[SPSD] Ecocities Emerging - March 2014 Issue

  • From: Ecocity Builders <kirstin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: spsd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2014 11:56:21 -0500 (EST)

Link to webpage version of this newsletter
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Ecocities Emerging

To support humanity's transition into the Ecozoic Era

Ecocity Builders
March 2014
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Greetings!
It's springtime for projects. The seed funds awarded for our EcoCitizen World 
Map
Project from the Abu Dhabi Global Data Initiative (AGEDI) and the Organization 
of
American States have sprouted active pilots in Egypt, Morocco and Colombia. 
Corresponding
classes on EcoCitizenship have launched at Cairo University and Casablanca's 
Mudiapolis
University. Team member Dave Ron is on location helping to teach the 
participatory
GIS (PGIS) elements of both courses. In a few weeks, four more of us from 
Ecocity
Builders' team will join Dave and the universities for the first of our 
community
events in Cairo and Casablanca. These workshops will pair up the university 
students
with community organizations and citizens to investigate and problem solve, 
together,
how to increase quality of life, sustainability and resilience at the scale of 
the
neighborhood.
In order to build out a whole systems perspective with a custom view to each 
location,
we'll be accessing data, information and maps provided by the municipal 
governments,
utilities, and other data providers. In addition we'll be teaching citizens to 
conduct
their own community audits - all of which will be posted and shared online.
It's all converging in one place - a website that will serve as a portal for 
citizens
to map their communities and share first-hand information for a holistic 
assessment
of their city's ecological and social health. We are hoping to lay a whole 
systems
urban information foundation upon which better informed decision making and 
planning
can happen. You will be able to find, upload and explore information about your 
city and neighborhood's urban metabolism - the dynamic flows of energy, water, 
food,
materials, information, transportation, economy, etc. that bring the city to 
life
and keep it healthy -- or not -- depending on urban design, access, quality, and
 social conditions. The site will go live in time for the upcoming 7th World 
Urban
Forum (WUF7) in Medellin Columbia, April 5-11th.
In partnership with the Organization of American States, we also have a 
Medellin,
Colombia pilot for the EcoCitizen World Map Project that will feature Medellin's
 transformative urban projects and programs using creative and interactive 
social
media like Esri's StoryMaps and Mozilla's web making tool, Popcorn. During the 
WUF7,
we will be hosting, along with Esri, the Association of American Geographers and
 the University of Twente, the Netherlands, a networking event to explain the 
EcoCitizen
method and tools, and a training event to show others how to use them with a 
hands-on
workshop. You can read more about these events in this month's Ecocities 
Emerging.
It's all about shining a spotlight on the essential elements of the city that 
combine
to make a larger whole system and includes smaller, but still whole (if they are
 healthy), sub systems (neighborhoods).
Earlier today I had a conversation with someone on our team who had just met 
with
a group of planners to map out a new eco-neighborhood. Interestingly, when my 
colleague
asked the simple question, "Where is the proposed drinking water supply for this
 new eco-neighborhood and what is the current capacity and projected capacity of
 this source to supply the planned growth?" nobody had an answer. In fact he 
told
me that a lack of awareness and information of source to sink (nature to nature 
through infrastructure) flows of essential elements like water and energy are 
more
the norm than the exception for planners and experts, not just for ordinary 
citizens.
Today we all need to connect more closely to the parts while understanding the 
dynamics
of the whole itself. We don't have to know every detail but we need to know much
 more than most of us do now. Ecocity pioneers Paul Downton and Richard Register
 like to talk about "ecocity fractals" and "integral neighborhoods" -- Register 
nicely sums up the concept of an integral neighborhood or ecocity fractal as "a 
fraction of the whole city with all essential components present and arranged 
for
good interrelationship with one another and with the natural world and its 
biology
and resources for human activity." The late ecocity visionary Palo Soleri took 
the
idea to a whole other level with his concept of arcology and his experimental 
city
project, Arcosanti. In this edition of the newsletter you can read Register's 
article
about the future of arcology as well as a feature interview in ATLANTIS with 
Ecocity
Builders' Board Member Jeff Stein on "Architecture, Ecology & Urban Space at 
Arcosanti."
As we build, so shall we live,
Kirstin Miller
Executive Director

sm.ecb 
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Keeper of the International Ecocity Conference Series, Ecocity Builders is a 
non-profit
organization dedicated to reshaping cities, towns and villages for long-term 
health
of human and natural systems.
Ecocity Builders
339 15th Street, Suite 208
Oakland CA 94612 USA
www.ecocitybuilders.org 
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www.ecocitystandards.org 
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JOIN ECOCITY BUILDERS AT THE WORLD URBAN FORUM - REGISTRATION IS OPEN
Ecocity Builders is a lead partner of the World Urban Campaign. Join us at our 
events
at the WUF7 in Medellin:

