Green Maps.

I'm buried in schoolwork, but I found a nifty website and decided to share. It's called Green Maps, and essentially it's a site that has maps for green-living all over the world. There seem to be hundreds of cities/counties represented, so it's actually pretty broad. I checked into Milwaukee and Madison, and I was pretty surprised at the amount of information! Check your city out and see how many 'green' establishments you didn't know about.

Columbus' isn't working for some reason; maybe they have a new URL? Anyone know about this?

New York Lights.

Here's an interesting article and video talking about the dimming skyline of New York. As the city goes more green, the skyline only grows more black.

Gone are the days when cheap electricity, primitive lighting technology and landlords’ desire to showcase their skyscrapers kept floor after floor of the city’s highest towers glowing into the night. Now, rising energy costs, conservationism, stricter building codes and sophisticated lighting systems have conspired to slowly, often imperceptibly, transform Manhattan’s venerable nightscape into one with a gentler glow.

Instead of tower after tower shining at all hours — the World Trade Center stayed aglow long after its occupants went home — the skyline is becoming a patchwork of sparsely sparkling buildings decorated with ornamentally lighted tops.

“The tall tower with the illuminated floors on all night long is probably a thing of the past,” said Randy Sabedra, the owner of RS Lighting Design, who is helping to create a new map of the city’s most prominently lighted buildings. “You’re not relying on the glowing floors to have the building presence. It is relying on the crown of light.”

There are a lot of pretty shots of New York. For the video, scroll down and it's on the left side of the page. Good stuff.

Music to My Ears!

Ethisphere just put out an article about the 20 most sustainable cities in the world by 2020. Of course these lists are kind of silly, but what I liked most about the article was the recent revelation from The United Nations: 2008 is the first year in history where more than 50% of people worldwide live in large Urban areas. Apparently city live is too good to escape from! :-)

It further goes on to say that suburban life is proving to be ineffective in terms of health, quality of life, and overall efficacy as areas for people to live.

“There’s a clear indication now that suburban living is associated with obesity and high rates of lung and heart disease,” says William Rees, professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning and founder of the ‘ecological footprint’ concept. “The nature of planning in North American cities, which tends to separate residential from commercial from shopping uses, virtually forces everyone to use a car.”

As citizens from London to Bombay to any other large, well-developed city will tell you, cars are not only unnecessary in downtown living; they’re a downright headache to use. On top of the gas money savings from stowing your vehicle, a lack of cars creates some health benefits. "People that live in downtown areas where they don’t use vehicles as much, but walk to work, walk to restaurants, walk to shopping and so forth, those people on average weigh less and have healthier cardiovascular systems than people living in the suburbs,” says Rees.

“Eco-densification, densifying urban development, getting out of sprawling situations is a remarkable improvement in public health and it has the additional advantage of further reducing automobile dependency, the higher densities result in much more economically viable public transit systems and clearer advantages.”

The article is rather lengthy and describes exactly what makes a city "sustainable" in the eyes of planners. Only New York and Chicago were mentioned as large American cities that are sustainable, though Portland, Oregon was mentioned as a great mid-sized city in terms of 'greenness' and stability.

Columbus Green Spot.

Via Columbus Underground, looks like Columbus has launched a new website to help us all go green--Columbus Green Spot! It's free and really easy to use. We here at Fabulously in the City joined (and by "we" I mean me) and it only took a few seconds. Go do it and learn how you can reduce your carbon footprint!