Betting billions on wind

Ontario’s power grid is getting a $2.3 billion makeover as part of an ambitious, three-year effort to create 20,000 jobs and bring more green electricity to homes and businesses across the province.

Tory waste-water policy will punish taxpayers: cities

OTTAWA — The Harper government’s plan to clean up waste-water infrastructure could have a “destructive impact” on cities, leading to major property tax hikes and service cuts that could jeopardize Canada’s economic recovery, this country’s municipalities are warning.

Stress and the city, part 2

Not long ago, I posted on what makes some cities more stressful than others. (Seehttp://www.planetizen.com/node/40441 ). In that post, I remarked that the ideal objective indicia of stress (resident surveys on crime, illness, etc.) often do not exist for most cities.

Healthy eating thwarted by pricey food, Canadians say

Canadians say the high cost of food prevents them from making healthier choices, even though they consider obesity to be a serious health threat, a new study says.

“Cost is a significant barrier to healthier lifestyles for those making less than $75,000 a year,” said Jack Bensimon, president of the Toronto advertising agency Bensimon Byrne, which commissioned the study.

How Pittsburgh got its green Once known as a hot, smoggy ‘hell with the lid off,’ it’s breathing a cleaner, new life as it hosts the G20

Can Hamilton become the new Pittsburgh USA Today hails the reviving city’s skyline nestled in a panoramic triangle of rivers and hills as the second most impressive in the United States, behind New York. The Economist magazine of London, England, goes further, recently declaring it “America’s most livable city,” and 29th in the world.

Grand Rapids works hard to boost culture Still, Grand Rapids has nurtured a healthy cultural ecosystem for a city of its size, and local political and business leaders talk constantly about ArtPrize as a potential magnet for the so-called creative class of young professionals coveted by cities on the make.

Build your own Segway: These students did

Beer in the bike lane A Portland, Oregon brewery is using the power of the pedal to get their new bike bar around.

China is leaving the U.S. in the dust as it surges ahead on clean energy

Even as China overtakes the U.S. in the dubious category of “world’s leading greenhouse gas producer,” it is also well ahead of the U.S. in developing the technologies and policies to solve the problem—and selling those solutions to us at massive profits which could have been ours.

Natural Security - 8 American Cities Recognized For Adapting Water Managment To Changing Climate

Communities that invest in a broad suite of green infrastructure approaches like the ones described above will be better prepared to confront an increasingly volatile climate by maximizing the value of healthy ecosystems, providing flexibility to handle an uncertain future, and strengthening local economies. By working with nature rather than against it, cities large and small can thrive in the face of climate change.

For a copy of the full report, go to www.AmericanRivers.org/NaturalSecurity

Squeezing the last bit of oil from Mother Earth As the debate rages over how much longer the flow will last, valuable time is wasted

Plugged-In Age Feeds a Hunger for Electricity With two laptop-loving children and a Jack Russell terrier hemmed in by an electric fence, Peter Troast figured his household used a lot of power. Just how much did not really hit him until the night the family turned off the overhead lights at their home in Maine and began hunting gadgets that glowed in the dark.

Making Suburbia More LivableThe nation’s sprawling suburbs may have been a good place to grow up, but they’re a tough place to grow old. Here’s how towns are beginning to ‘retrofit’ their neighborhoods—and what your community might look like in the future.

Seven Shores Urban Market and Café adopts Living Wage

A “living wage” is the hourly rate a full time employee would need to earn for a full year in order to live above the poverty line. According to a 2003 report put out by Opportunities Waterloo Region “A Living Wage for Waterloo Region”
“Living wage campaigns have been used successfully in cities throughout the United States. Studies have found that implementing a living wage has not caused inflation, hindered economic growth, resulted in job losses, chased away businesses, or hurt company’s profits. In fact, studies indicate that raising the living wage lowers the burden on social services, reduces inequality, exerts pressure to raise low wages just above the minimum wage, increases rates of home ownership, and education. Businesses also benefit from an increase in wages from reduced turn over, and higher worker morale and productivity.”

TRAFFIC CONGESTION, TIME, MONEY & PRODUCTIVITY

This is a must read!

t is an old saying, but true as ever: “Time is money.” A company that can produce quality products in less time than its competitors is likely to be more profitable and productive. An urban area where employees travel less time to get to work is likely to be more productive than one where travel times are longer, all things being equal. Productivity is a principal aim of economic policy. Productivity means greater economic growth, greater job creation and less poverty.

The Social Life of Traffic

Traffic is essentially “an engineering issue,” says author Tom Vanderbilt. “But there’s also a layer of culture.”

That layer of culture determines, to a large extent, how traffic can become a problem. This idea is explored in Vanderbilt’s 2008 bookTraffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), a Planetizen Top Book of the year. He recently expanded on that idea for a discussion about traffic put on byZocalo Public Square in (where better?) Los Angeles. A write-upof the event and video of the discussion with UCLA researcher Eric Morris is also available.

Urban Farming: A Tough Row to Hoe