"The EcoCitizen Map Project: Building Resilience and Equity Through Citizen 
Participation
and Geo Design"

Thursday April 10th, 11am - 12pm, UN Habitat City Changer Room (3)

Presented by: Ecocity Builders, Association of American Geographers, Esri, 
Organization
of American States, AGEDI, US Department of State

This event will showcase the EcoCitizen approach to understanding and designing 
more sustainable and equitable urban environments. Currently active global 
projects
and processes will be showcased featuring the use of online crowd mapping, GIS 
and
social media Internet applications to actively engage cities and citizens in 
learning,
sharing and applying sustainability principles and practices. Scientific and 
sociological
underpinnings of the Project are based on the International Ecocity Framework 
and
Standards Initiative (IEFS).

Presentations by: Kirstin               Miller, Executive Director, Ecocity 
Builders;  Ashoka
                Finley, Projects Facilitator, Ecocity Builders; Dr.             
Sahar Attia, Director of
 Architecture and Urban Design, Cairo           University;  Shannon            
McElvaney, Global
 Industry Manger, Community Development, Esri;  and more.

Training Event: "How to use mobile technology to measure urban equity"
Wednesday April 9th, TE 7 in room 20

Presented by: ITC-University of Twente, the Netherlands, Esri and Ecocity 
Builders

Do  more than learn how mobile technology to empower residents in their  
communities
- get hands-on practice! This workshop will introduce  participants to the new 
technologies
Ecocity Builders and their partners  are developing to facilitate civic 
participation
and access to information. See the technology in action and learn how  these 
processes
can be applied to a wide variety of communities,  including yours.

Also join Ecocity Builders partners --
UN Habitat, at their WUF Special Session presentation:
"Towards a New Urban Paradigm: The Future we Want, the City we Need"
Wednesday April 9th from 2pm to 4pm
Register and see the WUF program here: 
http://wuf7.unhabitat.org/programmeataglance
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UNEP - TIE Networking event:
"Making the business case for resource efficient cities"
Wednesday April 9th, afternoon in the One UN room
Register and see the WUF program here: 
http://wuf7.unhabitat.org/programmeataglance
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001pKl8S-dq1Stb-1l4nCRpD2fe__mqFXNEBAgvHwM--qX6g2uoJTjUX17seH6izqR4Lfqzhy8PASEPLiVl57iC_dApkVDobvjkvvOfTj7HWQ3BDrH5rscGZ2MM2AaLC4uinQNqMGwdGMmQVJPz6HBhgA==]
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ECOCITY INSIGHTS
by Jennie Moore, Director, Sustainable Development
and Environmental Stewardship, British Colombia
Institute of Technology
Well Being and Quality of Life: Beyond the GDP
The International Ecocities Framework and Standards (IEFS) identifies human 
wellbeing
and quality of life as an essential social feature. Specifically, "residents 
report
satisfaction with their quality of life including employment, the built, natural
 and landscaped environment, physical and mental health, education, safety, 
recreation
and leisure, and social belonging" (www.ecocitystandards.org).
Human wellbeing depends on access to resources sufficient to lead a dignified 
life
(Raworth 2013). This includes access to natural resources such as clean air, 
water
and energy, as well as nutritious food. It also includes access to social 
resources
including education, healthcare, employment and recreation, participation in 
decisions
that affect one's life, and freedom from persecution for one's religious 
beliefs.
Ecocities not only support wellbeing and quality of life through provision of 
affordable
shelter and services, they also enable people to: access jobs close to where 
they
live, breath clean air in car-free cities, and enjoy nature at their doorstep 
(Register
2006). This is achieved through compact design of the built environment that 
takes
advantage of roof-tops (e.g., for parks and restaurants) and spaces below ground
 (e.g., for storage and shopping). Landscaped environments at grade blend with 
the
natural environment to foster ecological connections that invite nature into the
 city (Register 2006).
Residents of ecocities enjoy a high quality of life regardless of their 
socio-economic
status. This means that social services are provided based on need, not just an 
ability to pay.
An important measure for wellbeing is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). 
Invented
by Redefining Progress in 1995, the GPI considers changes in income 
distribution,
volunteerism, crime, pollution and resource depletion as factors that affect 
quality
of life (Redefining Progress 2013). This stands in contrast to Gross Domestic 
Product
(GDP) which measures the sum of a nation's financial transactions, but does not 
consider whether those contribute or detract from the wellbeing of citizens, 
particularly
those who are most vulnerable.
References:
Raworth, Kate. 2013. Defining a Safe and Just Space for Humanity in Linda 
Starke,
ed., State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible?  Washington DC: 
Island Press.
Redefining Progress. 2013. Sustainability Indicators: Genuine Progress Indicator
 (online resource) 
http://rprogress.org/sustainability_indicators/genuine_progress_indicator.htm
(Accessed on November 14, 2013).
Register, Richard. 2006. Ecocities: Building Cities in Balance with Nature. 
Gabriola
Island BC: New Society Publishers.
Register, Richard. 1987. Ecocity Berkeley: Building Cities for a Healthy Future.
 Berkeley Ca: North Atlantic Books.

