The health of our planet and our selves depends on how we plan, design, and construct the world between our buildings. Our increasing dependence on fossil fuels over the last century has given us unprecedented individual mobility and comfort, but the consequences are clear. Climate change, sprawl, and reliance on foreign oil are just a few of the challenges we face in designing new — and adapting existing — communities to be greener.
Based on the National Building Museum's Green Community exhibition, this book is a collection of thought-provoking essays that illuminate the connections among personal health, community health, and our planet's health. Green Community brings together diverse experts, each of whom has a unique approach to sustainable planning, design, politics, and construction. Edited by the Green Community exhibition curator, Susan Piedmont-Pallidino and Timothy Mennel.
Hear from contributors of Green Community, the new book from APA published in conjunction with the National Building Museum.
Green Community Introduction
Featuring co-editors Timothy Mennel and Susan Piedmont-Palladino.
In the first podcast, listen to Green Community co-editors Timothy Mennel and Susan Piedmont-Palladino discuss contributor insights and the book's production.
Density and Transportation
Featuring: F. Kaid Benfield, Fred Hansen, and Mariela Alfonzo.
Conservation
Featuring: Timothy Beatley and Patrice Frey.
Energy (Part I)
Featuring: Mary Rickel Pelletier.
Energy (Part II)
Featuring: Erica Heller, AICP, and Mark Heller, AICP.
Local and Global Health
Featuring: Carolyn Steel and Esther M. Sternberg
Advance Praise
"Today, more than any time in history, we live in a global economy where quality of place drives the free flow of capital. And as the lines between urban, suburban, and rural challenges blur, from poverty to housing affordability, strong neighborhoods are increasingly becoming a yardstick with which we measure America's success. Green Community is a definitive work on the sustainability challenge, offering us a blueprint for integrated transportation, housing, and land-use development and catalyzing a new generation of metropolitan and rural decision making that builds a geography of opportunity for every American." — Shaun Donovan
Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
"Green Community is a rich, fact-filled, and up-to-date collection of today's critical environmental issues and how to deal with them. It is invaluable." — Roberta Brandes Gratz
Author of The Living City: Thinking Small in a Big Way and Cities Back from the Edge: New Life for Downtown
"Green Community is a thoughtful, provocative collection of essays that explore a dizzying range of concepts that are contained in that elusive phrase "green community." These timely essays vitally inform us-poised as we are on the cusp of what will likely be generational changes in our global economy, in how we provide the energy we need, in how we travel, and in our ideas about what constitutes "the good life" in our neighborhoods, towns, cities, and suburbs around the world." — Harriet Tregoning
Cofounder and former director of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute, former secretary of the Maryland Department of Planning, and cofounder of the Smart Growth Network
Timothy Beatley is the Teresa Heinz Professor of
Sustainable Communities at the University of Virginia,
where he has taught for more than 20 years. He has
authored or coauthored 15 books, including The Ecology
of Place, Green Urbanism, Native to Nowhere, and Ethical
Land Use. He holds a Ph.D. in city and regional planning
from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
F. Kaid Benfield is director of the smart-growth
program at the Natural Resources Defense Council
in Washington, D.C. He supervises research, public
education, and works with all levels of government
and the private sector on behalf of sustainable land
development in America. He cofounded LEED-ND,
a national process for defining and certifying smartgrowth
development, under the auspices of the U.S.
Green Building Council. He is also a founder and
board member of Smart Growth America, a nationwide
coalition of organizations working together on
smart-growth strategies. Benfield has authored or
coauthored many publications, including Smart
Growth in a Changing World (APA Planners Press, 2007)
and Solving Sprawl.
Earl Blumenauer: Throughout a public-service career
that has spanned more than 35 years, U.S. Representative
Earl Blumenauer of Oregon has focused on livable
communities—places where families are safe, healthy,
and economically secure. He served three terms in
the Oregon State Legislature starting in 1972, followed
by two terms as a Multnomah County commissioner
and 10 years on the Portland City Council before being
elected to Congress in 1996. He now serves as the vice
chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence
and Climate Change and is a member of the Ways and
Means Committee.
William D. Browning is a partner in Terrapin Bright
Green LLC, which crafts environmental strategies for
corporations, government agencies, and large-scale
developments. In 1991, he founded the Rocky Mountain
Institute's Green Development Services, the recipient
of the 1999 President's Council for Sustainable Development/
Renew America Prize. He is a founding member
of U.S. Green Building Council's board of directors
and Greening America. He served on the Department
of Defense's Defense Science Board Energy Task Force
and the State Department's Industry Advisory Panel.
