Tag Archives: sustainable communities

American exurbs are dying, is America?

By Mark | December 1, 2011

U-M professor of urban planning Christopher B. Leinberger had an interesting op-ed a few days ago in the New York Times on the death of the fringe suburb in America. Here’s a clip. …By now, nearly five years after the housing crash, most Americans understand that a mortgage meltdown was the catalyst for the Great […]

Posted in Food, Sustainability, Uncategorized | Also tagged Bernie Sanders, Black Friday, Burlington, cannibal holocaust, Christopher B. Leinberger, Community Supported Agriculture, consumerism, CSA, food revolution, fringe suburbs, Intervale, Intervale Food Hub, Jim Kunstler, local food, local food production, Mark Bittman, suburbs, Travis Marcotte, University of Michigan, urban living, urban planning, urbs, Vermont | 5 Comments

Toby Hemenway to speak in Ann Arbor on permaculture

By Mark | May 11, 2010

I received word through several sources that Portland State University adjunct professor Toby Hemenway, the author of Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, will be speaking next weekend in Ann Arbor. He will be speaking at the Ann Arbor Public Library on Friday, May 21, from 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM, and he will […]

Posted in Agriculture, Ann Arbor, Environment, Food, Sustainability | Also tagged Agriculture, biodiversity, carbon sequestering, Designing and Installing a Food Forest, events, food forests, forest gardens, fruit trees, Gaia's Garden, How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Earth but not Civilization, Jared Diamond, Kris Kaul, Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Monica King, natural soil building, nut trees, permaculture, Permaculture Solutions for City and Suburb, Portland State University, SE Michigan Permaculture Guild, Sustainability, Toby Hemenway, Transition Town, Transition Ypsilanti, urban ecovillages, vegetables, woodland garden | 14 Comments

A federal push for transit-oriented development

By Mark | April 15, 2010

Incredibly, it looks as though there are some folks in DC who want to incentivize development that encourages density (as well as energy efficiency) in the vicinity of transit stations. Here’s a clip from the DC Streets Blog: New construction projects that are within a half-mile of transit stations and exceeding national energy-efficiency standards would […]

Posted in Rail | Also tagged DC Streets Blog, development, DOT, energy-efficiency standards, EPA, green buildings, HUD, Reconnecting America, Richard Murphy, Robert Menendez, Senate Banking Committee, T4America, tax credits, TIGER transportation grants, trains, transportation, transportation funding, Yes Men | 3 Comments

Attend an urban gardening potluck, and avoid the cannibal holocaust

By Mark | January 4, 2010

Whenever I start to get a little too optimistic about the future, and I want to regain my foothold in the word of dystopian pessimism, I like to check in with author Jim Kunsler. Jim, for those of you who don’t know him, is the author of such books as The Long Emergency: Surviving the […]