British Colombia Institute of Technology School of Construction and the 
Environment
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is Lead Sponsor of the International Ecocity Framework and Standards Initiative
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LINK TO INTERVIEW: Ecocity Builders' Board Member Jeff Stein on Architecture, 
Ecology
& Urban Space at Arcosanti 
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001pKl8S-dq1SvmTnEBnQABjpfnDVihlBU_xi2CXjyHIflgGVIofIrC4-i59Aw0ygCM0UsTbfF9BXWQnS6IhOnVB6UGcswlOOnlsMS2x6PS7eKsmAlWviRne1DZp7rkzR_0leFd7sv2qC1JPCq1ykxIrrNfCE_ZNSldagunJ3KeDxMKzMxERRvSrNmmko0BBDxmTtIRv_QAfBZb-jFzLXhmAg==]
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Car Free Journey
BY STEVE ATLAS

For the past few weeks, my family and I have wished the ice and snow would go 
away-and
so have many other people all over the United States. Don't you wish you could 
escape
it all in a warm setting with lots of great beaches that you can walk to?

Then you will want to check out Cocoa Beach and the Space Coast of Central 
Florida,
the focus of this month's Car Free Journey.

Cocoa Beach and the Space Coast of Florida

Cocoa Beach and the Space Coast: two great reasons to visit is the 72 miles of 
beaches
along Florida's Atlantic Coast. Stay in Cocoa Beach and walk to beaches and many
 other attractions, restaurants, and entertainment the area has to offer.

For a break from the beach, you can take a local bus to Cape Canaveral, home of 
the United States Space Program. Here the Space Shuttle ATLANTIS is  on 
permanent
display. Port Canaveral is the second largest cruise port  in the United States.
  Local boosters claim it will beat Miami and  become the largest U.S.  cruise 
port
by 2015.

The Brevard Zoo is one of the top 10 small zoos in the United States and it too 
is just a bus ride away.

Welcome to Cocoa Beach

Cocoa Beach offers great weather, beaches, and attractive shops and restaurants.
 With its coastal location and positioned where two climatic zones (sub-tropic 
and
temperate) meet, the weather here usually avoids extremes. This unique location 
attracts wildlife indigenous to both climatic zones as well as coastal and 
migratory
species.

Cocoa Beach is a residential community and a tourist destination with a base 
population
12,631. This increases to 30,000 during the peak tourist season when the hotels,
 motels, timeshares and condominium rentals are filled. In addition, Cocoa Beach
 is the destination for another 2.4 million day visitors per year; it is the 
primary
tourist destination on the Florida Space Coast and home to an active retiree 
population.
Both visitors and residents enjoy the casual beach lifestyle! Many residents 
first
experienced Cocoa Beach as visitors and eventually relocated here.

READ ON 
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Founded  in 1992, Ecocity Builders is a nonprofit organization dedicated to  
reshaping
cities for the long-term health of human and natural systems. 
www.ecocitybuilders.org
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In this issue

Join Ecocity Builders at our World Urban Forum event
Ecocity Insights: Quality of Life
Car Free Journey: Cocoa Beach
Ecocity Updates
From Richard Register: Future Arcosanti?
Ecocity Spotlight: Car-free Hamburg; Food waste mandates; Public housing
in the Bay Area

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Ecocity Updates
News, events and announcements

Historic White Building receives city prize

The White Building in downtown Oakland, Ecocity Builder's base of operations, 
was
honored by the Oakland Heritage Alliance on February 20th for outstanding 
renovations.
Over the past year and a half the building has received new flooring, paint, 
bathrooms,
energy efficient lighting, and beautifully restored detail work. The building is
 home to diverse old and new tenants including architects, lawyers, a wellness 
studio,
several pop-up arts spaces, barbershops, and a new recording studio in the 
basement.
In addition, of course, to the Ecocity Co-Lab and Ecocity Builders. Come visit 
us!

