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Green, Clean, and In-Between: Coast-to-Coast Snapshots. Published September 2008.

Chicago, IL: Greening of Sears Tower

At 1,450 feet and 110 stories, Chicago's Sears Tower is the tallest building in America. And soon—if officials have their way--the landmark building, all 3.8 million square feet of it, may become the largest green structure in the United States. In announcing the initiative, former president Bill Clinton stressed the benefits of green building. And they’re not only environmental. "This is not a big bottle of castor oil we have to drink," he said. "This is the greatest economic opportunity that our country has had to mobilize and democratize since we mobilized from World War II." So what will set the building apart from it’s not-so-green neighbors?more »

Chicago, IL: Turning Hot Black to Cool Green

When a team of scientists swooped in over downtown Chicago last year aboard a police chopper, they noticed something astounding: the black asphalt roof atop the county building that adjoined City Hall measured in at 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Armed with thermal imaging cameras, the scientists and environmentalists then shifted their equipment to City Hall’s “green roof” – a roof covered in lush vegetation. That roof, they noted, was cooling out at a mere 70 degrees. “It really confirmed a lot of what we knew” about green roofs, says Sadhu Johnston, chief environmental officer in the Chicago mayor’s office.more »

Denver, CO: Denver Youth Corps Teaches Low-Income Residents...

Michael Phelps probably wouldn’t blink if asked to swim the length of twenty-five Olympic-sized swimming pools. But imagine asking him to save that much water? That’s what Denver youth achieved by mid-2008. They also reduced the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by nearly two million pounds per year. These gold-medal feats were accomplished as part of Denver’s Mile High Youth Corps (MHYC) project. In 2006, MHYC partnered with the state’s Low Income Energy Assistance Program and began going into homes to conduct energy audits and distribute power-saving CFL light bulbs.more »

Denver, CO: Denver Zoo Plans Nation's First LEED Certified Habitat

Hamburger wrappers, cotton candy sticks and leopard dung may soon be powering the country’s first ever LEED-certified habitat at the Denver Zoo. If all goes as planned, the 50 million dollar, ten-acre Asia Tropics campus will be LEED Gold certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. The habitat, which should be completed in 2011, will primarily house Asian elephants, Indian rhinoceroses, and Malayan tapirs. Many zoos have LEED certified buildings or exhibits, but no other zoo in the U.S. has sought certification for an entire habitat.more »

Houston, TX: Wanna Hypermile? Lose a Lead Foot, Gain Better Fuel Mileage

During their tour of Texas, Dan Bryant and Michael Garfield brought new meaning to the old adage, “The journey is more important than the destination.” Their road trip snaked through Houston, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, and back. Their goal: to complete the 844-mile trip on a single 12.3 gallon tank. Their car of choice was the Toyota Prius.more »

Minneapolis, MN: Hello Deli! Sustainable, Local and Downright Delicious

Danny Shwartzman’s concept was simple: to serve organic, locally-grown, seasonal food in an informal setting, at affordable prices. Think Chez Panisse meets the 1950s diner. The catch? The 26-year-old wanted to launch his business in Minneapolis, known better for crushing winters than an inviting growing season.more »

Minneapolis, MN: Minneapolis Harnesses Citizens' Power

We here at SustainLane are willing to wager that when you moved into your new apartment last year, no one showed up on your doorstep with a platter of macaroons, and a warm welcome to the neighborhood. Are we right? If only you lived in Minneapolis. We’re not sure if any of the residents in the city’s Linden Hills neighborhood can bake a decent macaroon, but one thing’s certain: within days of your arrival, they’ll know your name, and they’ll know what kind of light bulb you use.more »

Nashville, TN: Diggin' In

In Tennessee’s sweltering summer heat, the refugee women who tend the Sylvan Street Garden plots are covered from head to toe in bright, vibrant fabrics. Some have infants cradled to their hips with lengths of the same colorful material. But these gardens are neither in the state’s rural regions, or even in the suburbs. Instead, they’re in Nashville, smack in the middle of the James A. Casey homes – the city’s largest public housing project.more »

New York City, NY: In NYC, Yellow Cabs Turn Green

What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but if New York City has its way, what happens there will spread across the country and around the world. At least that’s what Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office is saying about the city’s decision to switch its entire taxi fleet to hybrid cars by 2012. “Just like other cities followed suit with a smoking ban, we’d like others to see that an all-hybrid taxi fleet is possible,” says Jason Post, a spokesperson for Bloomberg. “Before it was done in New York, maybe people didn’t realize a smoking ban could be done. Now you see smoking bans in places you wouldn’t have expected: Ireland, London.”more »

