Greensburg

I teach at a design college. Last month a senior was mapping abandoned properties in Minneapolis using Google Fusion software; her purpose was to elicit some storytelling from urban residents. A couple dozen property markers popped up in her map of North Minneapolis neighborhoods; surprised by a noticeable linear pattern, she inquired of...[read more]

Heavy rain, snow, flooding, and tornadoes have damaged or destroyed towns and cities across the United States this year. But how can communities devastated by severe weather turn tragedy into an opportunity to sustainably rebuild? When that town is Greensburg, Kansas, it returns to its pioneer roots and creates a self-sufficent community. In "Starting from Scratch," energyNOW! correspondent Lee Patrick Sullivan looks at how Greensburg residents used the destruction of their city as an opportunity to literally live up to the town's name.[read more]

A collective should be a conversation, and, in our case, we should be discussing how to make cities more sustainable. Recently, I realized that to truly create sustainable cities, we have to expand beyond the major metropolitan areas, like Washington, D.C., New York City, and San Francisco and start more conversations about sustainability in smaller cities and towns.[read more]