Abu Dhabi

Get ready for Ecocity World Summit 2015!

Announcing Abu Dhabi as host city

The Abu Dhabi Convention

Bureau recently announced the city's selection as the host of the 2015 EcoCity 
Summit.
Next year's gather will host an estimated 1,500 delegates.
Abu Dhabi, the capitol of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), was awarded the 
conference
by a 'clearly outstanding proposal' submitted by the Convention Bureau along 
with
the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi (EAD), its Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data 
Initiative (AGEDI), and with the support of Abu Dhabi National Exhibition 
Company
and Etihad Airways.
"The city was chosen for its commitment to facing environmental challenges, 
supporting
renewable energy, and its interest in 'blue carbon sequestration' - the 
absorption
of carbon out of the atmosphere in mangroves and sea grasses," the release 
continued.

LINK 
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March 2014
Ecocitizen World Map Project Citizen Bootcamps
Cairo, Egypt: March 24, 25
Casablanca, Morocco: March 28-30
The Ecocitizen World Map Project Bootcamps will be bring university students 
together
with citizens and community organizations to learn and apply geographic 
information
and GPS tools, along with audits and assessments of environmental and social 
health,
for decision support in addressing the needs of cities to increase resilience 
and
sustainability while improving quality of life for citizens. Along with Ecocity 
Builders, partners include Cairo University (Etypt), Mundiapolis University 
(Morocco),
the Association of American Geographers (AAG); IT industry partners such as ESRI
 and Trimble; NGOs such as USHAHIDI in Kenya; as well as the Environment Agency 
of Abu Dhabi's "Eye on Earth" initiative. The next steps in these projects 
include
an October 2014 workshop in Casablanca, Morocco, under sponsorship of the 
Environment
Agency of Abu Dhabi (EAD).
April 2014

Medellin, Colombia

April 5-11
World Urban Forum - Medellin Colombia
Ecocity Builders and partners, including the Association of American 
Geographers,
the US Department of State, and Esri will feature the EcoCitizen World Map 
Project
at UN HABITAT's City Changer forum and the Esri Pavilion. Ecocity Builders is a 
Lead Partner of UN HABITAT's World Urban Campaign and the City of Medellin is a 
pilot project under the EcoCitizen World Map Project which will go live online 
at
the event.
ECOCITY BUILDERS and partner events at WUF7
__________________________________________________________
Our partners:
UN Habitat 
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ushahidi 
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esri logo 
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bcit logo 
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UNISDR 
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world urban campaign logo 
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eye on earth 
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iclei 
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OAS.jpg 
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From Richard Register
President, Ecocity Builders
Future Arcosanti?

In a distant world, long, long ago...

What's Arcosanti? Paolo Soleri's experimental aspiring city in the high Arizona 
desert, USA.

I love the place. I was there the first day of construction, July 23, 1970, a 
long
time ago. In fact, with one other of Paolo's students I raised the first 
vertical
structure there, and if you know something about Paolo's thinking about rising 
off
the flat suburban format, that might mean something. It also makes me something 
of a fossil. But you can sometimes learn something from fossils, and not even 
only
about the past. They

Richard Register

have that much maligned ability to inform about the whole flow of time and thus 
hint the future as well as report the past. I guess I was a fundamentalist's 
apostate
since I grew up in the Jewish/Christian/Islamic monotheistic tradition but 
thought
fossils made sense as something that

looked a lot like contemporary bones but older. I am a fundamentalist though, 
but
based on fundamental principles about the things that open inquiry might reveal 
these days about our beautiful universe, rather than what was thought and 
recorded
several thousand years ago on the same subject.

Anyway, back in 1965 when I met him, Soleri was already saying the flat city of 
cars was wrecking not only the lives of people through serious car accidents but
 also wrecking the whole damn future by way of creating flat, scattered cities. 
That seemed to be bizarrely obscure and unwelcome information to Los Angelenos. 
I was one at the time I met him; but to me it simply made sense.

