Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Co-optation of the environment-green agenda

Allen Park project adopts green approach - 07-28-05.jpgPhoto: David Guralnick / The Detroit News. The Fairlane Green shopping center, set to open in the fall, will focus on the environment with features that include green spaces, bio-swales and energy-reducing building features.

In "Allen Park project adopts green approach: Shopping center will be built on a landfill and include environmentally friendly features, parks," today's Detroit News reports about how Ford Motor Land Development Corporation is building a "green" environmentally-friendly strip shopping center. Two weeks ago, Wal*Mart announced its "sustainable" store in McKinney, Texas, complete with a windmill to generate electricity. There is going to be a webcast seminar by the journal Consulting-Specifying Engineer about the new" sustainable" Wal*Mart.

And today, "Whole Foods Market Inc., Austin, Texas, and BP Solar International LLC, Frederick, Md., celebrated the opening of a Princeton, N.J. Whole Foods store featuring a 126.7-kilowatt solar roof on Tuesday. The roof, powered by a BP solar array, produces approximately 15 percent of the store's energy, saving Whole Foods more than $515,000 through a rebate with the New Jersey Clean Energy Program. The system was installed by Advanced Solar Products. BP Solar has plans to work with more companies to safely install solar products for customers. BP Solar also has plans to sell solar power systems directly to consumers through a partnership with The Home Depot." Actually this isn't so bad. It makes sense to me that we use the roofs of buildings to generate electricity...

But as long as everybody drives everywhere, these efforts are worth little, and aren't much more than window dressing...

baltimoresun.com - KAL.gifToday's editorial cartoon by KAL of the Baltimore Sun.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home