Tag: Sustainability

In Charleston, South Carolina's historically significant Eastside neighborhood, the city is trying new approaches to improving energy efficiency and flood protection.

My first reaction to the emergence of “resilience” as a lens for viewing community development was mostly informed by skepticism.

Community development fits well within the growing resilience movement—and connecting the two more explicitly could make their work even more powerful.

Cities cannot weather the effects of climate change without going beyond infrastructure to address institutional racism, historical inequities, and access to physical and mental health services.

By building energy-efficient properties, Habitat reduces heating costs and frees up more than $100 each month for homeowners.

As extreme weather patterns in our country become less of an anomaly, the plight of people living in storm-prone places is of increasing concern....

Located in the southeast quadrant of Washington, D.C., Parkchester Apartments was not unlike some other affordable housing developments in the city. Property owners had come and gone without making adequate investments in the nine-building complex, and residents had all but given up when its tenant association voted to bring in its current owner, The NHP Foundation (NHPF), in 2015. Within months, residents began to see signs of improvement. Top on the list of changes was the realignment of Parkchester’s environmental footprint.

Orness Plaza is one of the only public housing developments geared toward seniors and the disabled in Mankato, Minn., the state’s fourth largest city....

Holistic, green building certifications are an increasingly integral part of affordable housing development. These certifications are often pursued by...

Too many people are forced to choose between paying to heat and cool their homes or paying for medicine, food and other necessities.

Book Review: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein

It’s not unusual to read a press release from a governor’s or mayor’s office celebrating a deal to bring a new company to a neighborhood or city. Typically we’d be talking about a new manufacturing or tech firm, and the press release would speak glowingly of the prospects for economic development. Which makes a bit […]

It was a bright, sunny day in Chicago on September 24. Celebrants were singing, “You Are My Sunshine,” as the solar panels had already saved $64 since the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) in the US had started them up just a few hours earlier. With 483 panels, each producing 310 watts, ICA’s 166,000 square […]

We spoke with Tom Szaky, TerraCycle's founder and CEO, about social enterprise, locating in a distressed community, and what he as an employer would want out of workforce development programs.

At the Farm Pond Circle Reforestation Community in South Lansing, N.Y., a small community outside of the small city of...

Having just come back from two weeks in Japan, my brain is still overflowing with sensations and images from that fascinating, exciting, and intermittently...

The Resilience Imperative: Cooperative Transitions to a Steady-State Economy, by Michael Lewis and Pat Conaty. New Society Publishers, 2012, 400 pp., $26.95. I must admit...

Shelterforce hopes that all of our colleagues and friends in Hurricane Sandy's path are staying safe. We...

There has been a steady rising interest in urban agriculture over the past several years—from urban farms to community gardens...

My friend Eliot Allen first introduced me to the concept of neighborhood completeness: that the quality of a place is defined in part by...