I rarely read Fortune magazine. OK, that’s an overstatement. But it came across my desktop last week when they ran an interview with Jay Carson, disheveled CEO of the newly formed C40 Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI).If you’ve been around t…
Continue readingTag: cities
openalex: Railway Opens Tokyo’s Largest Rooftop Farm
JR East railway, one of Tokyo’s largest railway operators, has opened a 535 sq.m. (5758 sq.ft.) rooftop farm on top of the company’s Lumine Ogikubo Building.
Part of a series of buildings linked to the Ogikubo railway and metro station, the garden is…
Continue readingopenalex: Cities Running Huge Risks by Ignoring Climate Change II: UN Habitat Report PDFs
I’ve been amazed at how little attention UN Habitat’s Report on Cities and Climate Change has garnered since its release at the end of March.
The report (which I contributed to) makes some important points, summarized in an earlier entry, both about …
Continue readingopenalex: Bixi Sighting: New Ads Mark Roll Out of 2011 Bikes
Here are some of the first bixis of 2011, notice anything different? New ads, mounted above the wheel and on the baskets, have raised a lot of criticism on Twitter so far.
Most of the docking-stations around town are still empty. But bixis are startin…
Continue readingopenalex: Canada’s Crumbling Intrastructure – The Big Non-Issue of this Election
It’s no secret that Canada is running a massive infrastructure deficit. Four years ago the Canadian Federation of Municipalities pegged the price tag for renewing aging bridges, roadways, transportation and sewage systems at $123 billion.
Writing …
Continue readingopenalex: Bixi Rolling Out for 3rd Season In MTL
If you are in Montreal right now you’ve seen it: the Bixi docking stations are popping up all over the city. Sitting empty they have a strange sci-fi ghost town look. But the bikes are supposed to be back on the streets by April 15th. Ottawa has al…
Continue readingopenalex: America’s Smallest Apartment: Walkable Micro-living in NYC
New York-based writer Felice Cohen lives in an amazingly small apartment — 90 sq.ft. to be exact. Since it was profiled in the Daily Mail, this video of her micro-abode has gone viral. Cohen’s Manhattan apartment isn’t breathtaking in terms of desig…
Continue readingopenalex: Cities Running Huge Risks by Ingoring Climate Change: UN Habitat Report
I’m one of the many contributing authors for this year’s UN Habitat Global Report on Human Settlements, launched in London on Monday (see also BBC). This is the first time that the report, one of the most authoritative sources for analysis on urban iss…
Continue readingopenalex: New Landmark Greenroof for Montreal
Montreal is set to build a new landmark green roof on it’s eccentrically colored convention center. This summer the Palais des Congrès de Montreal – better known for being clad is huge swaths of neon multicolored glass – will be inaugurating a $20…
Continue readingopenalex: Carbon Zero: A Short Tour of Your City’s Future – Kickstarting A New Book
Alex Steffen, the founding editor of the excellent worldchanging.com (who I wrote for during the blog’s seven year run), has announced an interesting new project. His new book-in-the-making “Carbon Zero” is being crowd-funded over at kickstarter. If …
Continue readingopenalex: Cities, Green Development, & Politics: Passing the Buck or Jumpstarting Change?
I’ve been meaning to write about Steve Cohen (director of Columbia Universty’s Earth Institute) Valentine’s Day piece in the Huffington Post since it came out on Monday. It’s an interesting juxtaposition of the savage grilling that Climate and Sustaina…
Continue readingopenalex: The Big Picture Approach to Cities and Climate Change
It was former London Mayor Ken Livingstone who started the ball rolling in 2007 when he announced that “Urban areas are responsible for over 75 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, so the battle to prevent catastrophic climate change will be won or …
Continue readingopenalex: Jane Jacobs in Cowtown
Calgary’s new Mayor Naheed Nenshi seems intent on shaking things up, and the Globe and Mail this weekend has a snapshot on some of the green shifts that he is pushing in the city formerly known as Cowtown. Walkability, denisty, transit oriented devel…
Continue readingopenalex: Canadian Cities Begin to Assess Climate Risks
Writing for The Montreal Gazette this weekend, William Marsden had an excellent front page article on the challenge that Canadian cities face to adapt to climate change. All I can say is that its about time! In the early days, discussions about c…
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