Kent Portney's "Our Green Cities" Blog

Tufts Tisch College and US Conference of Mayors Forum

On April 28, 2008, the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts is hosting a policy forum on "Urban Issues in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign" with the U.S. Conference of Mayors.  The Forum will be moderated by Tom Cochran, the US Conference's Executive Director, and the panel will include a number of high-profile mayors, including Douglas Palmer, the current President of the U.S. Conference, from Trenton NJ, who is rapidly becoming a leader on sustainable cities and climate change in cities.   The forum provides an ideal opportunity for discussion of how and in what ways environmental, sustainability, and smart growth policies need to be both part of the presidential debate and on the agenda for the next presidential administration.  I have been astonished that so little discussion of urban issues has emerged from this presidential campaign.  There seems to be absolutely no recognition on the part of any of the candidates that so many cities are doing so many important, impactful things with respect to the pursuit of sustainability. There is also no recognition that there are many things that need to happen in Washington to facilitate cities' efforts.  I'm hoping that this forum will spend some time developing some of these ideas so that they can make their way into the campaign. 

Wind turbines in Massachusetts

There was a short piece in the Boston Globe Sidekick section yesterday providing an decent overview of the proposed and pending wind turbine electric generating projects in Massachusetts.  Check out the article called Blowing in the Wind. The latest is project to install a single turbine in Ipswich that would provide about 2% of the town's electricity.  All in all, Massachusetts has been pretty slow to move forward with wind power, with much local opposition to the proposed 130 turbine project off the coast of Cape Cod and Nantucket.  Especially given how windy it tends to be in the state, it is somewhat surprising that a greater effort has not been made to locate turbines.  What else is going on with municipal-based wind turbine projects in New England? 

Wall Street Journal Article on Cities and Energy

In case you missed it, there was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal recently that briefly profiled the efforts of nine cities around the world in their efforts to reduce energy consumption. It profiles New York City, Chicago, Aspen CO, Ann Arbor MI, Palm Desert CA, Amsterdam, Beijing, London, and Thane, India.  View the article here. 

This is a pretty solid article as far as it goes, but what struck me the most is that it did not attempt to provide a larger view of how widespread such activities are around the world, and even in US cities.  In fact, if I were to look for the US cities that are doing the most, I don't think I would have selected many of the places discussed in this article.  I definitely would include NYC and Chicago; but I would have included Austin TX, Cambridge MA, Santa Monica and San Francisco CA, Grand Rapids MI, and some other cities because I think they probably better exemplify best practices. 

I was also struck by the fact that there was no effort to provide a sense of the larger context in which the selected cities have decided to pursue energy efficiency and conservation.  For many cities, that larger context consists of broad-based efforts to try to become more sustainable, especially in terms of the bio-physical environment and quality of life. 

Let me know if you are aware of any other major city efforts, either on energy efficiency or climate change.  I'm particularly interested in actions and programs undertaken by the city government.

Finally, a Little Creativity in Boston

Tammy Zborel sent along this NPR story that shows that there may be some hope for Boston yet.  The city is considering an indoor composting facility that would capture the resulting methane.  Check out the story on Composting in Boston at the NPR web site.  I don't know much about the technologies involved in this kind of project.  If you do, please post some comments so we can share information about this.

Wind Power in Palm Beach FL

Thanks to the comment from WIII for alerting me to this story.  The Palm Beach Post reports that there is overwhelming support for a major wind power project in South Florida.  Check the story at the Palm Beach Post web site.

Clearly, efforts to site wind turbines are subject to the same kinds of potential opposition as other types of projects.  My own view is that most of the opposition comes in the form of NIMBYism -- people who want the type of facility somewhere, they just don't want it near them.  Especially with wind power, where there aren't too many people who think that it is a bad idea in principle to rely more on wind, the opposition seems to come from people who want access to cheaper energy but they do not want to bear any more responsibility for helping to produce it than anyone else.  I once wrote a book about NIMBYism, and this stands as a real political challenge that must be addressed without steamrolling those who oppose such facilities. 

