Comments by Warren Karlenzig Subscribe

On Keeping Singapore Green with Data and Design

This is well needed, and complements Singapore's use of its citywide hardscapes + natural functions to harvest and reuse rainwater (10:50 mark of 15:55 video): http://bit.ly/STGhA6

November 15, 2012 View Comment

On UN's New Sustainable City Effort Starts With Asia

The UN Shanghai Manual, which comes out October 31, includes case study examples from every inhabited continent (including many from North American and European cities), as well as policy recommendations that are relevant to all cities, but that should be especially helpful to developing nation cities in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The United Nations training and capacity building based off the Shanghai Manual that begins in November will be focused first on the cities of 15 developing Asian nations. There will be more to report in Rio for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012, including complementary UN and other non-governmental organization urban sustainability initiatives that I am advising. Exciting announcements are coming!--Warren Karlenzig

October 12, 2011 View Comment

On Why Cities Might Just Save the World: An Interview with Siemens’ Pedro Miranda

Thanks for the enlightening post Robin. If we--the global we--can't get sustainable growth right in megacities, we are up against the biggest challenges of the century, climate change being only one. I posted in the fall about the Megacities training manual that I wrote for the United Nations that will be coming out in May, which includes global sharing of urban best practices in sustainability, economic development, including management approaches and use of information and communications technologies : http://www.commoncurrent.com/notes/2010/08/unshanghai-expo-megacities-sus.html. I look forward to the Asian and North American cities ranking, as I wrote the first book statistically benchmarking US city sustainability, How Green is Your City? The SustainLane US City Rankings in 2007--the Siemens/ Economist rankings have subsequently used many of the same categories of analysis and analytical approaches used in this book and in 2005-2008 SustainLane studies.

January 13, 2011 View Comment

On Cities Will Soon Regulate Energy Use

Don't forget Austin: Austin should rightfully get credit as first US city to establish green building programs and codes. When I recommended to San Francisco that the city establish a municipal green building ordinance in the city's official 1997 Sustainability Plan, a recommendation it cited in its municipal green building ordinance, which was adopted in 1999 and again in 2003, I based this on research the work that Austin had been doing since the late 1980s and early 1990s. New York and DC had nothing on the books at that time and for many years to come.

December 5, 2009 View Comment

On Columbus: Fantasy Transit Maps

Especially poignant since Columbus had only 3.2 percent of its citizens riding public transit in 2008, one of the lowest rates of any major city in the United States. Fantasy indeed.

December 4, 2009 View Comment

On Germany's ECO CITY

Though this sounds quite promising, the Dongtan, China project will not be happening. Ground has never been broken: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/dongtan-ecocity-modern-shangri-la.php

August 24, 2009 View Comment