The Ecopolitan

The best green architecture is actually an old building

Green architecture has become a hot new trend in the real estate business, which is great news. Buildings account for a sizable share of greenhouse gas emissions and consume a significant amount of energy.

The city of San Francisco is taking steps to enact the most advanced green building code in the U.S., estimated to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere by 60,000 tons by 2012 while conserving 220,000 megawatts of power and 100 million gallons of drinking water.

Yet a debate is now emerging about what building practices are the most green.
Aaron Peskin, president of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors (city council) points out, "The greenest building that exists today is one that is already built." He wants to make sure the city's new green codes do not foster a wave of teardowns. Demolishing buildings to erect new ones--even green buildings--generates huge volumes of solid waste, creates pollution, and consumes energy and natural resources.

Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, calculates that even a new state-of-the-art green building using 40 percent recycled materials will take 65 years to recover the energy lost in demolishing and replacing an existing building.

"Durability is the most sustainable thing an architect can do," says Philip Bess, professor at the Notre Dame School of Architecture, who played a key role in preserving Boston's Fenway Park baseball stadium.

"Sustainable architecture means buildings that people love," adds his Notre Dame colleague David Mayernik. "They won't be torn down."

© The Green Guide, 2008

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It’s All Happening at the Park

New York is inconceivable without Central Park. Vancouver would never be the same without its famous urban forest, Stanley Park.

And I can't even imagine my home, Minneapolis, lacking the lakeside parks where I skate and ski in the winter, swim and canoe in the summer, bike and walk all year-round-- all right in the middle of the city.

Let's face it: Urban living would be a lot less pleasant and fun without the great, green spaces created by visionary civic leaders in the 19th century.
City parks are an American treasure in the same way as our world-famous national parks.

Thankfully, the vision of creating great parks for the people is being revived in the 21st century. USA Today reports that a new wave of urban parks is now being created, thanks to voters' willingness to approve referendums that fund the purchase of remaining open space in metropolitan areas.

Memphis, Tennessee; Birmingham, Alabama; Atlanta; Staten Island, New York; and Irvine, California, are among the places getting major new parks-- all of which will be larger in size than Manhattan's 843-acre Central Park.

The excitement is about more than just big parks. Detroit has boosted its ailing downtown by turning Campus Martius into the city's new hot spot. Although less than two acres, it attracts throngs of people for concerts, ice skating, gardens, fountains and a café, drawing $500 million of new investment into neighboring blocks.

© The Green Guide, 2008

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Walking South

Everyone knows the Confederacy lost the civil war on the bloody battlefields of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Today the South is losing again, this time on bloody city streets.

Pedestrians often feel they are waging their own civil war to claim the right move about town safely. And they are being inflicted with the most casualties in the states of the old Confederacy, according to statistics from the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership appearing in National Geographic's Glimpse magazine.

The nine cities ranking worst for pedestrian fatalities (based on 2002-2003 figures) were located in the South—indeed the top four were all in Florida.

1. Orlando, Florida
2. Tampa, Florida
3. West Palm Beach, Florida
4. Miami, Florida
5. Memphis, Tennessee
6. Atlanta, Georgia
7. Greensboro, North Carolina
8. Houston, Texas
9. Jacksonville, Florida
10. Phoenix, Arizona

Meanwhile the South claimed only one of ten cities ranked highest for people commuting to work on foot by the 2000 U.S. census, according to Glimpse.

1. Cambridge, Massachusetts (26 percent)
2. Ann Arbor, Michigan (17 percent)
3. Berkeley, California (16 percent)
4. New Haven, Connecticut (14 percent)
5. Columbia, South Carolina (14 percent)
6. Provo, Utah (13 percent)
7. Boston, Massachusetts (13 percent)
8. Providence, Rhode Island (13 percent)
9. Washington, D.C. (12 percent)
10. Madison, Wisconsin (11 percent)

Many cities in the South grew fast during the 1970s, '80s and '90s—a time when most urban planners dismissed walking as an outdated relic of the past. Subdivisions were built with no thought of sidewalks, and vehicle traffic was routed onto wide, high-speed roads, which are very perilous to cross on foot or bicycle. Even when sidewalks were included, oftentimes there were no trees or nearby buildings to offer shade, which left pedestrians baking in the sun. Hot weather, it seems, may be more deterrent to walking than ice and snow.

The New Urbanist architectural movement sprang up in reaction to this kind of short-sighted suburban development, and it's no surprise that its first major triumph was in Florida—a new town called Seaside designed by Miami architects Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, who drew inspiration from classic walkable Southern towns like Key West and Charleston. Seaside was immediately successful and showed real estate developers across the country how important it is to make accommodations for pedestrians in new communities.

The South remains a leader in New Urbanist development, offering hope that communities across region are on the road to becoming safer, more pleasurable places to walk—which will go a long way towards making them more environmentally friendly.

© The Green Guide, 2008

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