April 21st, 2013 
Stephen Wade 
What does it mean to be green? In the modern era, its meaning has evolved from Rachel Carson’s documentation of pollution in Silent Spring, Teddy Roosevelt and and John Muir’s founding of the National Parks, and Henry David Thoreau’s solitary musings in Walden to a more complex, integrated, consumption-based, and urban meaning exhibited by Al [...]
February 21st, 2013 Sean Connell Following up on two previous posts about the the Adopt-a-Stream Foundation and its role in promoting environmental education and best practices in watershed management, what sets the organization apart from others active in the Pacific Northwest (and beyond) in environmental education and watershed stewardship? How might its experiences offer models to organizations and stakeholders, not only those involved in [...]
February 19th, 2013 Sean Connell Continuing yesterday’s post on the Adopt-a-Stream Foundation and its role in promoting environmental education and best practices in watershed management, I recently had the opportunity to speak with founder and executive director Tom Murdoch and foundation staff members about the organization’s history and activities. (Best practices will be further examined in a third and concluding [...]
February 10th, 2013 Eric Wilson 
I picked up David Suzuki’s Tree: A Life Story at the library recently and started reading it on the bus. It traces the development of a Douglas-fir from seedling to towering specimen and its eventual decay. During the discussion of deciduous and evergreen trees, I couldn’t help but think about design though. As Suzuki, and [...]
Posted in Behavior, Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed, Policy 
Tags: Biomimicry, David Suzuki, Urban Planning 
No Comments » February 2nd, 2013 Eric Wilson 
A few years ago while I was teaching entry level environmental science as part of my doctoral program, I had students yet to reimagine/redesign Denver as a sustainable city. There were the standard designs that groups put together, the occasional radial pattern that I vaguely recalled from my urban planning class as an undergraduate, and [...]
Posted in Business, Eric Wilson, Green Economy, Sustainable Development Tags: Bicycles, Denver, Minneapolis, New York City, Urban Planning No Comments » January 6th, 2013 Eric Wilson 
Technically my wife and I moved to Minneapolis, at least in the city limits. We’re currently renting a home with a Walk Score of 74 (Transit Score of 47 and Bike Score of 66 all out of 100). The location is great, except two pieces. Neither of us work in the neighborhood, a huge change [...]
Posted in Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed, Sustainable Development Tags: Bus, Cars, Denver, Minneapolis, New Urbanism, Saint Louis Missouri, Urban Planning, Washington DC No Comments » September 8th, 2012 Stephen Wade Streets are gathering spaces, public places, places for commerce, and for transportation. They are the veins that pulse through a community. In municipal budgets, they are often one of the top areas to receive investment. For all these reasons, streets are the embodiment of a community’s social and fiscal values. How can streets better reflect [...]
Posted in 2nd Green, Behavior, Featured Posts, Sustainability, Transportation Tags: Ann Arbor, Bicycles, Cars, Complete Streets, Mass Transit, Pedestrians, Stephen Wade, Urban Planning No Comments » September 7th, 2012 Megan Stilley We visited Ann Arbor over Labor Day weekend to visit some friends and it was really enjoyable. I always find it fascinating to see how a new (to me) city is reworking their actions to be more sustainable. Ann Arbor is a college town; University of Michigan is located here. I say this because I [...]
September 1st, 2012 Stephen Wade Publicly-owned, well-located land is a finite resource. When it is well-designed it has the ability to catalyze new development and reinvestment. However, poorly thought-out development can also discourage revitalization and placemaking. Public land is particularly valuable because it can also provide community benefits that are not being provided by the private sector, e.g., affordable housing, [...]
July 1st, 2012 Eric Wilson I’ve mentioned some of my dad’s sayings in previous posts, most notably “Prior planning prevents piss poor performance.” Well, here’s another one, although I doubt it is entirely of his provenance: “two-fer.” If you’re not familiar with the term “two-fer” then it’s time to get on board. The idea is simple, you get two for [...]
