Category Archives: Newsletter

by Richard Register

Garden Tour, Genesis

What a beautiful day! I’m floating across the vast landscape of Detroit
under bright blue skies with big white clouds billowing up, enormous
distances between. My rental bike from the Wheelhouse downtown by the river
feels like a magic carpet and the air temperature is perfect for a thin
shirt, fresh breeze on the skin. One surprise: the waters of the Detroit
River are deep and clear blue almost like those of the Bahamas and not at
all like the Mississippi and muddy rivers of China, India and Brazil I’ve
visited lately.

Our big news item: We just launched our new website! We hope you will take a few minutes to take a look.  http://www.ecocitybuilders.org

Our new site makes it easier to learn about our mission and programs. Our sincere thanks to Diana Divecha for sponsoring our website project and to Design Action Collective for creating the design. We like the new clean and light appearance, we hope you do too! Most of all, we’ll be able to build up this site to become a real resource for the international ecocity community of students and practitioners. Keep checking back as we continue to upload all kinds of useful information that has been heretofore tucked away in various files, CDs, DVDs and computer drives, just waiting for an opportunity to be properly READ MORE

The Award is open for entries, with the deadline for submissions being 5pm CET, 28 October 2010.
ISOCARP is actively supporting the Philips Livable Cities Award, a global initiative designed to encourage individuals, businesses, community and non-governmental groups to develop practical, achievable ideas for improving the health and well-being of people living in cities – ideas which can then be translated into reality.

The world is experiencing rapid urbanization and industrialization, this process has not only enhanced the progress of urban civilization, but also extensively and deeply threatened the urban environment, as well as regional and global life supporting system and ecosystem services, it is a paramount mission for modern cities to seek a socio-economically as well as ecologically harmonious urban society, meanwhile, achieve civilized transformation and innovation.

We’ve created an early version of the top tier standards for the following categories: materials, food, water, energy and air. Furthermore, we’ve created a land use classification to identify areas of concentrated human use (C) and areas to be set aside for relief and restoration (R) like wilderness, natural parks and organic agriculture.

by citisven

Fri Aug 27, 2010 at 02:40:37 PM PDT

Whenever I travel to different countries and cities, one of the things I’m interested in is how locals move around in their daily lives. Call me a transportation glutton, but I’m a sucker for trains, boats, rickshaws, trams, buses, gondolas, back alleys, and sidewalks.

Then, of course, there’s the most sublime transit invention of them all: the bicycle. It’s so simple — even a non-techie like myself understands how it works — and yet so deliciously useful, relieving traffic, getting you anywhere quickly, reducing CO2, keeping you in shape, letting you see a place and interact with its people.    

One thing I noticed on my trip to Italy a few months ago was how READ MORE

Justice is a concept of great importance to all of us working for a better world. It is fundamental to theories of social order. Studies show that the sense of justice may be instinctual to our nature. Today, calls for justice are getting louder – calls for social justice, climate justice, environmental justice, economic justice, the list goes on.

But in a world already sorely out of balance, with globalization transcendent, and with corporations controlling much of the world’s resources and distribution systems, in some circumstances it can be difficult to know from whom to demand justice. The gap between the “haves” and “have nots” is getting more disproportional; unraveling the causes of fundamental injustices can lead to truths some of us would rather not face.

Here at Ecocity Builders we try to stay focused on the positive even as bad news keeps rolling in – gigantic man-made disasters, wars, natural disasters increasing, corruption increasing, economic collapse, species going under, international laws and treaties being targeted and dismantled, world getting hotter, weather patterns changing, polar caps melting, fewer jobs, less support and money for education, less money for basic services, world leaders not leading.

Excerpted from Autokind vs. Mankind

by Kenneth R. Schneider, 1972

Ecocity pioneer Ken Schneider contemplates the world of cars in the early days of their takeover.

Man has always had his tragedies. Today he has the automobile, a tragedy of love.

Of course, the automobile is different. A plague, a famine, or an old-fashioned war was always disapproved, at least in public.