Green Community
Green Community

Author: Susan Piedmont-Palladino

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-05-04

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1351177974

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The health of our planet and ourselves depends on how we plan, design, and construct the world between our buildings. Our increasing dependence on fossil fuels over the last century has given us unprecedented individual mobility and comfort, but the consequences are clear. Climate change, sprawl, and reliance on foreign oil are just a few of the challenges we face in designing new-and adapting existing-communities to be greener. Based on the National Building Museum's Green Community exhibition, this book is a collection of thought-provoking essays that illuminate the connections among personal health, community health, and our planet's health. Green Community brings together diverse experts, each of whom has a unique approach to sustainable planning, design, politics, and construction.

Green Green
Green Green

Author: Marie Lamba

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Byr)

Published: 2017-05-09

Total Pages: 34

ISBN-13: 0374327971

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In the city an abandoned lot squeezed between two buildings becomes a community garden.

Gray to Green Communities
Gray to Green Communities

Author: Dana Bourland

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2021-01-19

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 164283128X

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US cities are faced with the joint challenge of our climate crisis and the lack of housing that is affordable and healthy. Our housing stock contributes significantly to the changing climate, with residential buildings accounting for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. US housing is not only unhealthy for the planet, it is putting the physical and financial health of residents at risk. Our housing system means that a renter working 40 hours a week and earning minimum wage cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment in any US county. In Gray to Green Communities, green affordable housing expert Dana Bourland argues that we need to move away from a gray housing model to a green model, which considers the health and well-being of residents, their communities, and the planet. She demonstrates that we do not have to choose between protecting our planet and providing housing affordable to all. Bourland draws from her experience leading the Green Communities Program at Enterprise Community Partners, a national community development intermediary. Her work resulted in the first standard for green affordable housing which was designed to deliver measurable health, economic, and environmental benefits. The book opens with the potential of green affordable housing, followed by the problems that it is helping to solve, challenges in the approach that need to be overcome, and recommendations for the future of green affordable housing. Gray to Green Communities brings together the stories of those who benefit from living in green affordable housing and examples of Green Communities’ developments from across the country. Bourland posits that over the next decade we can deliver on the human right to housing while reaching a level of carbon emissions reductions agreed upon by scientists and demanded by youth. Gray to Green Communities will empower and inspire anyone interested in the future of housing and our planet.

Building a Green Community
Building a Green Community

Author: Ellen Rodger

Publisher: Crabtree Publishing Company

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 9780778729167

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Explores the importance of environmental responsibility.

Skinny Streets and Green Neighborhoods
Skinny Streets and Green Neighborhoods

Author: Cynthia Girling

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2005-12-23

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781597260282

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Cities are growing at unprecedented rates. Most continue to sprawl into the countryside. Some are only now adopting policies that attempt to control air pollution from vehicles, reduce water pollution from urban runoff, and repair fragmented urban ecosystems. Can good urban design and sound environmental design coincide at a neighborhood level to create healthy communities? Absolutely, and the strategies presented by Cynthia Girling and Ronald Kellett in Skinny Streets and Green Neighborhoods illustrate how to weave together contemporary thinking in urban planning with open space planning and urban ecology. Drawing from eighteen case studies, these green neighborhoods are the best examples of how the natural environment can play integral roles in neighborhoods. Green neighborhoods offer a mix of housing types in order to serve a broad cross-section of people with a finely-grained variety of land uses and services, all close to home. In ecologically sound communities, the urban landscape is a functioning part of the whole ecosystem. Wooded areas, meandering streams, wetlands, and open spaces are planned and engineered to clean the air and the water. Skinnier streets and practical pathways weave into a functional, economical network to provide a range of equally good transportation choices, from walking to mass transit, that move people efficiently and economically. This book moves beyond identifying problems to demonstrate proven methods and models that solve multiple, complex problems in concert. With innovative ideas and practical advice, Skinny Streets and Green Neighborhoods is a guide for today's planners, architects, engineers, and developers to design better neighborhoods and a more natural metropolis.