I'd been interested in his work for five years already when one morning I 
decided
to call him up on what's now known quaintly as a "land line" - Los Angeles to 
Phoenix,
"dial up" around a little circle with numbers - to see if he was making any 
progress
on starting his "city of the future." In his case this future city was not 
sci-fi
or tongue-in-cheek but deadly serious. He wanted to build one and he answered 
the
phone at 6433 East Doubletree Ranch Road, Scottsdale, Arizona.

"Hi Paolo, how are you doing?" I asked.

"Fine."

"When are you starting work on your city."

"Tomorrow at 6:00am."

What?! I couldn't believe it! I had to get there. Though carless at the time, 
almost
immediately I found a friend driver crazy enough to say, "Hey, that sounds like 
fun." Off we went, arriving about 4:00 in the morning.

Around sunrise Paolo was running around his property with his two Rhodesian 
ridgeback
dogs that appeared to be having a hard time keeping up with him. I found myself 
waking up to the syncopation of flying feet and paws rippling over the sand. I 
was
next to the swimming pool at Soleri's Cosanti Foundation in Paradise Valley, 
which
is part of Scottsdale, with my artist/night job taxi cab driver friend, William 
Brun, at my side. We made it just in time.

Our caravan snaked up the highway and down a dusty, barely existing road to the 
site. We all got out to survey the cactus-strewn landscape, the meandering 
canyon
below with yellow-green cottonwood trees, and cliffs terminating in flat top 
bluffs
called mesas - tables in Spanish. (If you want to get extra detail here you have
 to read my book "Ecocities".)

The most auspicious part for me: one of the 20 people present, named Terry 
McConnell,
joined me in raising a 2 x 4 wood frame structure covered in plastic to protect 
the first barrels of nails and bags of cement from the rain - and rain it did: a
 cloud burst let loose shortly after we completed the small shelter. The roof 
sagged
with water and ice, fresh and cloudy white with hail. We skimmed out a couple of
 cups and drank a toast to the city's happy future. As the thunderhead broke up 
toward the east, a rainbow appeared. Nice start.

A possible future for Arcosanti

No invitation but here it comes anyway

Paolo Soleri died on April 9th last year. The architect and often-called Prophet
 in the Desert left a series of several versions of Arcosanti. Construction 
there
has been slow over the last few years. He died with some resignation and, to all
 appearances to long time observers like myself, a fair slice of depression 
about
the fact that Arcosanti was very far from completion. Few people around the 
world
give Paolo credit for his impact on their own works, designs slowly densifying 
in
an intelligently pedestrian-oriented, three-dimensionally linked and ordered way
 of the sort Paolo was advocating and toward which he was building before anyone
 else.

So now, what for Arcosanti, the experimental city to reform cities from now into
 the evolutionary infinite future? I acknowledge right off that no one invited 
or
authorized me in any degree to chime in. But I will because I fancy myself to 
have
learned a lot from Paolo and I think my critique where we differ is also useful.
 I tried to extract what seemed to me to be the most profound principles at the 
core of the idea he called "arcology," a melding of the worlds "architecture" 
and
"ecology."

First, to whit, cities should be designed and built like complex living 
organisms,
very three-dimensional in form and with all parts well ordered according to the 
best articulation of internal functions. Think organs of our own bodies and 
their
positioning, eyes up front and high, not down on the knees, for example. I call 
this the "anatomy analogy." No complex living organism is flat - two-dimensional
 like a tortilla - and cities at their best function in many ways like complex 
living
organisms. Therefore, the compact, highly "mixed use" city with its parts 
arranged
well internally and in relation to the local environment (to shed and collect 
precipitation
and absorb or reflect the sun's rays depending on local environment, for 
example)
and not scattered sprawl, is the way to go.

As a sub heading here, Soleri noted, and most forcefully, that automobiles have 
played a disastrous role in scattering the city into that flat, inefficient, 
land
and energy squandering, pollution and climate changing, pedestrian, bicyclist 
and
driver killing machine wracking up over a million fatalities a year. As Soleri 
liked
to say more generally, "Cities are not just in bad shape, they are the wrong 
shape."

