The Atlantic Cities: How an Industrial City Reinvented Itself as a Sustainability Hub
By Kaid Benfield Published: December 17 The city of Nantes, the fifth largest in France, sits on the estuary where the storied River Loire begins to meet the Atlantic Ocean on that country’s northwestern coast. It is a place of rich history dating back at least as far as the second century, and subsequently including the Dukes of Brittany in the late middle ages and, in the 18th century, the famed novelist and futurist Jules Verne. Economically Nantes was long a port and shipbuilding center of considerable...
read moreBoston.com: Boston and Lisbon: Putting the waterfront at the forefront
By Joseph Albanese and Joseph Bachour Published: October 9, 2012 The World Class Cities Partnership, an international research collaborative of municipal governments and universities headquartered at Northeastern University, is currently leading a delegation of Greater Boston’s business, civic, academic and non-profit leaders on its annual Policy Exchange Mission to explore the Azores and Lisbon, Portugal. Portuguese officials are sharing their expertise in waterfront redevelopment, the innovation economy and an entrepreneurial...
read moreFast Company Co.Exist: The Top 10 Smartest Cities In North America
By Boyd Cohen Published: December 4, 2012 Some cities are adding high-tech infrastructure. Some are implementing revolutionary sustainability plans. Others are fostering innovative business and science developments. But which city combines these qualities and others to be the smartest city? A few weeks ago, Co.Exist published a ranking of European smart cities (A global smart city ranking was published earlier this year). Now we are publishing the top 10 cities in North America. The rankings are based on a device I developed...
read moreThe Atlantic Cities: The Ongoing Evolution of Post-Recession Dublin
By Richard Conway Published: November 28, 2012 Not so long ago, Dublin was the poster child of Europe, a fringe city that underwent a spectacular transformation from the capital of a country The Economist once dubbed “the poorest of the rich,” to the center of Ireland’s booming Celtic Tiger economy. The city’s success was often attributed to a swelling property bubble, a low corporate tax rate, inward tech investment, and a highly educated population. But if this was Dublin at the top of its game, it...
read moreSmartPlanet: Vancouver paves its roads with recycled plastic
By Tyler Falk Published November 28, 2012 In Vancouver, the road to a greener city is paved with plastic. The city is now using recycled plastic in its road paving process. The new process not only reuses plastic items like milk jugs or shampoo containers, it also uses less fuel, The Vancouver Sun explains: The city has worked with GreenMantra of Toronto to develop the granular, waxlike material that’s added to asphalt. The material allows the asphalt to flow smoothly at a much lower temperature, which saves on the cost of...
read moreThe Atlantic Cities: This Could Be the Key to Making Downtowns Greener
By Kaid Benfield Published November 27, 2012 Just yesterday, I was making the case for bringing more nature into urban environments, to soften the perceived and real effects of density and thus make density more appealing. Today, I came across maybe the best example I have seen. It is certainly the key in downtown districts, where green space on the ground can be hard to come by. The project has just been installed at the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments and, with...
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