Visit the Archives Section to hear the past year's Speaker Series presentations.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
From Grey Street to Green Street
Event Theme/Description: The tiny, working class town of Edmonston, Maryland, has achieved an outsized accomplishment by building the greenest street on the east coast. From top to bottom, the street incorporates cutting edge sustainable practices, most notably virtually 100 percent stormwater capture, keeping pollutants out of the Anacostia River. "If our little town can build a green street, anyplace can and everyplace should" says Mayor Adam Ortiz, who will discuss the project in detail and will share plans to encourage replication in other communities.
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Listen
Listen to the Presentation | 55:27 min
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 Download the accompanying PowerPoint Presentation |
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Urban Green--Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities
Event Theme/Description: For many years urban parks across the U.S. sank into decay and disuse. However, as cities have begun to rebound — and as evidence of the economic, cultural, and health benefits of parks continues to grow — investment in these valuable facilities has swelled. But many of the best examples do not fit the conventional park model. They are being built in surprising places, like rooftops, old railyards, highway decks, covered reservoirs and widened stream valleys. And by serving duty as everything from community gardens to schoolyard parks to cemeteries-for-the-living to recreational retention ponds, the urban parks movement is transforming cities for residents, families, commuters and visitors alike.
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Listen
Listen to the Presentation | 61:28 min
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Download the accompanying PowerPoint Presentation |
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Climate Change and the Developing World--World Bank's World Development Report 2010
Event Theme/Description: Communities everywhere struggle to identify appropriate and cost-effective means to mitigate and plan for climate change. This challenge is even more daunting in communities throughout the developing world, where pressing goals for economic and social development are complicated by the reality of climate change. Total emissions from developing nations have now overtaken those of the rich world. Yet developing countries remain most vulnerable to drought, extreme weather events, and sea level rise – all likely outcomes of climate change. Understanding what climate change means for development policy, and how climate policy can integrate development concerns, are the central aims of the World Development Report 2010.
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Listen to the Presentation | 54:06 min
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Download the accompanying PowerPoint Presentation |
Monday, April 05, 2010
Analyzing the Data: Smart Growth Performance in a Challenging Market
Event Theme/Description: This month's speaker continues the discussion that began with last month's speaker, exploring how smart growth performs in the real world. Moving away from the experience of just one state, this month's talk will ask and answer the questions: are smart growth projects competitive against more traditional forms of development -- especially in this challenging market?
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Listen
Listen to the Presentation | 59:56 min
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Download the accompanying PowerPoint Presentation |
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Maryland's Smart Growth Experience: Assessing the Impact
Event Theme/Description: Gerrit Knaap, director of The University of Maryland's National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, describes the challenge of making Maryland's innovative smart growth policy a state-wide reality. Mr. Knaap offers insights into why the state's Priority Funding Areas, aimed to concentrate state investment in existing neighborhoods, did not deliver the results that state planners and smart growth advocates had hoped for. He also describes how other states or localities can learn from the Maryland experience and where Maryland goes from here to realize the promise of statewide smart growth. 1.0 LU (AIA) / 1.0 CM (AICP)
Listen
Listen to the Presentation | 58:02 min
Monday, January 25, 2010
Smart Growth Speaker Series: The Business Side of Smart Growth--Local Assets, Local Approaches
Event Theme/Description: Smart growth and sustainable communities are most successful when they respond to the needs of their residents. Small businesses are frequently nimble and creative responders to those needs. They are often the first indicators of changing market tastes, and can lead the way towards more green, sustainable market options. Their entry into a redeveloping community can signal new private investment, and catalyze greater and continued development. In many cases, they become fixtures of community that both attract residents and businesses, and help to identify and galvanize community character.
Dale Roberts, owner of The Java Shack coffeehouse in Arlington, VA, discusses the role of small businesses like his in creating successful, vibrant communities which cater to and support a range of transportation alternatives.
Listen
Listen to the Presentation | 54:16 min
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
2009 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement
Event Theme/Description: Presented by EPA, this event will recognized communities using principles of smart growth to create better places. The ceremony included a panel discussion with experts from each community.
Listen
Listen to the Presentation | 1hr48min
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Smart Growth Speaker Series: Greening the Ghetto, and How Much It Won't Cost Us
Event Theme/Description:
After decades of increasing and unprecedented philanthropic giving in the U.S., public health, income disparities, educational outcomes, and incarceration and recidivism are all getting worse. Decisions about growth and development -- rather than addressing these issues -- often exacerbate these problems. As a result, communities are left with the high costs associated with helping people overcome generational poverty, recover from traumatic combat and/or prison experiences, and generally attain a better quality of life.
Majora Carter, founder of Sustainable South Bronx, will speak from her experience revitalizing the Hunts Point area to explain how "horticultural infrastructure" is not only a key component of successful and efficient stormwater runoff management -- it can also simultaneously address the issues associated with healing the people mentioned above. Ms. Carter will describe how the manner in which we distribute jobs in horticultural engineering -- and to whom -- can have multiple social, economic and environmental benefits if done with intelligence and care.
Majora Carter is a MacArthur "Genius" Fellow, host of Eco-Heroes on Sundance Channel and The Promised Land on NPR. She was awarded the National Building Museum's "Visionaries in Sustainability" award in June 2009, and is currently President of her own economic development consulting group.
Listen
Listen to the Presentation | 58:42 min
The Smart Growth Speaker
Series hosts speakers on a monthly basis to describe this
development paradigm, explore specific approaches, to
foster dialog, and identify opportunities for positive change
in growth and development patterns. Event sponsors are the
Smart Growth Network, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
and the National Building Museum. The series, which is free
to the public, is held at the National Building Museum, 401
F Street N.W, Washington D.C. (Judiciary Square Metro).
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