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.
How green urban planning can help protect the public from poor mental health
There is no single solution to the worldwide epidemic of poor mental health; addressing its root causes—like poverty-triggered stress and social isolation—and choosing effective treatment for sufferers remains paramount. One way to potentially partly buffer against the effects of poor mental Read More...
Colorful Chicago building proves affordable housing and beauty can go together
Affordable housing, beautiful aesthetics, and sustainability are three things that rarely unite under one building, but in Chicago, architects have managed to bring all three together in harmony. Created by John Ronan Architects, the colorful building contains a public library at ground level and Read More...
You may soon be driving on roads made of recycled plastic
Although plastic can take up to 1,000 years to degrade making it a severe threat to our ecosystems, plastic's resilient nature makes it perfect for repurposing it into roadways. That's why the City of Los Angeles and Technisoil are collaborating to recycle plastic into material to pave roads in the Read More...
In America’s biggest cities, cemeteries have become havens for animal life
Don’t be mistaken: while the cemetery may not be sprawling with human life, it’s most certainly a hotspot for plant and animal life—especially in urban areas. Perhaps the best example of this comes from the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, one of the most densely populated places Read More...
This city in North Carolina is designing America’s future composting systems
In the city of Durham, North Carolina, roughly 30% of the garbage residents throw away is compostable. Two-thirds of that is food scraps (the rest comes from paper products). The problem: like most municipalities, the city doesn’t offer a residential composting program. And not everyone has space Read More...
San Francisco’s Market Street is getting a radical pedestrian-friendly redesign
San Francisco’s Market Street is one of the most iconic streets in America, starting from the famous Ferry Building, passing by grand office buildings, such as Twitter’s headquarters, and ending right in front of City Hall. It also happens to be the most dangerous street in the city, with five Read More...
30 major cities around the world are seeing their emissions plummet
When the Paris Agreement was signed four years ago, a major focus was on the role that cities would play in cutting emissions. After all, urbanization means more people are living in cities than in rural areas, and that trend will only continue in the coming years. And while progress has been a bit Read More...
Public buses are finally on schedule in New York, thanks to traffic restrictions
These are good days for public buses in New York City. After years and years of crawling behind the traffic and yellow cabs, busses are actually running ahead of schedule. Why? Because the city’s Department of Transportation has been restricting the number of vehicles that can travel on Read More...
Paris just opened a cemetery dedicated to green burials
In a 2017 study, the City of Paris discovered something rather shocking about traditional burial practices: the average burial generates, on average, 833 kilograms (or almost 1 ton) of carbon dioxide, which is nearly the equivalent of a round-trip flight between Paris and New York. Part of those Read More...
José Andrés wants to take his post-disaster food operation to the next level
Celebrity chef José Andrés emerged as quite the hero after Hurricane Dorian pummeled the Bahamas. His organization, World Central Kitchen (WCK), was prepared for the storm and prepared meals for the thousands of people who were affected by the devastating storm. This wasn’t the first time WCK Read More...