Green Options

A new report ranks ten leading world cities on their greenhouse gas emissions. It also examines how and why the emissions differ.

As the report says, over 50% of the world’s population lives in urban areas. Leading cities of the world, global cities, are the places where greenhouse gas emissions really need to be cut. The greenest city from the study is Barcelona and the worst is Denver.

Sometimes, some of the greenest solutions come from the simplest of ideas.  Take the cottage community.  What could be simpler than the idea of building houses that are radically smaller in square footage than the national average?  Not everyone wants all that extra space, and many would rather have a smaller home built well than a cheaply made box full of emptiness.

Cottage communities are [...]

In my post of May 6th, “Traditional Neighborhood Development and LEED Go Hand in Hand,” I made the point that smart growth and new urbanism are helping give a ‘boost’ to green building practices. While conducting research for that article, however, I did find several assertions to the contrary.  So, for the sake of playing devil’s advocate, I will here take a look at some of those assertions.