Oakland, CA: The Grocery Gap

Getting a six pack of beer or a bottle of whiskey is no problem for the residents of West Oakland, Ca. Getting a dozen eggs or a quart of milk? That’s a different story altogether. Bluntly stated, there are no grocery stores in West Oakland, but there are a total of 57 liquor stores—for just 30,000 residents. Among these residents, the diabetes rate is three times higher than in the rest of Alameda county, hypertension rates are elevated, and mortality rates rival those of nations in the developing world. “We see a real problem when Cheetos are a choice for breakfast,” says Brahm Ahmadi, co-founder and executive director of the People’s Grocery, an organization aiming to address the lack of access to--and lack of knowledge of--healthy food in the West Oakland community.more »

Philadelphia, PA: Sustainable Homes for the Rest of Us

What do you get when you multiply 1,000 square feet by $100? If Chad Ludeman and Nic Darling do the math, you get a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house within walking distance of the grocery store, less than two blocks from the subway (known as the “L”) and three stops from downtown Philadelphia.more »

Philadelphia, PA: Philly Sports Teams Go for Gold When it Comes to Green

You may have thought the greenest thing about Philadelphia's major league baseball team was its furry green mascot, the Phillie Phanatic. But the city that once led the nation as its first capital back in 1774, is leading the U.S. in a new way in 2008: its professional sports teams have taken unprecedented steps towards greening their enterprises. In April 2008, the Philadelphia Phillies announced it would offset the carbon footprint created by electricity use at Citizens Bank Park. It bought 20 million kilowatt-hours of Green-e Certified Renewable Energy Certificates, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says represents the largest single purchase of 100-percent renewable energy in professional sports.more »

Philadelphia, PA: Retrofitting Religion

If you’ve hung around Greenies at all – or heck, if you’ve picked up a newspaper in the last few years – you’ve heard of “retrofitting”…mostly with regard to environmental engineering. That’s when you go back to an already-built-up site, like a city, and make it green. Add in renewable energy, install a light rail system, put trees on roofs. You get the idea. But have you ever thought of retrofitting an ancient religious tradition? And, more specifically, the Jewish Passover seder? Much like the Freedom Seder he fathered during the Civil Rights era, Philadelphia’s Shalom Center director, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, has once again re-visioned the centuries-old Passover ceremony. This time, he’s made it green.more »

Portland, OR: Urban Cycling

Ah, urban cycling – a playground for young, biking die-hards swerving in and out of motor traffic or for those in expensive gear and rock-hard bodies, right? Well, not exactly. Though some cities’ cyclists still fit the stereotype, there’s a move afoot to make bicycles the vehicle for the masses. And in Portland – recently named “most bike-friendly major city in the U.S.” by the League of American Bicyclists – it’s working.more »

Portland, OR: Depave This!

If you’ve ever looked around you and thought, “There’s just too damn much pavement here!” you’ll understand what Portlanders Kasandra Griffin and Arif Khan were thinking when they co-founded Depave. Inspired by jackhammer jobs in their own yards, Griffin and Khan wanted to motivate others to take stock of surplus pavement…and rip it out. “In my travels around the world, I have yet to be inspired by a beautiful parking lot,” says Khan.more »

Portland, OR: When the Messenger is As Important As the Message

When Marcelo Bonta started working at Defenders of Wildlife in Portland, Oregon, he immediately noticed something unusual. While his undergraduate and graduate schools had plenty of people who looked like him, his new colleagues were nearly all white.more »

Seattle, WA: Rethinking Seattle's Viaduct Highway

The old adage, “My way, or the highway,” gets thrown around so much it’s become cliché. But for Seattle urban planner Cary Moon, it’s the cornerstone of her career. In 2004, Moon co-founded the People’s Waterfront Coalition, a grassroots group that supports sustainable alternatives to the city’s crumbling Alaskan Way Viaduct, a three-story highway that runs along Seattle’s west-side waterfront. The viaduct was badly damaged in a 2001 earthquake and has since sunk more than 5 inches. Its structural integrity is poor—yet 105,000 carbon-emitting cars still travel on it each day. All of which begs the question: would you like to be driving this roadway during the next earthquake?more »

San Francisco, CA: SF's Bicycle Blues: Would the City's Bike Plan do More Harm than Good?

