Urban Sprawl and Sustainability in So Cal

KPCC/NPR has just run a 3 part series on sustainability and Los Angeles. In part 1, about smart growth for LA, Abdres Duany, a Miami based urban planner is interviewed:

"Southern California is a laboratory for everything that can go wrong in urban design, says Andres Duany. Also: he likes that. "You can find probably California has pioneered suburban sprawl and every aspect of it," he says. "But at the same time California has all the best examples of things as well. There are wonderful downtowns. Wonderful urban agricultural areas. And I think California is probably a good example of as good as things can get and as bad as things can get."

Part 2 address issues of mega cities, those with over 10 million population (wow! - I don;t think the entire country of Austrailia has that many people) and brings up the point that "people can’t make sustainable homes unless they think about problems across an entire region. But he adds that it’s impossible to improve the environment on a mega-city scale without starting in just one house."

In part 3 of the series, Architect Michael Maltzan, a sustainable architect, is interviewed. There are some neat things happenning in LA including sustainable housing for the homeless. As an EcoBrokerTM, I often write about residential sustainable housing as it relates to your home and maybe to those in your neighborhood. This feature story brings out a good point about your home in relation to the overall urban design:

"Passive heating and cooling, reduced energy consumption, and filtered
indoor air are common in Maltzan's work. But he says that sustainability is
bigger and more complicated than ultra-efficient internal systems and
eco-friendly building materials. For example, architects and urban designers
will have to commit to the efficient use of public space - and the zealous
protection of privacy - to help cities thrive. 'As our lives become more
interconnected I think one of the complexities of the contemporary life is
increasingly that blurry line between public and private and what that
means.' In a city like Los Angeles, Maltzan says, where public plazas are in
short supply, the blurry line is often the street and the sidewalk
themselves."

So, as we head to urbanization throughout the country including Southern California, we do need to think about our little piece of heaven in it's surroundings.

Read more about it at: http://www.scpr.org/news/2009/12/30/sustainable-home-3/

When you think of green cities, do you think of LA?

I attended a great seminar on transitional towns. Laguna Beach is a transition town, along with over 185 other cities in the world. Transition Towns are committed to reduce their reliance on peak oil through grass roots action and volunteerism. The movement is growing by leaps and bounds with no paid staff. Core groups of citizens agree to the guidelines and on their own follow an extensive procedures manual that details what they can do to reduce their dependence on peak oil. ("Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline" according to wikipedia.) You can read all about Transition Towns on: http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/TransitionNetwork

So, I wondered what cities in the US were integrating green principals, and I found a ranking on sustainlane.com. And, was I shocked! LA (28) and NYC (5) front and center. http://www.sustainlane.com/us-city-rankings/

Bet you didn't guess those cities. Oh, yea Portland was of course number 1, followed by San Francisco and Seattle. NYC, my little home town, made it high in the rankings due to their excellent mass transit amongst other things, and LA partly due to the LA River Project. Read more about this at: http://www.lariver.org/