Subject: Sustainability
The brick smokestack towers above Chicago’s mostly Latino Pilsen neighborhood burns coal to provide electricity for much of the city while puffing out plumes that sometimes mix beautifully with the sunset. But the effects of coal, which provides about half…
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The New York Times reports that of the nation’s 30 largest cities, Houston, the fourth largest city behind New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, comes in dead last in recycling, turning over a shameful 2.6 percent of its total waste. The Times cites a study conducted this year by my new favorite news source, Waste News, that puts New York City — roughly four times the size of Houston — at the top of the big city recycling list with a 34 percent rating.
The Times report goes on to say:
But city officials say real progress will be hard to come by. Landfill costs here are cheap. The city’s sprawling, no-zoning layout makes collection expensive, and there is little public support for the kind of effort it takes to sort glass, paper and plastics. And there appears to be even less for placing fees on excess trash.
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The last week of June turned out to be Sustainable Development Week unofficially in Chicago as a convergence of events spread the word on opportunities to be found in Going Green — from submitting a federal grant application, to 500…
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New York City’s attempt to pass a congestion pricing plan like those that have been so successful in London and elsewhere was killed a while back by the New York State Legislature. But some advocates haven’t given up hope. In…
Are our presidential candidates (yes, including vice presidential candidate Clinton) thinking about sustainable initiatives for environmental improvement, city vitality, and sound fiscal order? Or is the sustainability movement still regarded by the mainstream as a pie-in-the-sky set of objectives advanced…
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Remember back in the ’70s, when people used to ask if you believed in ecology? Meaning, of course, do you support saving the earth and the whales and whatever else needs saving. But I would act dumb and say I…
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Should community developers and other low-income community advocates be concerned about preparing for life after peak oil?
We all know that the greed of the banking industry is responsible for much of the pain of the current foreclosure crisis, and especially its effects on poor neighborhoods. But as the recent report from CEOs for Cities, Driven to the Brink, points out, there’s another piece to the puzzle: They argue that rising gas prices “pricked” the housing bubble, particularly in those exurban areas that weren’t particularly the happy hunting grounds of predatory lenders, but yet are experiencing massive foreclosures.
So what?, you may ask. How much do we care if speculators and rich folks who bought McMansions in the latest version of white flight suffer a little foreclosure? Don’t advocates for poor city neighborhoods have more important things to worry about? Maybe we do. more
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With The New York Times reporting an increase in mass-transit ridership as gas prices continue to climb, I’m reminded of my days as a mass-transit commuter, when I got rid of my car so I could ride the rails daily.…
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National Housing Institute
