Archive for June, 2013

Tweet Great parks add to the heart and soul of a city. Think of Central Park in New York, Forest Park in Portland, and Balboa Park in San Diego. There are few cities that need an infusion of heart and soul more than Phoenix. And so the recent selection of a design team for the revitalization of Margaret Hance Park bears with it a great hope that the park can become a big part of the heart and soul of Phoenix. The City of Phoenix just hired a design team that will take the park from being a green space…

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Tweet The history of Hawthorne Boulevard is a microcosm of the history of the entire city of Portland. It reflects the city’s early beginnings in agriculture, its economic booms and busts, it’s housing expansion, and it’s movement from horse and buggies to streetcars to buses to personal cars. This Thursday, June 20, 2013, I will be leading a Pedalpalooza bike ride about the Urban Architecture of Hawthorne Boulevard, focusing on a 100 years of history from 1850 to 1950. We’ll be meeting at Albina Press on 5012 SE Hawthorne Blvd. at 2:00pm, we’ll roll at 2:30pm…Click here or here for more…

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Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer Jennifer Gunther: Members of the City of Phoenix Planning and Development Department informally met with local developers in the AE England Building in downtown Phoenix Tuesday afternoon to get a feel for what those on the other side of city code think about current regulations and procedures. Cynthia Stotler, the assistant director of the department, opened the floor of the historic building’s spacious event room to the audience for a “listening session.” She said that in response to growing demand for a more livable urban environment in Phoenix, the City wants to ask…

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Tweet The World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR) may be old news to many Portlanders by now, as this year marks the 9th annual bike ride, but it was a first for me. It was an experience of a life time and one I’ll never forget. I love that while there are WNBRs hosted all over the world, Portland hosts the biggest. Last year, there were 10,000 people on the ride, and I imagine that this year was even bigger. People reported that they were still spotting riders at the starting point when they were almost to the end of the route. My…

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Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer James Gardner: In 2011, the City of Flagstaff, a university town, home to about 50,000 permanent residents and 15,000 students, launched its official sustainability initiative, the Municipal Sustainability Plan (MSP), taking a public step in the direction toward sustainability as a city. There were many initiatives within their departments prior to 2011, but its first Municipal Sustainability Plan was published in 2011, marking a clear intent to operate sustainably, and distance itself from some nearby cities and towns, who have shunned the idea of sustainability.  The City’s MSP focuses primarily on the operations…

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June 05, 2013

How to Vacation with a Low Carbon Footprint

by: Lucky Sharma

Tweet It was February 4, 2013 and Memorial Day Weekend was coming soon (just four months out). The age old question haunted me – where should I visit next? Planning for the three-day weekend started a little over four months out because I did not want to pay tons of money in airfares and hotels. I thought, “Why plan a vacation that will not only be expensive but will also generate a high carbon footprint?” So I started thinking about what plan would work for me and also be good for the planet. This question has never had many good…

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