Planning Pool

Hundreds of Edmontonians came out to City Hall last Monday to support the second reading of the new draft growth plan, The Way We Grow. Thanks to Mastermaq on flickr for the wonderful Creative Commons photo!

Thanks largely to a local alliance of citizen advocates, the City of Edmonton, Canada, is moving forward with a draft Growth Plan that gets serious about food security. The Greater Edmonton Alliance, composed mostly of churches and unions, has played a key role in shaping the draft plan, entitled The Way We Grow. (A giant PDF file lurks behind the link, but is definitely worth a read.)

Edmonton is located at the northern edge of North America’s wheat belt and is surrounded by a wealth of productive farmland, especially … Continue Reading

The New York Times ran an article this week highlighting the “controversy” over the investments of eco-champion Al Gore.  Apparently, some perceive a conflict of interest between the Nobel Laureate’s environmental fervor and his wide-ranging financial stakes in green industry.  Conservative lawmakers have questioned Gore’s true intentions, citing his ties to Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, as well as his chairmanship of Generation Investment Management, both of which maintain significant holdings in green technology/clean energy (here’s a list of KPCB’s green investments).  Here’s a little video of an exchange between Gore and a Representative from his home state of Tennessee:

Gore’s strategy to transform markets by displaying the economic … Continue Reading

In case you’ve ever wondered what New Urbanism is, here’s an entertaining video, which won a contest sponsored by the Congress for the New Urbanism. 

The film, which was produced by First + Main Media from Julian, California, and Paget Films from Buffalo, New York, visually represents New Urbanist ideas and blames sprawl for the end of civilization. But, it’s a good introduction to New Urbanist ideas.

Congress for the New Urbanism created the film contest to promote its annual conference. This year’s conference, “CNU 17,”  will be held in Denver on June 10-14. Here’s a link to some of the other submissions to the contest. Via NRDC.org.