As SustainLane’s top-ranked cities move aggressively to reduce their carbon footprints by building bicycle infrastructure, one city —surprisingly—is lagging behind. It’s not that San Franciscans aren’t pedaling; they are. The bike lane on downtown’s Market Street looks like a veritable cyclist highway at rush hour, and San Francisco ’s Bike Coalition is nearly ten thousand members strong. But the city known for its progressive politics (especially in the greenosphere), has been stymied in its efforts to improve bike routes.more »

San Francisco, CA: SF's Green Thumb

In a nod to its past—and, some hope, its future—the city of San Francisco approved a Victory Garden on the front lawn of City Hall this past summer. The last time the lawns were dug up in favor of leafy greens was in 1943. By mid-August, gardeners were harvesting kale, bok choy, broccoli, beets, collard and mustard greens, and fifteen types of lettuce—all of it donated to a local foodbank. “We wanted a diverse array of plants to demonstrate the potential of what you can grow in San Francisco in your own backyard,” says John Bela, who designed and manages the garden.more »

San Francisco, CA: Come Fog or High Installation Prices

Foggy San Francisco may not seem the likeliest city to lead the nation’s solar energy march, but in July 2008, Mayor Gavin Newsom signed off on a ten-year, multi-million dollar plan to encourage businesses and homeowners to go solar. The Solar Energy Incentive Program was developed to solve the ever-present conundrum: how do you get people to go solar when it costs so darned much for those photovoltaic (PV) panels? Their solution? Give them money.more »

Atlanta, GA: Since When is a Growing Beltline Good?...

Anyone who listens to doctors, personal trainers, and nutritionists is well aware that an expanding belt line is not a good thing. Unless, of course, you happen to be the city of Atlanta. If all goes as planned, the “Beltline” project, nicknamed for a set of unused railway tracks surrounding the city, will include light rail, 1,300 acres of new parks, affordable housing, and walking and cycling trails. Over the next 25 years, Atlanta residents can expect to see an estimated 2.8 billion dollars of investment surge into the old railway line, whose design is based on a Georgia Tech student’s master’s thesis.more »

Chicago, IL: Watering Chicago's Food Deserts

Barack Obama’s career trajectory took him from the rough-and-tumble South Side of Chicago to the U.S. Senate and then, quickly, around the country as his party’s nominee for president. For the folks at Growing Home, a South Side Chicago-based nonprofit offering job training to homeless and low-income individuals through urban-farming, the goals are much more modest: a good job, a living wage and healthy food on the table.more »

Denver, CO: How Big is Your Carbon Footprint?

How do you measure a city’s “real” carbon footprint? It’s a question scientists have asked for decades, and one that Anu Ramaswami has finally answered.
The engineering professor, along with her Ph.D. students at the University of Colorado at Denver, has pioneered the first-ever expanded carbon footprint computation. University officials say it’s the most sophisticated formula yet for measuring an entire city’s greenhouse gas emissions.more »

Detroit, MI: It's Pronounced De-kwin-dur

Located 25 feet below grade is the Dequindre Cut, an abandoned railway line in Detroit. A neon swath of graffiti – of surreal imagery and philosophical musings – cover the bridges that traverse the old track. Broken bottles, discarded building materials, and an overgrowth of vegetation characterize what was once a busy commuter and freight line for the city. Fast-forward a couple of years, and take in the scene anew...more »

New York City, NY: New York City Says Wind is More Than Hot Air

If New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has his way, the Big Apple will soon be riding the winds of change. This past summer, when Bloomberg proposed installing windmills on top of city landmarks—bridges, skyscrapers, turbines sitting in the Hudson and East Rivers—the excitement was palpable. “It would be a thing of beauty if when ‘Lady Liberty’ looks out on the horizon, she not only welcomes new immigrants to our shores, but lights their way with a torch powered by an ocean wind farm,” Bloomberg said.more »

Oakland, CA: How Do you Spell Releaf?