Thomas L. Daniels is a professor in the Department
of City and Regional Planning at the University of
Pennsylvania. He teaches courses on environmental
planning, land-use planning, and growth management.
His latest book is the third edition of The Small Town
Planning Handbook (APA Planners Press, 2007).
Howard Frumkin is director of the National Center
for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances
and Disease Registry at the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. He is an internist, environmental
and occupational medicine specialist, and epidemiologist.
Previously, Dr. Frumkin was professor and chair
of the Department of Environmental and Occupational
Health at Emory University's Rollins School of Public
Health and professor of medicine at Emory Medical
School. Currently serving on the Institute of Medicine
Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences,
Research, and Medicine, he is a Fellow of the American
College of Physicians and the American College of
Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Sir Peter Hall is Bartlett Professor of Planning
and Regeneration at the Bartlett School of Architecture
and Planning, University College London. He is also president of the Town and Country Planning Association.
He was a member of Richard Rogers's Urban
Task Force and of the Department of Communities
and Local Government's Eco-Towns Challenge Panel.
Fred Hansen: As general manager of TriMet, the
regional transit authority in the Portland, Oregon,
metro area, Hansen is a recognized leader in the transit
industry, having lectured and participated on panels
throughout the United States and around the world. He
has carried the message that land use and transportation
must be fully integrated if we are to address global
climate change and the livability needs of our citizens.
He chairs the American Public Transportation Association's
Sustainability Task Force. Previously, he served
as deputy administrator of the U.S. EPA in the Clinton
administration and directed the Oregon Department of
Environmental Quality for more than 10 years.
Erica Heller, AICP, is
an associate with Clarion Associates, a land-use
zoning and planning firm based in Denver. She writes
zoning codes and comprehensive plans for communities
of all sizes. She has published and spoken about
land-use regulations for wind turbines and other local
renewable-energy issues.
Mark Heller, AICP, has professional
expertise in community planning, economic and
real estate development, environmental advocacy, and
law. He serves as the executive director of the Golden
Urban Renewal Authority in Golden, Colorado. He
led that community in developing an award-winning
sustainability plan with broad citizen support.
James A. LaGro Jr. is a professor in the Department
of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of
Wisconsin–Madison, with more than 25 years of
professional experience. His research and teaching
seek to advance the sustainable redevelopment of
the built environment. He is the author of Site Analysis:
A Contextual Approach to Sustainable Land Planning
and Site Design.
Robert E. Lang is
director of the National Capital Region Urban Affairs
and Planning Program, codirector of the Metropolitan
Institute, and a professor in Urban Affairs and Planning
at Virginia Tech. He is the editor of Housing Policy
Debate. Lang's research specialties include suburban
studies, world cities, demographic and spatial analysis,
housing and the built environment, and metropolitan
governance. His publications include Boomburbs: The
Rise of America's Accidental Cities and the three-volume
Redefining Urban and Suburban America: Evidence from
Census 2000. He received a Ph.D. in sociology from
Rutgers University
Mariela Alfonzo is an urbandesign
researcher and consultant specializing in the
"triple bottom line" — the social, environmental, and
economic value — of urban design. She is a postdoctoral
fellow at the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia
Tech, in the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning.
Her current projects include a research study with
the Brookings Institution on real estate value and
community design and an assessment of the value of
public spaces within regenerated retail environments
in Europe.
Scott Malcolm is
a research economist with the Economic Research
Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. His recent
research examines the role of renewable energy and
climate policy on agricultural land, resources, and
markets. Recent publications include contributions
to "Increasing Feedstock Production for Biofuels"
(2008) and "Weaning Off Corn: Crop Residues and the Transition to Cellulosic Ethanol" (2008).
Marcel Aillery is an agricultural economist with the Economic
Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. His
research has addressed agricultural conservation and
environmental policy, with a focus on water use and
quality. Recent articles include "Integrating Commodity
and Conservation Programs: Design Options and
Outcomes," "Contrasting Working-Land and Land
Retirement Programs," and "Managing Manure to
Improve Air and Water Quality."
