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Events

Resources

Two Upcoming Sustainability and Smart Growth Forums

"Corridor Planning: Lessons from the Route 30 Master Plan"
Wednesday, July 25
11:30 am - 1 pm
23rd Floor, Regional Enterprise Tower, 425 Sixth Ave.
Fetterolf Room
Pittsburgh (downtown)
Bring a brown bag lunch - beverages and dessert provided
No fee to attend.
Register: info@sustainablepittsburgh.org or 412-258-6642
Hosted by: Local Government Academy and Sustainable Pittsburgh

The Smart Growth Partnership of Westmoreland County (SGPWC) has initiated a collaborative corridor planning process to create a vision and plan for a 40-mile stretch of the historic “Lincoln Highway”. This section of Route 30 connects the historic small cities and growing suburbs east of Pittsburgh to the scenic Laurel Highlands. When complete, the Route 30 Master Plan will become a strategic blueprint for Westmoreland County’s economic growth corridor. Learn how this corridor plan is utilizing sound transportation and land use planning approaches to develop cost-conscious investment priorities, intelligent strategies for congestion management and multi-municipal development regulations and design guidelines.

Attend this program to learn about the corridor planning process including: how the process got started and how it’s progressing; getting stakeholders on board; providing public participation opportunities; and keeping the momentum going.

Speaker: Alex Graziani – Smart Growth Partnership of Westmoreland County

"A Climate Change Roadmap for Pennsylvania"
Thursday, August 2
11:30 am - 1 pm
23rd Floor, Regional Enterprise Tower, 425 Sixth Ave.
Fetterolf Room
Pittsburgh (downtown)
Bring a brown bag lunch - beverages and dessert provided
No fee to attend.
Register: info@sustainablepittsburgh.org or 412-258-6642
Hosted by: Pennsylvania Environmental Council and Sustainable Pittsburgh

Governor Rendell and the General Assembly are actively working on legislation and regulatory proposals concerning alternative energy generation, biofuel development, and energy efficiency. These proposals have tremendous implications for the future of our environment, our economy, and our quality of life. Equally important, these proposals represent a collective step toward addressing the challenge of climate change in Pennsylvania.

In June the Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) released its Climate Change Roadmap for Pennsylvania – a comprehensive set of policy recommendations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the Commonwealth, as well as an up-to-date inventory of existing emissions. Currently our state generates approximately 1% of the worldwide total of greenhouse gases, placing us alongside the top 25 emitting nations in the world. Brian Hill and John Walliser from PEC will present the findings of the Roadmap and facilitate a discussion on its relation to the many policy proposals circulating in Harrisburg. 

The forums are sponsored by:

Resources Continued

Celebrate Recycling - Official launch of newly renovated City recycling drop-off center and "hard to recycle" collection

Saturday, July 14
10 am - 2 pm
Construction Junction - N. Lexington Street, Pittsburgh
Point Breeze (Pittsburgh)
Info: (412) 488-7490 x243 or prc.org

The Pennsylvania Resources Council (PRC), in partnership with the City of Pittsburgh Recycling Division, Appliance Warehouse, and Construction Junction, is accepting major appliances including air conditioners and refrigerators, tires, scrap metal, cell phones, and ink cartridges during its "hard to recycle" collection. Additionally, PRC is partnering with the City of Pittsburgh Recycling Division to celebrate the grand opening of the City's newly renovated recycling drop-off, which is located in the Construction Junction parking lot. Recycling regulars will be happy to note the increase in bins, a roof, and a smooth parking lot! For the newcomers, it's a dream come true! The public is welcome to stop by for games, giveaways, prizes and activities-fun for the whole family! Learn why it's important to recycle, talk to representatives from local organizations including PRC and Free Ride (think: Recycle A Bike program), get your picture taken with Buster the Recycling Raccoon, and test your intelligence with the infamous "can guess" game.

DiverseCITY Pittsburgh Festival

August 16 - 19
PNC Firstside Park - Grant Street & First Avenue
Pittsburgh (Downtown)
Info: diversecitypittsburgh.org

The inaugural DiverseCITY Pittsburgh Festival will include free concerts and performances by national and local entertainers; fun, cultural and artistic activities for youth and children; international foods, exhibits by local community services and cultural organizations and a global marketplace.

Pennsylvania Wilds Conference

September 13 - 14
Williamsport
Cost $75
More

This is the first large-scale gathering of those involved and interested in the Pennsylvania Wilds initiative. Attendees will include elected officials, planners, downtown mangers, business owners, economic development leaders, recreation providers, conservation organizations and others from the 12-county region in northcentral Pennsylvania.

Resources

Live Earth gigs send eco-warning

Rock stars around the world performed to hundreds of thousands of music fans to highlight climate change.

Four Garfield men help young people as they once helped each other

As mentors, they cut larger-than-life figures in the community. They are big and tall, and boldly go about their mission with a certain sense of depth and experience acquired over many years of dealing with teen-age black boys and girls in Garfield.

Dig to the roots

Segregated neighborhoods produce segregated schools. If school efforts to support student diversity are now in jeopardy, our region must redouble its efforts to end housing discrimination and promote integrated communities

Planners urge dramatic change in region's development patterns before open space is gone

The study urges communities to concentrate growth around urban and town centers and transportation hubs, a policy known as smart growth. It also calls for smaller houses and clustered development to preserve open space. Without these changes, sprawl threatens the quality of life for most people in the region, according to the report, which predicts that by the year 2030...

