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NAC Daily Report

http://americancity.org/daily/

Category Covered: Green Living

Posts per week: 3

Recent Articles

Planners, Meet Science

 

Published 18 hours ago by Akua Nyame-Mensah at NAC Daily Report

A couple of weeks ago I registered for the 2009 World Town Planning Day Online Conference, with the theme “resilience in a changing climate.” Through the conference I had the opportunity to learn how both developed and developing ...

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What’s the Best Print Publication in Philly?

 

Published 43 hours ago by Diana Lind at NAC Daily Report

2009 was the year of the Old Media implosion. It was the year when Clay Shirky said we were living through a revolution we didn’t understand. It was the year the Rocky Mountain News died. It was the year Facebook had as many users as ...

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The Smart Growth Manual: An Interview with Mike Lydon

 

Published 2 days ago by Julia Ramey at NAC Daily Report

Mike Lydon, co-author of the new Smart Growth Manual , is a member of the Next American Vanguard , a group of 34 young advocates, planners and policymakers representing America’s next generation of urban leaders. He formerly worked at the ...

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Eminent Domain: Can We Define Blighted?

 

Published 3 days ago by Diana Lind at NAC Daily Report

It was big news when Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company that “set off a landmark eminent domain battle,” announced that it was leaving New London and taking 1,400 jobs with it . It called for a look back at that Supreme Court case, Kelo ...

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Mobility: A Basic Human Right

 

Published 8 days ago by Justin Glick at NAC Daily Report

The third in a three-part series on the new report on pedestrian safety from Transportation from America, “ Dangerous by Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Deaths (and Making Great Neighborhoods) .” I’d like ...

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Carbon-Neutral Cities: Fantasy? Or Seattle…

 

Published 10 days ago by Diana Lind at NAC Daily Report

If you were looking for a motto or a moral imperative to live by here you go: Building bright green cities: that’s the great moral and political challenge of our day.  So says Alex Steffen, editor and CEO of Worldchanging.com . He goes on ...

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Introducing: City Pages!

 

Published 13 days ago by Julia Ramey at NAC Daily Report

In the coming weeks, Next American City’s website will load up dedicated city pages for urban areas around the country, where you can find daily reports, commentary, multimedia and local advocacy links for your hometown. Today, check out a  ...

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Dangerous by Design

 

Published 15 days ago by Justin Glick at NAC Daily Report

I’ve been working my way through Transportation for America’s new report, “Dangerous by Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Deaths (and Making Great Neighborhoods)”, and it’s just packed with ...

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More Cities Go Smoke-Free

 

Published 21 days ago by Akua Nyame-Mensah at NAC Daily Report

According to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation (ANRF), Indianapolis is one of the nineteen most populated cities in the United States that has not enacted a smoking ban that covers all restaurants and bars. This fact may change as ...

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Paris, City of (Stolen) Bikes

 

Published 22 days ago by Kevin McMahon at NAC Daily Report

Last week, Steven Erlanger of the New York Times reported on the dire state of the popular Vélib bike-sharing program in Paris. Of the initial 20,600 rental bikes provided for Parisians, he writes, 80 percent have either been stolen or ...

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Coming Thursday: URBANEXUS Baltimore!

 

Published 23 days ago by Next American City at NAC Daily Report

This Thursday, Join Next American City as we present URBANEXUS Baltimore with our co-host, Urbanite Magazine. Baltimore, home to John Hopkins and University of Maryland, has long been regarded as a hub for world-class medical research. But many ...

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An Old-Fashioned Name and a Brand-New Concept

 

Published 24 days ago by Julia Ramey at NAC Daily Report

In today’s New York Times , David Carr reports on some news about the local news business, which is notoriously struggling. Late last month, the Texas Tribune launched as an online-only news outlet covering Texas politics, education, ...

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The Weekly Buzz

 

Published 28 days ago by Julia Ramey at NAC Daily Report

ATLANTA, GEORGIA Forbes magazine names Georgia’s capital and largest city the “most toxic” in the U.S.—ahead of Detroit, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia. The magazine created the list using information from the U.S. ...

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The Status of Biking in the City of Brotherly Love: An Interview

 

Published 30 days ago by Akua Nyame-Mensah at NAC Daily Report

In April 2009 Mayor Nutter with the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability officially announced the Greenworks Philadelphia Plan that was meant to make Philadelphia the “greenest city in the United States of America by 2015.”  The ...

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A New Vision for Vacant Land in Cleveland

 

Published 10/30/2009 by Marc Lefkovitz at NAC Daily Report

Cleveland took a huge step this month in solidifying sustainability as a major organizing force for change. First, Mayor Jackson promoted sustainability program director Andrew Watterson to a cabinet-level position. Second, vacant land took on new ...

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The I-95 Series and What it Means to Cities

 

Published 10/29/2009 by Diana Lind at NAC Daily Report

There’s some serious Phillies pride in the city. Everywhere you go, there’s people wearing their red jerseys. Store windows have posters of Phillies’ encouragement. Even construction sites have some kind of Phillies-related ...

