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

    July 14, 2020 |

    The New York Times |

    Text |

    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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  • In Seattle, Protests Over Racial Equity Turn to Land Ownership

    June 23, 2020 |

    Bloomberg CityLab |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    Over 1000 community members gathered to demand officials keep a 2016 promise to give a vacant publicly-owned fire station to the Africatown Community Land Trust. The station is in a historically Black and quickly gentrifying neighborhood and the trust wants to turn it into a resource center to develop the next generation of Black entrepreneurs. As citywide protests for racial equality spread, the city abruptly agreed to turn it over. The group also wants more unused properties turned over to Black community ownership and for the city to develop an anti-gentrification land acquisition fund.

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  • Design Hacks Will Dominate the Coronavirus Recovery Landscape

    June 23, 2020 |

    Bloomberg CityLab |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States

    Covid-19 created space for everyday citizens, who are not trained architects, designers, or urban planners, to alter how public spaces are used. Known as tactical urbanism, everyday people are using inexpensive and creative ways to change behaviors and stop the spread of the virus. Examples include homemade signs and makeshift barriers to maintain distance. At a protest in Israel participants maintained social distancing by staying on spray-painted Xs two meters apart. Some homemade design hacks do not inspire confidence, but others may become a part of the long-term landscape of changes caused by the virus.

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  • The long road to a zero-carbon country

    June 01, 2020 |

    BBC |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: Costa Rica, San José

    The capital city of San José in Costa Rica is taking steps to become greener and less dependent on cars. By focusing on public transportation initiatives like city bikes and bike lanes, a green esplanade, and an electric passenger train, the city is hoping to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and help the country reach net zero-carbon by 2050. While the cost of these projects can be pricey, many residents are strong advocates for making the city more sustainable.

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  • 'Cool pavement' experiments help urban planners find ways to ease rising temperatures

    May 15, 2020 |

    AZ Central (The Arizona Republic) |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Los Angeles, California

    To combat the effects of rising temperatures due to climate change, Los Angeles piloted an experiment called “cool pavements,” where they coat streets with a light-colored sealant to reflect heat. Researchers are studying how effective this method is at reducing the urban heat island effect. Using a mobile sensor station, they found mixed results: While the surface temperature of the road was cooler, a person could feel warmer on the reflective roads. Figuring out how to balance different heat-mitigating strategies could be helpful as cities like Phoenix figure out how to implement cooling infrastructure.

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  • The best trees to reduce air pollution

    May 04, 2020 |

    BBC |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: Canada, Oakville, Ontario

    New technology is helping urban planners and developers better identify which trees could help cities reduce air pollution. In Ontario, the city of Oakville adopted a new software that resulted in planners halting the planting of one type of tree after learning it had little benefit on the air quality, while another digital tool designed in London is helping citizens determine which plants help remove particulate matter.

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  • How do you build a city for a pandemic? Audio icon

    April 26, 2020 |

    BBC |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, New York, New York

    Major populated cities such as New York and London were once regarded as "death traps," but a series of deadly outbreaks led to structural changes that worked to improve the public health outcomes for those living there. From sewer systems to therapeutic gardens, the health of those living in cities has improved in a variety of ways, however, that has not stopped densely populated areas from turning into hotspots for coronavirus. To address this, local governments are experimenting with even more structural changes such as turning city streets into walking and biking paths.

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  • This tool is helping cities find the neighborhoods most vulnerable to coronavirus

    March 24, 2020 |

    FastCompany |

    Text |

    Under 800 Words

    Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

    A new urban planning tool called Urban Footprint is helping governments to map out their most vulnerable neighborhoods and populations. Originally designed in 2018 to help city planners make sense of large data sets and understand the implication of potential policies on traffic, energy use, or multiple other factors, Urban Footprint was easily adapted to pull in data from the CDC and other inputs for COVID-19 considerations.

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  • Pour It On: How Dutch Cities Are Soaking up Rain and Reducing Flooding

    March 10, 2020 |

    The Times-Picayune |

    Multi-Media |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: Netherlands, Rotterdam

    A green roof initiative is one of the projects Rotterdam, a city in the Netherlands, is working on to capture and store more rainwater; a solution that might work in Louisiana. With heavier rains and more intense storms due to climate change in both places, the amount of rainfall coming down can overwhelm drainage systems. Although the price tag can be high to build these green roofs, Rotterdam boasts 100 acres of green roofs that have increased the city’s water storage capacity by about 1.6 million gallons.

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  • 'Visible women': Feminist mappers bridge data gap in urban design

    March 07, 2020 |

    Thomson Reuters Foundation |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Mexico, Mexico City

    The underrepresentation of women in technology and computer science has led to the creation of Geochicas, a group of women who recruit and train female, open source mappers across the world. Open source mapping is a male-dominated pursuit but one that informs urban design and public policy. When mapping a city, women tend to add services that are overlooked by men, such as childcare services, hospitals, and women's health clinics. Diversifying the volunteers who do this work to include more women leads to mapping that is more inclusive and minimizes crowdsourced-data bias against women.

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