Popular Science Magazine Rankings of Green Cities

In February of 2008, Popular Science magazine published its rankings of cities according to how green they are. See the rankings online at America's 50 Greenest Cities.  I would be interested to know how you think this approach to ranking the cities compares to the SustainLane rankings and to my own rankings.

There are some major differences.  My rankings do not try to assess cities in terms of how green they actually are (how clean the air is, how pure the water is, etc.), but rather focuses just on what city governments are doing to try to become more sustainable.  That's why Popular Science says that Boston is near the top of the list and my rankings have Boston pretty far down.  Boston's policies on sustainability are almost non-existent, but the water and air are relatively clean anyway. My sense is that the Popular Science ranking resembles the SustainLane rankings, but the latter are somewhat more elaborate, multidimensional, and probably a more accurate assessment. But I'd love to hear your ideas on this.

Climate Protection Reaches Tallahassee

I see that in March of 2008 the City of Tallahassee, capital of Florida, and Leon County, held a Climate Action Summit conference with the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) on promoting the city's efforts to address climate protection.  I feel like I have a special interest in this largely because I went to grad school in Political Science at FSU in Tallahassee. So I'd love to see the city, county, and the two major universities there, make strides toward becoming more sustainable.  Read the Tallahassee Democrat story on the Summit.

The Summit was moderated by Wayne Tedder of Tallahassee's Planning Department, and included talks by Jill Buck, founder of the National Go Green Initiative and Robert Deyle from FSU's terrific urban and regional planning department.  Click here for a link to the to the FSU Urban and Regional Planning Department.

I know the state of Florida has tried a number of different statewide programs and policies designed to try to get cities and towns to move toward becoming more sustainable, and that for the most part, the results have been disappointing.  A small number of cities in Florida -- perhaps most notably Tampa and St. Pete, Orlando, and Jacksonville, have done work to create such city and metro programs, but by my assessment, they haven't gotten very far.  There was a recent article in one of FSU's research publications on how the state's growth management strategies and policies have been largely ineffective over the last 20 years. See the Pain in Paradise story.

The City of Tallahassee has already done a wide array of important sustainability-oriented projects and programs, including green building, aggressively pursuing alternative energy (especially solar) and energy efficiency, and a greenways program, and many others.

I'm hoping that Tallahassee can turn out to be a state leader on these issues, and I know there are lots of people who share that hope with me. 

Clinton Foundation and Make It Right Project Join Forces in New Orleans

In March 2008, the Clinton Foundation's Global Initiative joined forces with Brad Pitt's Make It Right project to spearhead a major initiative to build 150 new sustainable and affordable homes in New Orlean's Lower Ninth Ward, the area so devastated by Hurricane Katrina.  About 600 students from around the country attended the events, which included a series of brainstorming sessions and workshops at Tulane University.  One of the students in my Sustainable Cities course at Tufts attended, and reported that there is tremendous hope that the result will be a more sustainable New Orleans.  Check out the Clinton Foundation's description at the Foundation's web site and the Make It Right Foundation's efforts at the Make It Right Project web site.

Grand Rapids Magazine

If you are interested in keeping up with progress toward sustainability in Grand Rapids, check out the latest (April 2008) issue of Grand Rapids magazine.  There is a terrific cover story called "Green and Greener" by Tanya Schafer on how much progress the city and West Michigan have made in recent years. 
Click on this link to see the online story in Grand Rapids Magazine

Green Blogs

In case you haven't notice, in the last couple of years there has been an absolute explosion in the number of blogs dedicated to green issues -- the environment, sustainability, climate protection, green building, and so on.  Now there is a web site that provide direct and immediate access to a large number of these.  This web site, called "best green blogs," has searchable indexes and is relatively easy to use.  This web site is listed there.  Check it out at http://BestGreenBlogs.com .