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Can Smart Growth Be Codified? Miami Thinks So

 

Published 10/28/2009 by Mike Lydon at NAC Daily Report

While everyone from the Sierra Club to the National Association of Realtors believe compact, mixed-use, walkable development is an antidote to suburban sprawl, “smart growth” doesn’t just happen by itself. Indeed it can’t ...

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Who Are the Brave Urban Thinkers?

 

Published 10/27/2009 by Diana Lind at NAC Daily Report

I’ll be honest: I hate lists that include superlatives.  Think of anything on Forbes.com, or the Wall Street Journal’s recent tally of the best cities for young people, or Travel + Leisure’s sexiest Caribbean sunsets. I know ...

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How to Solve Homelessness? Try Providing Housing

 

Published 10/26/2009 by Akua Nyame-Mensah at NAC Daily Report

As the amount of housing foreclosures has jumped, the number of individuals who have found them themselves without appropriate, permanent shelter has increased. In addition to the Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) The U.S Department of Housing ...

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It’s Definitely Not a Yellowbook Moment

 

Published 10/22/2009 by Kevin McMahon at NAC Daily Report

While walking to work one morning last summer in Philadelphia, I spotted piles of freshly printed phonebooks sitting outside houses and apartment buildings across the city. Yellowbook had apparently just published a new version of their directory. I ...

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New Bill Introduce for Ohio Land Bank

 

Published 10/21/2009 by Diana Lind at NAC Daily Report

We are shipping the magazine out this week, and our deputy editor is on her honeymoon, so it’s a little difficult to produce original content. Meanwhile, I got the following in the mail from Smart Growth America ‘s Restoring Prosperity ...

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I Will Stay If…

 

Published 10/20/2009 by Diana Lind at NAC Daily Report

What would make me stay in Philadelphia? Better transportation, less litter, non-state-owned wine stores, no wage tax. What would make you stay in your city? Check out Great Lakes Urban Exchange’s campaign to keep people in the cities ...

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What Makes a Great Place?

 

Published 10/16/2009 by Kevin McMahon at NAC Daily Report

As part of their Great Places in America program , the American Planning Association recently released their choices for the best American streets, neighborhoods and public spaces of 2009. They’re not necessarily new, and may not even be the ...

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Turf Wars: Prostitutes and NIMBYs in Philadelphia

 

Published 10/14/2009 by Diana Lind at NAC Daily Report

Last night I ran for a seat on the Washington Square West Civic Association ‘s board and got a three-year term. I’m really excited to use the board as a way to get more involved in my community, and particularly to engage the young ...

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More than Hand-Wringing, but Not Quite a Cure-All

 

Published 10/13/2009 by Lee Shaker at NAC Daily Report

The first things that come to mind when you think of the “environment” are often global warming, recycling, or some kind of pollution. Maybe it has something to do with sound of honking taxis outside, but generally there’s some sort ...

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Walk21 Recap

 

Published 10/12/2009 by Jori Lewis at NAC Daily Report

This week I was at a conference, and when the elevators were too slow, masses of conference participants just took the stairs…to the 10th floor. This was, after all, a conference that convened planners to talk about walking and pedestrian life. ...

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Recap: Open Cities Conference

 

Published 10/8/2009 by Julia Ramey at NAC Daily Report

Open Cities: New Media’s Role in Shaping Urban Policy was a two-day conference, produced by Next American City and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, that united new media and urban policy’s top thinkers and practitioners. Through a ...

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Today: Live Blog from the Open Cities Conference!

 

Published 10/6/2009 by Julia Ramey at NAC Daily Report

Open Cities: New Media’s Role in Shaping Urban Policy is a two-day conference, produced by Next American City and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, that will unite new media and urban policy’s top thinkers and practitioners. Through a ...

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Change is Tasty

 

Published 10/5/2009 by Hamida Kinge at NAC Daily Report

How a propos for Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” to be playing from the lobby speakers at the glossy Times Center during registration for The Feast conference last Thursday. It’s a song that epitomizes a make-it-happen ...

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A Big Corporate… Savior?

 

Published 10/2/2009 by Kevin McMahon at NAC Daily Report

Campbell Soup Company , that reliable fixture of the American food industry, is known more for its chicken noodle soup and classic red and white labels than they are for urban redevelopment. But over the next several years, the company plans to take ...

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Farming for Apartment-Dwellers

 

Published 10/1/2009 by Jori Lewis at NAC Daily Report

Artists Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray want to take urban agriculture to a whole new level with their window farm project Window Farms . The idea? Grow your vegetables in vertical farms in your windows. Once they developed a prototype for ...

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Street Solutions

 

Published 9/30/2009 by Kevin McMahon at NAC Daily Report

In May the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) released its comprehensive new Street Design Manual , an unprecedented resource for planners, urban designers, developers, and community groups. The result of a long, combined effort by ...

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Review: Brick City

 

Published 9/28/2009 by Jori Lewis at NAC Daily Report

I’m sick of Cory Booker. The charismatic Newark mayor has been a media darling since he made a first run for that office in 2002. Between this and this and even in this magazine , he has been profiled and interviewed and talked about so ...

