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October 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.
September 2009
Smart Growth Speaker Series: Beyond Zipcar -- Using Technology to Share Time, Space, and Information
Event Theme/Description: Not enough money, space, innovation? The answer is sharing.
Most of America has lived in a world of abundance, and we have built and spent and aspired to a particular embodiment of these values -- with dramatic environmental consequences as a result. Climate change, burgeoning world populations, increasing urbanization, and tightening wallets (personal, corporate, government) all point the way to a necessary new era of constraint.
Robin Chase, founder and former CEO of Zipcar (car-sharing) and GoLoco (ride-sharing), and recently named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People, will offer up a different perspective. A fresh look at sharing -- of time, of space, of assets, of information -- can deliver us a future that is not just palatable but exciting.
July 2009
Smart Growth Speaker Series: Retrofitting the Suburbs: A New Urbanist Perspective
Event Theme/Description: Smart growth, new urbanism and green building have aligned a set of principles for change in the built environment. These address solutions for the evolving problems of energy resource depletion, climate change, and metropolitan growth. In contrast, much of the public discourse on these topics, including with regard to federal policy, focuses on technological solutions for alternative sources of energy and emissions reductions. Little attention is being given to fostering behavioral change for energy need or use, in particular with regard to the effect of land use patterns generating vehicular dependence and emissions. Changing technology appears to be easier than changing the already built environment.
Nevertheless, there are encouraging advancements in recent urban projects that provide hope for building reform as an energy conservation strategy. To illustrate how the regulatory framework can induce private investment to make the land use changes needed to encourage reduction of vehicular dependence, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture and partner in Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., will present a series of examples of design and policy that are succeeding in retrofitting suburban sites to make walkable, transit-oriented urban centers.
The Smart Growth Speaker
Series hosts speakers on a monthly basis to describe this
new 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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To get regular announcements about the smart
growth speaker series and other updates from the Smart Growth
Network, please fax or e-mail your name, organization, address,
phone, fax, and e-mail address to the U.S. EPA's Development,
Community and Environment Division (DCED) at fax (202) 566-2868,
e-mail:
.
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