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As Concerns Over Climate Change Rise, More Developers Turn to Wood

Keith Schneider

September 22, 2020 |

The New York Times |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Spokane, Washington

Eastern Washington University recently built the first tall wood office building in the state joining hundreds of other large “mass-timber” projects in the United States. This growing industry constructs panels, beams, and columns from trees that need to be thinned to curb wildfires in forests. While wood buildings can be more expensive to build than ones constructed from concrete and steel, environmentalists are on board because wood can store carbon, which can help offset greenhouse gas emissions.

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This revolutionary housing reform bill out of Portland would bring relief to tons of Philadelphians

Jessica Blatt Press

September 16, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Portland, Oregon

Portland's new policy allowing for multi-family homes resulted from a long campaign of coalition building to address a need for middle-income housing that often gets overlooked in many cities. Although the Residential Infill Project will not take effect until August 2021, its enactment offers cities like Philadelphia lessons in strategic policymaking that overcomes entrenched views at opposite ends of the income and class spectrum, from property owners concerned about declining home values and advocates for low-income housing concerned about gentrification.

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The buildings heated by human warmth

Chermaine Lee

September 08, 2020 |

BBC |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Sweden, Stockholm

Harnessing body heat provides energy-saving heating to commercial and residential buildings. The Stockholm Central station in Sweden and the Mall of America in Minnesota both capture body warmth to provide some of the buildings' heat. Each has over 100,000 daily visitors during non-coronavirus times, generating substantial heat that can be captured by energy-efficient construction. Body heat is also utilized in residential spaces, where thermal insulation helps keep the warmth inside. Using body heat requires energy-efficient building materials and generally cannot provide all of a building's heating needs.

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How Europe's Greenest Capital Is Saving City Trees

Edward Belleville

August 03, 2020 |

Next City |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Germany, Berlin

Cities around the world are using apps and interactive platforms to encourage resident volunteers to care for their urban forests. For example, in Berlin, Gieß den Kiez (Water the Neighborhood) is an app that allows users to watch their local trees and water them in times of need. When the app launched, there were 1,000 unique users and over 7,000 individual tree waterings in the first six weeks. However, the cost of planting and maintaining trees can be expensive and where the trees are located in cities and who benefits from them is not always equitable.

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How Urban Planning Keeps Cities Segregated—and Maintains White Supremacy

Julian Agyeman

July 31, 2020 |

Yes! Magazine |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Urban planning policies can lead to greater racial segregation, sometimes intentionally. While older policies could be explicitly racist, today policies such as zoning, which designates land for residential or industrial use, effectively excludes communities of color, immigrants, and households with lower incomes. Residential segregation leads to education, income, and health disparities. Minneapolis ended single-family zoning so lots can be converted to more affordable duplexes and triplexes and is working towards requiring new apartment projects to reserve units for low- to moderate-income households.

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Want More Housing? Ending Single-Family Zoning Won't Do It.

Emily Hamilton

July 29, 2020 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Houston, Texas

Abolishing single-family zoning rules as an affordable-housing solution has failed in places such as Minneapolis and Oregon because their narrowly drawn reforms left other obstacles in place. Houston serves as an example of effective policies that promote "missing middle" housing – denser developments than detached houses – because it combined its lack of single-family zoning with a reduction in minimum lots sizes. The result is far more affordable housing than in other booming job markets. Lot-size restrictions are among several other rules that can frustrate the desire for more housing.

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Could leaving 'room for the river' help protect communities from floods?

Samantha Harrington

July 15, 2020 |

Yale Climate Connections |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Davenport, Iowa

While many communities in the Midwest use dams and levees to control the Mississippi River, some are trying new approaches to flood control as climate change threatens to increase rainfall and the severity of storms in the region. Some cities are turning to the Dutch solution of leaving “room for the river” to allow the body of water to flow naturally and design public spaces to handle inundation. While this technique doesn’t always work during major flooding events, traditional flood control strategies can be more harmful and actually worsen flooding.

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How the ‘15-Minute City' Could Help Post-Pandemic Recovery

Patrick Sisson

July 15, 2020 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: France

Some cities are using coronavirus shutdowns as opportunities to start infrastructure projects that support car-free living and encourage walking or biking to jobs, shopping, and city services. Car-free urban development benefits the environment, revitalizes cities by keeping resources local, and has become more appealing because of fears of virus spread. Paris, Milan, Tallinn, Ottawa, and Portland are among the cities using coronavirus-related lockdowns to kickstart bike lane and pedestrian zone projects. As the pandemic has decimated city budgets, it is a challenging time to begin infrastructure projects.

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Behind the Accidentally Resilient Design of Athens Apartments

Feargus O'Sullivan

July 15, 2020 |

Bloomberg |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Greece, Athens

Athens's distinctive apartment buildings, known as polikatoikia, have unintentionally solved problems most cities grapple with. The housing complexes have given rise to a city that has socio-economic integration, decent living conditions, and well-lit apartments with ample outdoor space for fresh air. The varying heights of the buildings have allowed the city to avoid the austerity common for affordable housing projects and efforts to control costs resulted in a modernist design that gives Athens a unique roofscape. Additionally, the outdoor spaces foster a warm and welcoming sense of community.

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Going ‘Deep Green,' Office Buildings Give Back to the Planet

Jane Margolies

July 14, 2020 |

The New York Times |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

More and more commercial real estate projects are popping up around the United States that are focused on “deep green” building. This movement suggests that it’s not enough to just make a building out of renewable materials, but they can also be self-sustaining. For example, the Watershed, an office building in Seattle, has a slanted roof that collects rainwater that is then used in toilets. These types of projects can be more complicated and expensive to build, but developers can save money in the long run with the improvements.

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