Living Green
Living Green

Author: Jennifer Fosket

Publisher: New Society Publishers

Published: 2009-06-01

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1550924303

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Social issues are, and need to be, a central part of environmental and economic sustainability efforts. Using stories of extraordinary communities across North America, Living Green showcases the social side of living green. The book features communities that explicitly integrate social and human factors into their design and planning, and examines the impact living in these communities has on personal health, well-being and the capacity for pursuing sustainability. It includes interviews with developers, architects and residents, highlighting personal ideals and efforts to pursue a sustainable lifestyle. The book's three parts explore: How community is central to sustainable living in everything from co-housing to communes Communities that specifically integrate green building design components with social justice politics such as racism, poverty and urban alienation. Housing options geared toward mainstream living that offer individual choices to those who wish to live green. Written for those desiring to hear a good news story, Living Green will appeal to individuals and communities living a sustainable lifestyle, green building activists, and academics in sociology, planning and design, architecture and environmental fields. Check out the authors' website and blog .

Green City
Green City

Author: Allan Drummond

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2016-03-15

Total Pages: 45

ISBN-13: 0374379998

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In 2007, a tornado destroyed Greensburg, Kansas, and the residents were at a loss as to what to do next--they didn't want to rebuild if their small town would just be destroyed in another storm. So they decided they wouldn't just rebuild the same old thing; this time, they would build a town that could not only survive another storm, but one that was built in an environmentally sustainable way. Told from the point of view of a child whose family rebuilt after the storm, this companion to Energy Island is the inspiring story of the difference one community can make--and it includes plenty of rebuilding scenes and details for construction lovers, too

Asset Building & Community Development
Asset Building & Community Development

Author: Gary Paul Green

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2015-04-01

Total Pages: 477

ISBN-13: 1483387011

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A comprehensive approach focused on sustainable change Asset Building and Community Development, Fourth Edition examines the promise and limits of community development by showing students and practitioners how asset-based developments can improve the sustainability and quality of life. Authors Gary Paul Green and Anna Haines provide an engaging, thought-provoking, and comprehensive approach to asset building by focusing on the role of different forms of community capital in the development process. Updated throughout, this edition explores how communities are building on their key assets—physical, human, social, financial, environmental, political, and cultural capital— to generate positive change. With a focus on community outcomes, the authors illustrate how development controlled by community-based organizations provides a better match between assets and the needs of the community.

Ecovillages
Ecovillages

Author: Karen T. Litfin

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2014-01-15

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 0745681239

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In a world of dwindling natural resources and mounting environmental crisis, who is devising ways of living that will work for the long haul? And how can we, as individuals, make a difference? To answer these fundamental questions, Professor Karen Litfin embarked upon a journey to many of the world’s ecovillagesÑintentional communities at the cutting-edge of sustainable living. From rural to urban, high tech to low tech, spiritual to secular, she discovered an under-the-radar global movement making positive and radical changes from the ground up. In this inspiring and insightful book, Karen Litfin shares her unique experience of these experiments in sustainable living through four broad windows - ecology, economics, community, and consciousness - or E2C2. Whether we live in an ecovillage or a city, she contends, we must incorporate these four key elements if we wish to harmonize our lives with our home planet. Not only is another world possible, it is already being born in small pockets the world over. These micro-societies, however, are small and time is short. Fortunately - as Litfin persuasively argues - their successes can be applied to existing social structures, from the local to the global scale, providing sustainable ways of living for generations to come. You can learn more about Karen's experiences on the Ecovillages website: http://ecovillagebook.org/

Greening Our Built World
Greening Our Built World

Author: Greg Kats

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2013-03-05

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1610910796

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“Green” buildings—buildings that use fewer resources to build and to sustain—are commonly thought to be too expensive to attract builders and buyers. But are they? The answer to this question has enormous consequences, since residential and commercial buildings together account for nearly 50% of American energy consumption—including at least 75% of electricity usage—according to recent government statistics. This eye-opening book reports the results of a large-scale study based on extensive financial and technical analyses of more than 150 green buildings in the U.S. and ten other countries. It provides detailed findings on the costs and financial benefits of building green. According to the study, green buildings cost roughly 2% more to build than conventional buildings—far less than previously assumed—and provide a wide range of financial, health and social benefits. In addition, green buildings reduce energy use by an average of 33%, resulting in significant cost savings. Greening Our Built World also evaluates the cost effectiveness of “green community development” and presents the results of the first-ever survey of green buildings constructed by faith-based organizations. Throughout the book, leading practitioners in green design—including architects, developers, and property owners—share their own experiences in building green. A compelling combination of rock-solid facts and specific examples, this book proves that green design is both cost-effective and earth-friendly.