Houston needs more than slugfest of slogans

Regional problems require regional solutions. The mayor and the Harris County judge should take the lead, working closely with the Houston-Galveston Area Council, to craft a new outcomes-driven metropolitan strategy for the next 20-25 years. This should involve a series of intergovernmental compacts dealing with transportation, flood control, environmental quality and our shared network bayous and open space. We are at a critical juncture. The course we set over the next few years will largely determine the success of our region in a globalizing 21st century. It is important that we get it right — and soon.

The Vacant Building Syndrome

This state of affairs comes at just the time when many older, deteriorated neighborhoods offer the best opportunity for urban regeneration and the best resource for addressing the national affordable housing crisis.

The Steel City Goes Green

It all points to a new wave of urban green construction, and in a sustainable metropolis, the building is just the beginning.

CMU grads want to use blighted industrial, residential sites to produce bio-fuel crops

The residential component is the second prong of GTECH's plan. In Pittsburgh alone, there are 14,600 vacant lots. Aided by the East Liberty Development Inc. group and staked to $20,000 by the Sprout Fund, a 6-year-old group that finances community projects, GTECH will begin planting on the three East Liberty home lots later this summer. Those lots will host brassica plants -- a form of mustard seed -- as well as sunflowers and poplars, a hardy, fast-growing tree that takes root in fallow land.

'SmartCode' is smart growth

SmartCode recognizes that the city needs to diversify its tax base and, if it's about to be "built out," the only way to grow is up. The plan would allow buildings up to 10 stories with a mix of uses, including residential. It also gives the city an opportunity to give some flair and sense of place to a city that, unlike Hernando or Collierville, does not have a town square. SmartCode potentially gives the city an opportunity to rejuvenate a central business district that some people feel has become stale.

Building a Movement for Durable, Healthier and More Efficient Housing: Lessons from Minnesota and Beyond

Affordable Housing’s Green Future by Tony Proscio describes the remarkable efforts of funders, policymakers, researchers and community-based developers in Minnesota to make all affordable housing in the state environmentally sustainable. Minnesota Green Communities has made substantial progress in just two years, putting the initiative’s ambitious goal to make all the affordable housing in the state green within cautious reach in the near future. Minnesota Green Communities is a partner in the national Green Communities initiative to which Enterprise has committed $555 million to create 8,500 highly sustainable homes for low-income people. Green Communities seeks to make green building and smart development the mainstream among affordable housing developers. After just two years, Green Communities has helped develop 150 sustainable developments, with more than 7,000 homes in 23 states under way or completed. More than 2,700 affordable housing professionals have received training in green planning, design, development and operations. More than 20 state and local housing agencies have adopted policies favorable to sustainable affordable development.

New York publisher turns a green page

In the concrete jungle of Manhattan stands a paragon of green: the new Hearst Tower, rising from the original Hearst building’s historic facade. Ninety percent of its steel is recycled. It uses 26 percent less energy and 10 percent less water than a conventional office building. Sensors detect when a room is empty and automatically turn off the lights and computers

The Hague Announces Project To Warm 4,000 Houses Using Geothermal Heating

The Dutch city of The Hague on Wednesday announced plans to use geothermal heating -- water from a hot well deep underground -- to warm 4,000 households and several industrial buildings, as part of a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Business sees green in going green

Companies are increasingly considering their environmental costs as a way to bolster their brand name and consumer confidence in their product. "Outside of obvious costs, their returns are also measured in corporate reputation gains and the ability to continue operation into the future," says Roger Burritt, a professor at the University of South Australia in Adelaide who studies corporate accountability toward the environment.

Report: Pennsylvania's climate could be like Alabama's

Without major reductions in heat-trapping gas emissions, Pennsylvanians can say goodbye to ski resorts, snowmobiles, brook trout and eastern hemlocks, and expect many more heat-related health problems by the end of the century, according to a study on the effects of climate change on the Northeast. The two-year study, "Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment," released by the Union of Concerned Scientists yesterday in Pittsburgh and six other cities in the region, concludes that droughts and floods would occur more often and the state's dairy industry and corn and apple farmers would suffer significant and costly losses if carbon dioxide emissions continue to grow unabated.

Going Green: Mall At Robinson Downsizes Trash

Wednesday, Channel 11 spotlighted the Mall at Robinson and its energy efficient and environmentally conscious. On any given day the mall generates hundreds of pounds of trash, so they installed two huge compactors to downsize the amount sent to landfills.

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Sustainable Pittsburgh affects decision-making in the Pittsburgh Region to integrate economic prosperity, social equity and environmental quality bringing sustainable solutions to communities and businesses.

Sustainable Pittsburgh benefits from support in 2007 from:

Dollar Bank
Elsie H. Hillman Foundation
The Giant Eagle Foundation
The Heinz Endowments
Richard King Mellon Foundation
Roy A. Hunt Foundation
University of Pittsburgh


Special thanks to the SP Members

Sustainable Pittsburgh
425 Sixth Avenue, Suite 1335
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
(412) 258-6642
fax (412) 258-6645
E-mail SP