News
Sustainability, Livability, Planning
November 22, 2010
| No, those aren't the forces that combine to summon Captain Planet. They're the tenets HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros thinks we need to help functionally build and anticipate 171 billion SF of new structures by 2050. Now, with our powers combined, keep reading. | |
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| Henry was the keynote in the Residential Summit at GreenBuild at McCormick Place on Thursday, where he said that for the first time,more than 60% of Americans live in urban areas, creating a much higher need for infrastructure and public transportation. The key to sustaining the American city's growth will be planning mixed-income, vertical structures near public transportation so people can walk or ride everywhere and want to live there, Henry says. Such practices are already common in Asian and European countries, and have helped Portland, Ore. save 80% on roadway costs. | |
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| Former USGBC president Rick Fedrizzi says affordable housing has been doing its part in going green. More than 50% of the affordable housing built last year was LEED certified. USGBC teamed up with the Home Depot Foundation to reward some of the greenest new housing available in the US, including the Casa Feliz, a LEED Gold refurbished sorority house now serving as lofts for the developmentally disabled in San Jose, and the Lopez Community Care Trust, a co-op in Lopez Island, Wash., built entirely by the people who live in it (before they moved in....we think). |
