Tag: NYC

New York to Plant One Million Trees

New York City is considered a place of glass and concrete (with a park in the middle) and Mayor Bloomberg is looking to add trees to the mix. On Earth Day, Bloomberg proclaimed that one million trees will be planted in the city by 2017. At first I thought that the trees would go in Central Park and in the surrounding parks in the burroughs, particularly Staten Island; indeed, trees will be placed all over.

Bloomberg, whose second term expires at the end of 2009, has a goal of reducing New York City’s carbon emissions by 30 percent over the next two decades. He has said that the population is likely to grow by another million in that time – up from 8.2 million today – and that the city needs a plan now to deal with the strain on infrastructure and the environment.
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For the next 10 years, the city will plant 23,000 trees each year along city streets, to reach a goal of having a tree in “every single place where it is possible to plant a street tree,” Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff said.

The remaining will be planted in parks and public lots, while the private sector will also be encouraged to plant trees on their properties as well.

Urban Farming NYC Style

In the city of the future will be cows, and grass, and clean air! Urban farming is not a new idea as there are already plenty of community gardens in urban centers. The scale that is being suggested by a professor at Columbia University has not been tried before – farming in skyscrapers.

Imagine a cluster of 30-story towers on Governors Island or in Hudson Yards producing fruit, vegetables, and grains while also generating clean energy and purifying wastewater. Roughly 150 such buildings, Despommier estimates, could feed the entire city of New York for a year. Using current green building systems, a vertical farm could be self-sustaining and even produce a net output of clean water and energy.

Via TreeHugger

Gender Bender in NYC

New York City is moving ahead with a proposed change in the rules of birth certificates. After much campaigning from activists who argue that gender is not merely physical, NYC will soon start letting people change their gender on their birth certificates (NYT link, to bypass registration try bugmenot). Reader mkb also points out this article .

Once it’s approved people will no longer have to have sex-change surgery to proclaim what gender they are.

“If approved, the new rule would put New York at the forefront of efforts to redefine gender. A handful of states do not require surgery for such birth certificate changes, but in some of those cases patients are still not allowed to make the change without showing a physiological shift to the opposite gender.”

Thanks, mkb!

NYC Garbage Cube

A lot of people’s garbage is another man’s, er, art.

An artist in New York City scours the streets looking for dropped metrocards, gum wrappers, coffee cups, etc. until he creates the perfect mixture. He then encases the rubbish in a glass cube that you can purchase NYC garbage over the internet.

Highlights include garbage from the Republican National Convention!

You can also see where NYC garbage has been exported to in cube form on his map.

Good Shirts

biking rocksThe Spacing Wire is a blog that is all about public space. It’s a Toronto-based magazine that has some great coverage on public space in Toronto and around the world. The only comparable public space organization that I’ve found is the Project for Public Spaces in New York.

Anyway, over at the Spacing Wire there is a post on some cute and fun pro-pedestrian and cycling shirts.