had ten times the impact on improving the environment as other small cities that did more comprehensive green building initiatives. Tell me what you think about NYC's efforts.
I saw that Philadelphia has started a program of giving awards to local and regional organizations that are contributing to local sustainability. After receiving over 50 nominations, ten programs or organizations were given awards at the April 26, 2007 ceremony. Check out their web site for more information.
http://www.philadelphiasustainabilityawards.org/
It looks like this awards effort is spearheaded by the Pennsylvania Environmental Council working with seven other city and regional partners.
Congratulations to all the winners. Philly has a lot of potential for making tremendous strides in becoming more sustainable, and it seems to me that these programs and organizations are pushing the city to move in the right direction.
