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.
A Mexican student has made pavement that self-repairs with rain using old tires
Wouldn’t it be amazing if rain repaired roads rather than damage them? Well, that could soon become a reality thanks to a student by the name Israel Antonio Briseño Carmona. Using recycled tires combined with additives, the student has created a sort-of rubber pavement that turns rain into a Read More...
Memphis turned its parks named after Confederate generals into inclusive spaces
Two years ago, a crane arrived at a park in downtown Memphis and took down a statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War, as a crowd watched and cheered. Now, after a two-year legal battle about the statue’s removal, the park, once known as Confederate Park, Read More...
Bristol might soon be the first city in the UK to ban diesel cars
While London has been busy implementing restrictions on gas-powered cars, the city of Bristol wants to take it one step further by banning diesel cars from the city center. That would make it the first UK city to implement such a ban. Under the city council’s proposals, diesel vehicles will be Read More...
New York City to get 250 miles of protected bike lanes in move to improve safety
There are nearly 800,000 people who cycle the streets of New York regularly. But due to the city’s lack of adequate road infrastructure for bicycles, safety remains a serious issue for many riders and potential cyclists. Now that’s set to change as the city council gets prepared to build Read More...
How a team of goats saved the Ronald Reagan library from wildfires
Back in April, a squadron of 500 goats was released on the lands that surround Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Los Angeles. Why? To munch their way through around 13 acres of scrubland around the library that could’ve provided tinder-like fuel to a wildfire--one that would arrive some 7 Read More...
Toronto’s garbage trucks will run on biofuel made from the city’s food scraps
Garbage trucks in Toronto are becoming cleaner - that is, environmentally speaking - as the city has recently launched an initiative to power the vehicles using biogas produced from the very trash they collect. Starting in March 2020, the city’s fleet of garbage trucks will collect all of the Read More...
Italian architect wants to build smart city in Mexico with 7.5 million plants
Italian architect Stefano Boeri has unveiled plans to create a forested smart city in Cancun, Mexico, that is designed to be a "pioneer" of more eco-efficient developments. Smart Forest City Cancun is intended to be built on a 557 hectare site near the Mexican city. According to the architect, Read More...
California wildfires prove there’s never been a better time for microgrids
Motivating people to switch to new technologies can be nearly impossible if old technologies work just fine. It’s much easier if people can see for themselves that those new technologies are a far better solution. This is certainly the case in California right now. For years the Optimist has Read More...
10 US cities will transform streets into vibrant murals under new initiative
You can reclaim the streets from cars and give them back to the people, but if those streets still look like plain-old asphalt roads, then people won’t feel as inclined to spend time there. In a bid to make cities more vibrant and pedestrian-friendly, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced this week Read More...
Salvaging wood from Baltimore’s abandoned homes creates jobs and cuts waste
Baltimore, like many post-industrial cities, confronts novel challenges. Once the sixth-largest city in the United States, Baltimore’s population has contracted by more than a third, resulting from a complex suite of factors, including job loss, economic decline, and discriminatory policies or Read More...