First, the bad news: If you live in West Oakland, pinned between three freeways and a large, dirty port, you’re a lot more likely to develop cancer than people living in many other parts of the country. In fact, a recent study found that exposure to diesel fumes from cars and ships leads to 1,200 “excess cancers” (above the national average) for every one million people. And as though this weren’t alarming enough, another study shows that residents in the area have life spans about two decades shorter than their neighbors in Berkeley. West Oakland families are also beset with asthma and diabetes.more »

Portland, OR: Waste Not, Rot Not

To most people, the rotten fruit that falls from neighborhood trees onto streets and sidewalks is a moldy nuisance. To Katy Kolker and Sarah Cogan, it became a call to action. During their walks around Portland a few years ago, the two women were struck by the amount of fruit decaying on the curbside at a time when many people in the area were going hungry. That wondered if there were a way to get neighborhood fruit into neighborhood bellies—and it turns out there is.
“There are lots of tree owners who are more than happy to share their fruit,” says Kolker.more »

Seattle, WA: Be the We

In her mid-40s, Vic Opperman was ready to take up the toughest job she'd ever love. The Seattle resident had long planned to join the U.S. Peace Corps, and the time to do so had finally come. "But right before the second Iraq war," she says, "I changed my mind. I decided the U.S. needs more help than some of these other countries." So instead, Opperman stayed put. And in 2003 -- along with Artemis Jones and David Wright -- she founded one of the most progressive green neighborhood groups in any of the country's large cities.more »

Seattle, WA: Turning a New Page

Shakespeare gave us Hamlet. Tolstoy gave us War and Peace. Joyce gave us Ulysses. Those were their gifts. But today, book lovers also bear the albatross of their literary art: millions of dead trees. In fact, some 4 billion trees are cut down each year for paper—and about 30 million of them are used for books bought in the U.S. alone. This fact didn’t sit right with friends Raz Godelnik, Eylon Israely, Oren Entin, and Gilad Ness-Berlin, four literature buffs who last year founded Eco Libris, a Seattle- and Delaware-based organization that works to balance out trees lost to book-making by planting new ones in developing countries, from Malawi to Guatemala.more »

Detroit, MI: Container Condos

Look no further than Detroit for the next trend in urban living. What’s so special about the 17-unit condo complex slated for construction near Wayne University? How about low-flow plumbing fixtures, tankless water heaters, energy efficient appliances, radiant floor heating, and a special paint that repels radiant heat. And as though all that were not enough, the condos will be constructed from old shipping containers—93 of them to be exact.more »

Columbus, OH: Sick of Suits? Columbus Residents Try Spandex on for Size

When Doug Morgan’s daughter totaled his car six years ago, he decided against replacing it, opting to buy a bicycle instead. “I hadn’t been on a bike since I was a paper boy,” he says. A prominent Columbus attorney and outspoken cycling advocate, Morgan represents a growing number of the city’s residents who are ditching automobiles in favor of alternative modes of transportation.more »

Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles Looks to Re-Green its River

Ok, Angelenos, imagine this: a picturesque, 30-mile-long expanse of green, complete with parks and paths and planted with native, drought-resistant vegetation all along the Los Angeles River. Imagine rollerblading and pushing jogging strollers and barbecuing right on the banks of the historic waterway...more »

Boston, MA: Come Fry With Me

French fries may be terrible for your arteries, but Don Levy thinks they’re pretty darn good for the environment. Sort of. Levy owns Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown, MA. For the last three years he’s been heating his restaurant with spent oil from his fry maker. Not only does this eliminate the need for heating oil – it also slashes his heating bill to nothing. Watertown isn’t in Boston proper, but the rising cost of winter heating oil is an important issue facing cities in the northeast, not to mention other areas that suffer cold, harsh winters. Three years ago, Levy says, he was paying $2 a gallon for heating oil. This winter, he says, oil looks to be heading toward $5.45 for the same gallon. That’s why, when Levy learned that he’d have to replace his oil-fired heater, he decided to try something new.more »

Boston, MA: Taking in the Trash

Used to be you took out the trash. But if Boston officials have their way, the trash will soon be coming in—at least some of it, that is.

City officials hope to use this trash to produce enough energy to power about 1,500 homes. It’s all part of an innovative new initiative to create an indoor composting center that would help slash green-house gas emissions from the decaying pile of discarded food and yard-cuttings that comprise Beantown’s outdoor, 6,000-ton composting program. The new facility would allow officials to separate out the high-energy components in the pile and feed them into an anaerobic digester, where they would be converted to methane gas. This biofuel would then be used to power a turbine that could generate 1.5 megawatts of power. Not bad for a pile of garbage!
In Boston (and around the country) outdoor compostimore »

Tulsa, OK: Painting the Bible Belt Green

An evangelical Christian, a long haired Hippie, an organic farmer, and a mother of three walk into a city council meeting… Sounds like it could be a good one, right? But it’s no joke. Instead, it’s a vision of what sustainability groups in Tulsa, Oklahoma hope will be the future of the city’s environmental and sustainable living movement: a coming together of groups not known for sharing common ideals.more »