Link to full article 
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001pKl8S-dq1StmA0hUnGHgWPas5U8IDyInkjQ-tA7o-mFGuOPt69VcKVkXxGdXz4Ica0s_XDBJ8p2B_mGA2FLBE-RRfM3nDKHDBNyMcpjEAg4GkQWYxgadb7yBZr9s16kxaHzfkJHBRRcn1EoROxFtRtVvEe482CMCc-rqBCobu0fyxmUYIIOIyw==]
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Ecocity News Spotlight
Stories and highlights from around the world
Hamburg Aims to Be Car-Free by 2040
Via 02b.com
The Hamburg City Council has announced ambitious plans to divert most cars away 
from the city center and replace roads with a vast network of pedestrian and 
bicycle
lanes over the next 20 years. Cars will not be banned completely from major 
thoroughfares,
but will cede dominance to bikes, pedestrians, and public transit. By connecting
 the periphery of the area to the center with car-free transit officials hope to
 cut down on congestion while ameliorating flooding and rising temperatures. The
 plan includes a total of 17,000 acres of green space, over 40% of the city's 
area.
Read More 
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001pKl8S-dq1SvQ3DJ6m7GHaI9T0I2SflnrKSBkKSJkgiS8TLhRj31Sjsx2rBhp7wZb8lhvmyVRVF6VWzmcQW9PKaw7PrfqFLohqYwI-cfGdGRcJ4pKU6beKtQcxeVmyhsrv1KKOoczZeFvdc0SYucdzYNW8gsCh0UCw5UEYddzApOT2W-jtTJj-___CofzIM0djpYTENLtR-NKQChLR_50iUZJRCdY8hAsvzTgiFQCPAo=].
Massachusetts says NO to more food waste
Via Earth911.com
As of October 1st, approximately 1,700 colleges, high schools, hospitals, 
restaurants
and other businesses across the state of Massachusetts will no longer be 
throwing
food scraps in the garbage. According to a new mandate, institutions producing 
over
1 ton of food waste per week will be required to set up a composting, 
animal-feed
operation, or plant that will convert biomass into energy. Their other option is
 to reduce food waste to below the cutoff. In a separate state initiative, 300 
supermarkets
saved an average of $20,000 annually per store by diverting food waste for 
recycling.
The state aims to reduce trash by 80% by 2050. Read More 
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001pKl8S-dq1Stk2WEn7zW89Jtc5Rs7JFWGw4PIzQJVmNVYZXCaqWLanZJbIUB4UgySYJ1Am54yewFlVwj3Xsk9mJkkofsYXUgz9HNu5RifR9vcqV-sZVXI9onU591zkaeVN7VEGefRs_vqA_KHo-yeJg-5_pI2G71RTaEnsgaQcopNRWybazWtsdV7kplOtyZj].
Around Town - Bay Area Features: Saving the City TV series
Via www.savingthecity.org 
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001pKl8S-dq1SsuBwqY4QcoDKL496kDz1ia4FpNI67bDmqZQp7-WQboDSSyDm0cS5MYaxeKB5yIINJ8AuStA3et98E5Lqbyr2KYoVTllKYLTREtQ36405BOrW31F2BVVaph]
and www.facebook.com/savingthecitytv 
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001pKl8S-dq1SsgGfir1jt8tyDT7FKwWxwSbJdboWR3NdUR6Xhoz3up_XjSjfzsxkTtM2a7Fzn6UrjpnQyxh4UkeXyPJZNCBgU0VoQCaxyvTcmoJO-jCZ_QuX1WOXCjBACrX2c3IaYcwpA=]
Saving the City is a new  television series that investigates the challenges and
 successes of our approaches to building cities.  "Telling stories through the 
eyes
of people who use the city, Saving the City  highlights successful and 
unsuccessful
examples of urban development  throughout the United States and Canada. The 
focus
is on downtowns and  surrounding neighborhoods, the most visible and visited 
part
of our  cities," says Ecocity Builders friend and producer, Ron Blatman. A 
recent
episode focuses on the Bay Area - what's being done in Mission Bay vs Vancouver.
 Watch the series 
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001pKl8S-dq1SshpY4hQltA9MKdjizj835L8uhJxJg_1TUYOu4aenZGDZI4hHxKNQZTeo7-cwIjLqMox6SWI-2DygAa43NO8I2kZrakpIUYVnCQj8jyFt16Hb-zn1KhFOpj].
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PRINCIPAL SPONSOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL ECOCITY FRAMEWORK AND STANDARDS
bcit logo 
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001pKl8S-dq1SsvisEPDciuxaFo18OLvs1b4Yffg7tOipYc6tlSoOWt_IviUSnMqqG9j4GRY8GkFqtF7lPj4UU3NpixiNEjGLzXHnjL-Fbgk43MEStGPoN2umm4IkBFRNMQ]
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