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Urban Ecology: Promoting Life in the Concrete Jungle

In the growing field of urban ecology, scientists study cities as if they were ecosystems. With cities launching efforts to slash carbon emissions, reduce water use and improve habitats, scientists are...

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US EPA: 2012 Awards for Smart Growth Sustainability-Minded Projects

The U.S. EPA recognized seven communities with its 2012 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement. Specific initiatives include improving transportation choices, developing green, energy-efficient...

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China’s Urbanizing Utopia: Ghost Cities and Propaganda Theme Parks

China has been building ghost towns for years, and like a never-ending vaudeville show, the bizarre overbuilding never stops. Here are four of recent eyebrow-raising developments.

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Affordable and Green: Net-Zero House in Washington DC

EMPOWERHOUSE is a community-based approach to sustainable urban development showcasing the design of two affordable, energy-efficient solar powered homes and a neighborhood learning garden for...

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BioMilano: Italian Eco-Vision Grows 26-Storey Vertical Forest

Now under construction is the Bosco Verticale or Vertical Forest, the first phase of BioMilano, a re-envisioning of Milan, Italy, with an eye toward ecological urbanism, integrating tree and...

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Los Angeles River Revitalization: A City Rediscovers its Flow

The LA River, an over-engineered concrete "water-freeway," is undergoing a long-term greening and revitalization. A 32-mile greenbelt, developed through numerous projects, promises to improve the...

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Orange County Toll Road to Nowhere Denied Permits

Orange County's Toll Road Agency is pushing the first segment of a previously rejected road extension that will have significant and irreversible environmental and economic impacts. According to the...

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Austria: Energy-Efficient Office Tower Rises Over the Danube

Tall buildings tend to use massive amounts of energy with big carbon footprints. One new Viennese project featured in Passive House Plus shows that high rise doesn’t have to mean high environmental...

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Detroit Future: Landscape Urbanism, Antidote to Industrial Blight

For the last 40 years, Detroiters have fled the once-majestic downtown core for the bucolic image of sprawling suburbia. Now an urban revival in the name of "Detroit Future City," complete with...

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LA River: An Urban Ecosystem Makeover in Transition

After seven years of study, federal officials have recommended a $453-million plan that would restore an 11-mile stretch of the Los Angeles River but leave much of its banks steep and hard to reach....

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Songdo, South Korea: Utopian City of Big Data and Urban “Sustainability”

The idea of the "utopian" community began in 1516 with Sir Thomas More's fictional perfected society to present-day attempts to build the most sustainable urban ecosystem. With the case of Songdo...

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Copehangen’s Sustainability Vision: Carbon Neutral, Climate-Adapted

Global warming poses a real threat to cities but planners in the Danish capital are taking visionary steps to ensure its resilience – and success – as far ahead as 2100. The city approved a plan for...

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Sprawl vs. Open Space: “Rio Santiago” Again Threatens Orange

Jack Eidt writes on the dangers of proposing mixed use development far from urban amenities and alternative transportation. The real estate industry in Orange County, California and beyond, has...

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Greening Detroit: Positive Change Moves Slow and Fast

On one hand, Detroit turns the water off for communities challenged by its legacy of disinvestment and neglect. Yet, with urban farming, electric streetcars, neighborhood reinvention, Mayor Mike...

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Green Urbanism: Balancing Environmental Justice with Gentrification

Is it possible for urban planners to make places more attractive and healthy, without then making them more expensive? Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow investigates recent research into the ongoing debate about...

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Sustainable Vertical Urbanism: The Future of Cities?

"Vertical City," a complete ecosystem in the sky that you never have to leave, accommodates population growth and protects the planet, but may have significant drawbacks for the people who call it home...

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Laguna Beach “Ranch” Hotel Renovation Violates Coastal Rules

The California Coastal Commission failed to enforce the Coastal Act and did not require a Laguna hotel renovation to address destruction of affordable rooms and environmental habitat as well as finish...

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Starchitects and Spectacle: Sustainability Solutions Needed

Architecture must move on from an addiction to spectacle and fad, adrift in a sea of meaningless forms, leaving serious design and sustainability problems unresolved, says Peter Buchanan. But to do...

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L.A. River Must Transform as Watershed, Transportation Corridor

Takeaways from a recent Green Festival Expo discussion on the Los Angeles River Revitalization include that the job of planning for water resiliency belongs to all of us, not Frank Gehry regardless of...

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Power, Influence, and Obfuscation: A Plan to Game the California Coastal Act

Why did Coastal Commissioners dump popular Executive Director Charles Lester in a closed session at their February meeting in Morro Bay? It is part of a plan by well connected lobbyists and lawyers...

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