Timothy Mennel is senior editor and acquisitions
manager for Planners Press and Planning Advisory
Service Reports at the American Planning Association.
He coedited Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York and
developed the exhibition Growing and Greening New York:
PlaNYC and the Future of the City at the Museum of the
City of New York. He has been an editor at Random
House, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual
Arts, Artforum, and elsewhere, as well as a consultant
to the Rockefeller Foundation. He has a Ph.D. in
geography from the University of Minnesota.
Richard Moe is the
president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation,
whose mission is to save the nation's diverse
historic places and create more livable communities
for all Americans. A member of the board of the Ford
Foundation, Moe was the recipient of the Vincent
Scully Prize from the National Building Museum in
2007. He is coauthor of Changing Places: Rebuilding
Community in the Age of Sprawl and author of The Last Full
Measure: The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers.
Moe graduated from Williams College and received a
law degree from the University of Minnesota.
Patrice Frey is the deputy director for the Sustainability
Program at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's
program in historic preservation, where she received
a master's degree in preservation planning and a
certificate in real estate design and development
through the Penn School of Design and Wharton
Business School.
Mary Rickel Pelletier provides independent design
research, writing, and advocacy for innovative green
projects. Since 2004, she has focused on the evolution
of green infrastructure while working as director of
the Park River Watershed Revitalization Initiative.
Pelletier has a B.Arch. from the Rhode Island School
of Design, as well as a master's in design theory from
the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
She edited The Sustainable Architecture White Papers. Her
essay "Criteria for a Humane Metropolis" in The Humane
Metropolis: People and Nature in the 21st-Century City,
described the need for a municipal green rating system.
Susan Piedmont-Palladino is an architect, a curator
at the National Building Museum, and a professor of
architecture at Virginia Tech's Washington-Alexandria
Architecture Consortium (WAAC). She was the curator
of the exhibition Green Community at the National Building
Museum. Previously she served as a guest curator
for Tools of the Imagination: Drawing Tools and Technologies
from the Eighteenth Century to the Present. She is the author
of Devil's Workshop: 25 Years of Jersey Devil Architecture
and Tools of the Imagination, the companion book to the
exhibition, both published by Princeton Architectural
Press. She is the former national president of Architects-
Designers-Planners for Social Responsibility.
Douglas R. Porter, FAICP, is president of the Growth
Management Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland. His
work as a consulting planner, researcher, and writer
spans many aspects of regional and community development.
He is currently completing a book on green
development. Other recent publications include Urban
Design and the Bottom Line (coauthor) and the second
edition of Managing Growth in America's Communities. In
prior positions, he directed the public-policy research
program of the Urban Land Institute and was a
principal of a planning consulting firm. He has degrees
in urban and regional planning from Michigan State
University and the University of Illinois.
Jonathan F. P. Rose's business, not-for-profit, and
public-policy work focuses on integrating transportation,
housing, environmental and open-space policies
to create healthy, equitable metropolitan regions.
Jonathan Rose Companies LLC — a multidisciplinary
real estate development, planning, consulting, and
investment firm is a leading green urban solutions
provider. Rose is a trustee of the Urban Land Institute,
the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Enterprise
Community Partners. He chairs the Metropolitan
Transit Authority's Blue Ribbon Sustainability Commission
and the Trust for Public Land's National
Real Estate Council. He also serves on the leadership
councils of both Yale University's School of Forestry
and Environmental Studies and the School of
Architecture.
Carolyn Steel is an award-winning architect, lecturer,
and writer whose work has focused on the everyday
lives of cities. A director of Cullum and Nightingale
Architects and a Rome Scholar, she has run successful
design units at the London School of Economics,
London Metropolitan University, and Cambridge
University, where her lecture series "Food and the
City" is an established part of the architectural degree.
Her first book, Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives,
won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award
for Non-Fiction.
Esther M. Sternberg received her medical and
rheumatology training at McGill University and was
on the faculty at Washington University, St. Louis,
before joining the National Institutes of Health in
1986. Currently chief of the Section on Neuroendocrine
Immunology and Behavior at the National Institute
of Mental Health, Dr. Sternberg is also director of the
Integrative Neural Immune Program, NIMH/NIH,
and a research professor at American University. She
is internationally recognized for her discoveries in
brain-immune connections and the role of the brain's
stress response in diseases, including arthritis. She
has authored two books, most recently Healing Spaces:
The Science of Place and Well-being.