VIdeo: NYC Summer Streets 2009

http://www.streetfilms.org/

Articulo: 5 Reasons New Yorkers Are the Most Eco-Friendly People in the US - Without Even Trying

photo: Eric E Yang via flickr.

TreeHugger's been saying for a while that urban living is one of the greenest ways to live. Well, over at Yale Environment 360, David Owen (who's a staff writer for The New Yorker, by the way...) lays out some stats as to why New York City should probably get renamed the Big Green Apple:

1. The average Manhattan resident consumes just 90 gallons of gasoline per year -- a figure Owen reminds us that wasn't the norm in the rest of the nation since the 1920s (!).

2. New Yorkers consume far less electricity than everyone else in the United States: 4,700 kWh per year versus 11,000 kWh on average in the rest of the country. I even think that NYC stat is slightly high, based on what I've seen coming out of Con Ed, but in any case... If New York City were ranked as a state it would have the lowest per-capita energy use in the nation.

3. NYC accounts for nearly one-third of all public transit miles traveled in the US. 82% of Manhattan residents travel to work by public transit, bicycle, or foot -- ten times the rate for the rest of the nation, eight times that of Los Angeles and sixteen times that of Atlanta.

4. The Big Apple boasts the lowest rate of automobile ownership in the nation: 54% of households in the city as a whole don't own a car, with 77% of Manhattanites car-less.

5. Talk about lowering you carbon footprint: New Yorkers have the smallest carbon footprint in the nation -- 7.1 metric tons versus about 20 metric tons average for the nation, with manhattanites have even lower than the city as a whole. That figure compares favorably with those normal in Europe and Japan, by the way.

photo: Jeffrey Bary via flickr.

Population Density = Greener Without Thinking
The thing that's really important to remember about all these figures is that most of the stats aren't based out of personal conviction or effort. Rather, they are a necessary outcome of living in high density urban spaces, more than any other factor -- much in the same way that the average resident of Berlin, Zurich, Rome or Barcelona has a comparatively low carbon footprint.

As Owen says,

Population density also lowers energy and water use in all categories, constrains family size, limits the consumption of all kinds of goods, reduces ownership of wasteful appliances, decreases the generation of solid waste, and forces most residents to live in some of the world's most inherently energy-efficient residential structures: apartment buildings.

The original article goes on to speculate on the paradox of Muir and Thoreau actually spreading the intellectual seeds that would lead to spreading suburbia and loving wilderness to death. Check it out: Greenest Place in the US? It's Not Where You Think


Treehugger Link

Yale Link

New York's park above the streets

Ver articulo en la BBC de Londres

NY Report: Open 7 Days

Comercios en el dowtown ( distrito financiero) abiertos los 7 dias de la semana, logrando que una zona mayoritariamente laboral se mantenga activa incluso durante los fines de semana
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NY Report: What If?

En una plaza en el Pleno Distrito Financiero de NY, se promueve un plan para la zona del Sur de Greenwich. 

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NY Report: What If?

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NY Report: What If?

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Articulo: Rethinking Lower Manhattan: What If?

Anthony Townsend

Since its founding in the mid 1990s, Alliance for Downtown New York has long been one of the world's leading business improvement districts. This non-profit organization has presided over the reinvention of New York's historic Financial District as a thriving 24-hour live/work district, while retaining a respectable share of the city's financial services sector. The Alliance built a network of Wi-Fi hotspots that lit up nearly every major public space in the district - not just outdoor locations like Bowling Green and City Hall Park, but also indoor atria like the Winter Garden and 60 Wall Street. More recently, they announced a new initiative to create a new kind of incubator, the Hive@55, which will model itself off the exploding grassroots coworking movement that is sweeping the country.

Thus its no surprise that such an innovative advocate for Lower Manhattan has just blown the roof off the debate on what to do with the long-neglected area south of the World Trade Center known as Greenwich South, with a study released yesterday titled simply "Greenwich South: What If?". Developed over the last year with the input of numerous stakeholders and award-winning architects, the study presents a series of provocative questions that hope to accelerate the debate about the area's future far beyond the rather unambitious proposals that have circulated in recent years. My personal favorite - "What if you could Live, Work and Raise Sheep in the same building?" - is about the most delightfully playful urban planning idea to be floated in New York City in a decade.

Greenwich South has long been the stepchild of Lower Manhattan - blighted first by an elevated railway, then the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel approach, then the closing off of northern access by the World Trade Center superblock - nearly any action would be an improvement. And that's what most of the proposals to date have been limited to - incremental improvements. The Alliance study offers the possibility to turn the area into a living laboratory for bold new planning ideas that bring great streets, public art, and even urban agriculture into the place where New York City started. One of the study's other provocations, which asks "What if it all started here (again)?" might just be a wish that turns out to be true.


http://www.planetizen.com/node/40938

Give it for Brooklyn!!!

Fotografía y Data sobre Brooklyn... Excelente recopilación de información¡¡¡!!!


http://typology.fakeisthenewreal.org/

Bike vs. Car vs. Transit

Transportation Alternatives held its 7th annual Commuter Challenge pitting cyclist, driver, and bus/subway rider in the ultimate showdown of which mode of travel can be quickest (and cheapest!)

In the end, the bike proved swiftest over the 4.5 mile course which began in Brooklyn's Fort Greene and ended in Manhattan's Union Square. Jamie Favaro rolled up in just over 16 minutes and took home the gold and a bouquet of flowers for her efforts. Driver, Emmanuel Fuentebella (22 minutes) parked his car and sprinted to a surprise second place finish. Shortly after, disappointed MTA rider April Greene came in last at 29 minutes. But, as Wiley Norvell noted at the finish line, Transportation Alternatives also measured the carbon footprint of all the the riders and Greene came in a close second behind the cyclist.

Carmaggeddon Averted as Broadway Comes to Life