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The Weekly Buzz

 

Published 9/25/2009 by Akua Nyame-Mensah at NAC Daily Report

PITTSBURGH The G-20 Summit is currently taking place in Pittsburgh. Leaders from around the world and President Obama are meeting to discuss global financial and banking issues. Pittsburgh is hoping to shed its image as a dingy Rust Belt city and ...

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G-20: A Report from Pittsburgh

 

Published 9/24/2009 by Matt Stroud at NAC Daily Report

It’s typical journalistic discussion (what’s worth editing? What’s worth keeping?), but this week, as the City of Pittsburgh—and local police—attempt to toe that apparently delicate line between “keeping the ...

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Sticking It to the Car

 

Published 9/23/2009 by Akua Nyame-Mensah at NAC Daily Report

Ever wonder what Philadelphia would look like if there were more park and recreational space? Last Friday, (September 18) you could. Ordinary city dwellers, design firms, community organizations and others took over metered parking spaces and turned ...

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Lessons for Detroit from Torino

 

Published 9/22/2009 by Sharon Carney at NAC Daily Report

Last week, the German Marshall Fund hosted two workshops in the Great Lakes region, one in Cleveland and one in Detroit. Both welcomed both American civic leaders from the region and civic leaders from older industrial cities in Europe to discuss ...

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The Top 100 Urban Thinkers

 

Published 9/21/2009 by Julia Ramey at NAC Daily Report

Last week, Planetizen released the results of a massive poll that sought to identify and rank the 100 top urban thinkers. The results of the survey, which invited submissions for one month over the summer, cross millenniums and disciplines, and ...

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The Weekly Buzz

 

Published 9/18/2009 by Julia Ramey at NAC Daily Report

SACRAMENTO An informal homeless camp in downtown Sacramento goes to the Sacramento County Superior Court after an elderly man who lives next to the “Safe Ground” camp asks for a restraining order that would kick people off the land, ...

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A Dispatch from Ghana

 

Published 9/17/2009 by Akua Nyame-Mensah at NAC Daily Report

Jamestown is one of the oldest and culturally rich districts of Accra. Originally settled by the Ga, an ethnic group from southern Ghana, Jamestown became a British colonial port because of its coastal location. After achieving independence the ...

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Songs of Cities

 

Published 9/15/2009 by Next American City at NAC Daily Report

Playlist Notes: Most of the songs that were played at the 2008 and 2009 Songs of Cities party, presented by Next American City, can be downloaded from iTunes here . To see more of Issue 24, click here . SONGS OF CITIES – 2009  ...

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A New Kind of Town Hall in Chattanooga

 

Published 9/14/2009 by Josh McManus at NAC Daily Report

Josh McManus is the Founder and Creative Director of Createhere.org . He is also a member of NAC’s Next American Vanguard . As public discourse around the country becomes increasingly shrill, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, productive ...

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The Weekly Buzz

 

Published 9/11/2009 by Julia Ramey at NAC Daily Report

NEW YORK Jerry I. and Rob Speyer and their partner, BlackRock Realty, announced that they’re close to running out of money to pay for their $5.4 billion acquisition of the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartment buildings in ...

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Summer Recap: Take That, Forbes

 

Published 9/10/2009 by Mara D'Angelo at NAC Daily Report

Forbes magazine is infamous among urbanists for a string of statistics-based, list-style articles highlighting a variety of American cities’ trends toward failure. Past features have included “ America’s Most Stressful Cities ...

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Issue 24: Bloomberg, Uninterrupted

 

Published 9/8/2009 by Next American City at NAC Daily Report

You can see the full article text here .

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Deindustrialization is Not Progress

 

Published 9/8/2009 by Josh Leon at NAC Daily Report

If you happen to be employed in an industrial sector, stop reading and go figure out how to join the creative class. If you live in a city that is disproportionately dependent on industrial sectors, take a U-Haul to a more creative city, valley or ...

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Does Berlin Disprove Broken Windows?

 

Published 9/2/2009 by Ben Adler at NAC Daily Report

As I mentioned in my feature on crime in Washington, D.C., the “Broken Windows” theory – that signs of social disorder foster a sense of lawlessness and lead to crimes, even violent crimes – has become widely accepted by ...

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Miami 21: The Drama Continues

 

Published 8/31/2009 by Mike Lydon at NAC Daily Report

Mike Lydon is the founding Principal of the Street Plans Collaborative. Heralded as a zoning code for the 21st century, Miami 21 has earned the attention of American city planners, livable city advocates, and urban policy wonks for the ...

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City in Extremis

 

Published 8/31/2009 by Tracy Metz at NAC Daily Report

It’s there. You know it’s there because images of it are etched indelibly in your mind, but you don’t see it. New Orleans has long hidden away its water like a dirty little secret – until it returned with a vengeance, four ...

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Katrina: Four Years and One Inauguration Later

 

Published 8/28/2009 by Ariella Cohen at NAC Daily Report

By Ariella Cohen and Brentin Mock All photos by Karen Gadbois There are many differences between George Bush and Barack Obama, but they do share one thing in common: While the Gulf Coast reeled in need of recovery, both presidents were on ...

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