Sustainable Urban Development
With cities expected to host about 70 percent of the world's population, sustainable urban development is key to making communities worldwide more resilient against the growing threat of climate change. Find out about the latest urban practices from across the world aiming to make our cities more sustainable and inclusive in these good-news stories from The Optimist Daily.
Dominica is on course to become the world’s first ‘hurricane-proof’ island
It was in 2017 when Hurricane Maria gathered its strength and powered its way through the tiny island of Dominica. When Maria had moved on, over 90 percent of the island’s structures were destroyed, leaving huge swaths of the population homeless and the economy crippled. In the span of a single Read More...
The Netherlands is on a mission to get back its starry nights
If you’ve never been to the Netherlands, the color of the night sky can come as a bit of a shock when you see it for the first time. In many places, it’s a hazy, bright orange color, the result of all the lights being used within cities and for the country’s vast amount of indoor farms. This Read More...
Old battlefields find new life as parks and conservation areas
Across the United States, areas that were previously bloody battlefields are being turned into memorials and parks to recognize the violence that took place there and to offer a new purpose of life and recreation for these places. There are 25 national battlefield and military parks in America Read More...
What Finland’s amazing new library can teach us about valuing public amenities
In a country that boasts one of the world’s highest literacy rates, the arrival of the new central library in the capital of Finland last year was a kind of moon-landing-like moment of national bonding. The €98 million facilities, whose opening in December 2018 marked the centenary of Finnish Read More...
Oslo wants to become the world’s first zero-emission port. Here’s how
Cargo shipping is a massive contributor to emissions, and shipping technology has not quite reached the level where we can suddenly swap fossil fuel-burning engines for electric ones. This makes decarbonizing a port a difficult process, which is something many cities are trying to do one step at a Read More...
A brilliant new park is being built atop a highway in San Francisco
The foggy weather of San Francisco has never stopped its local residents from enjoying the city’s many outdoor parks. But as more and more people move to the city by the bay, the municipality has decided to add a new 14-acre park to its landscape. The “Tunnel Tops” park will cover two Read More...
Urban farms could breathe life into the typical big-box store parking lot
Typical parking lots at big-box stores, sprawling over several acres, are empty most of the time, unnecessarily occupying space that could otherwise be designated for more useful community projects. One way to breathe life and utility into these bland spaces could be by turning them into urban Read More...
How a neighborhood dedicated to farming sprung up in inner-city Detroit
Have you ever heard of an agrihood? Unlike urban farms and gardens, agrihoods are entire neighborhoods dedicated to agriculture. Nationwide, there are about 90 of these agrihoods, with most of them being home to affluent millennials looking for close proximity to fresh and “clean” foods. But Read More...
This ingenious farming technique of the Aztecs could feed the world’s metropolises
By 2050, the UN thinks there will be nearly 10 billion people on planet Earth, with 68 percent living in urban areas. Both numbers pose serious questions as to how we'll feed the growing, urbanizing population, which is why there's new research exploring whether traditional farming techniques could Read More...
Chicago is seeing book returns surge 240% after the mayor eliminated fees
A little over a month ago, we published a story about Chicago libraries doing away with overdue book fees, which are disproportionately affecting the city’s lower-income residents. Now, one month since the fines were eliminated, Chicago libraries are reporting a 240 percent increase in the number Read More...