Image from the PlaNYC 2030 Website

In introducing his bold, comprehensive plan for a sustainable New York on Earth Day, Mayor Michael Bloomberg pointed to research showing that New Yorkers already had the lowest per capita carbon emissions in the nation. While most news outlets focused on the controversial idea of congestion pricing for Manhattan below 86th Street, they missed the larger point: Well-planned urbanism is likely to be our best hope for curbing greenhouse gas emissions and cutting oil dependency. Sheryl Eisenberg, a New Yorker who blogs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, explains: “The primary reason is … population density. First, it makes a truly comprehensive public transit system possible. Second, it makes walking and biking emissions-free modes of transportation viable. And third, it keeps home energy use down,” because New Yorkers live in smaller-than-average dwellings, and shared walls are more efficient.”

An essay by SGA’s David Goldberg Going into the Mississippi Renewal Forum, I believed that a measure of skepticism was warranted. The time was compressed, the circumstances extreme, the citizens preoccupied with reordering and rebuilding their lives. The goal of creating redevelopment plans for a stretch of coast including 11 communities in just one week … Continued

An essay by SGA’s David Goldberg

There’s something about an event such as Katrina’s devastation of the Gulf coast region that tempts hyperbole.

Just as we fell into the habit of repeating to ourselves that “September 11 changed everything” – though less may have changed than was warranted — it is hard now to believe that we’ll ever go back to the level of complacency that characterized our lives before Katrina.

Yet to my mind, there can be no doubt that this is – or ought to be — a watershed moment for our movement.