Inspirational and good news.
Walk Score is a site that helps you find walkable places and to figure out how walkable your area is.
Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc.
They have info on why walking matters and what exactly is walk score.
People ought to live in urban centers to ensure the world develops in a good way according to a new United Nations report. People are already drawn to urban centers for employment, lifestyle, and education so it makes sense for politicians to plan for cities to continue growing. By embracing cities we can prepare for the future and make it a little better.
There are many economic, social, and environmental advantages to concentrating people and the services and jobs they need in close proximity to one another. The higher intensity of economic activity in cities favors jobs and income. In addition to this, proximity and concentration allow for governments to more effectively and inexpensively provide social services, infrastructure, and amenities to their citizens, the report explains.
Personally, I love living in the city because there is so much more awesomeness than in the suburbs and way more to do and experince than in the country, what’s your take on urban-centricism?
Photo by domcisme.
Urban farming is not a new idea, it’s such a great idea that it is often forgotten though. A solution to transporting food and improving urban air quality is literally under our feet, and can soon be over our heads. There is an ever growing need for using buildings in cities as farms and more companies are now behind the idea. Skyscrapers as farms just sounds cool!
Not to mention locally-grown produce for the residents of central London, Manhattan and Tokyo, eliminating the environmental costs of transport (with fresher lettuces to boot).
Skyscraper farms can operate year-round with artificial lighting, so, on average, one indoor acre is the equivalent to between four and six outdoors, and companies are vying to reap the financial rewards that come from this increased efficiency.
Via Tree Hugger
Shortly after returning from the meeting of 16 mayors who are getting support from Clinton et. all to green their cities, Toronto mayor David Miller has announced a hybrid car campaign. Toronto will begin testing plug-in hybrids to test the feasibility of a mass rollout of the cars. The testing phase will start small but get progressively larger over time.
“The key purpose is to determine if plug-in hybrid technology is suitable to Toronto’s climate
and roads,” Miller said in Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square on Saturday, at the launch of the program.There are suggestions that the converted vehicles would be able to feed electricity back into the grid, serving as mobile power stations to homes during a blackout. Or they could be plugged into the electricity grid during periods of peak demand to supply power and prevent blackouts.
When news first broke about all those yellow cabs going green in New York City I was pretty excited. Now they are being rolled out and all the yellow cabs in NYC will have to be green by 2012! They taken a good initiative and made it better.
“There’s an awful lot of taxicabs on the streets of New York City obviously, so it makes a real big difference,” said Bloomberg. “These cars just sit there in traffic sometimes, belching fumes; this does a lot less. It’s a lot better for all of us.”
There are currently eight vehicles on the city’s “approved” list when it comes to hybrid vehicles to be used as yellow cabs: the Ford Escape Hybrid; the Honda Accord Hybrid and Civic Hybrid; the Lexus RX400h; the Saturn Vue Green Line; and the Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Camry Hybrid and Prius. As more manufacturers roll out fuel efficient hybrids, the number of possible candidates is sure to increase. Vehicles like the Saturn Aura Green Line and rumored Ford Fusion hybrid are likely to join the list.