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Italy Is Fighting Energy Poverty — and Climate Change
San Giovanni a Teduccio is a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Italy. Once an industrial center, today it’s home to abandoned factories that sit in ruins by the sea. But the rooftop of a former orphanage points to new beginnings for the community. There, the sun shines onto the deep blue surface of 166READ MORE
Greener Playgrounds Are an Overlooked Climate Solution
The new schoolyard at PS 184M Shuang Wen, a grade school in Manhattan’s Chinatown, features new play equipment, a yoga circle, a stage and basketball and tennis courts. It also has a porous turf field that can capture an estimated 1.3 million gallons of stormwater runoff, according to New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).READ MORE
Community Land Trusts Are Building Disaster-Resilient Neighborhoods
In late September, Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful and costly storms to make landfall in the U.S., tore through southwest Florida and caused an estimated $67 billion in property damage. But on Big Pine Key, a community 100 miles southwest of Miami that saw flooding and storm surges up to five feet, 27 nearly-finishedREAD MORE
Young Farmers Can Help the US Meet Its Climate Goals. Is Washington Listening?
At Sanctuary Farms on Detroit’s East Side, Jøn Kent and a team of volunteers use cardboard and paper bags to starve invasive weedy plants instead of herbicides; they plant marigolds and lavender amid squash, melons, and collards instead of pesticides; and turn food scraps into lush, clean compost. He and his business partner, Parker Jean, wantedREAD MORE
Composting in Detroit Gets a Boost From the Philippines
On a recent Saturday morning, Pamela McGhee and several neighbors were busy at work in a community garden on Detroit’s East Side, weighing food scraps and assessing compost piles for compliance. Items in the compost are assessed according to a “yuck” and “yay” system. “Yuck” items, like animal bones and meat, which do not compost well,READ MORE
“It Was Like Taking the Heart Out of the Body.”
Growing up in Rosemont, a once vibrant Black neighborhood on Baltimore’s West Side, Glenn Smith remembers “having everything you needed” — parks, markets and even a movie theater — within walking distance of the home he shared with his parents and seven siblings. “It was a Norman Rockwell existence,” he said. But in 1974, when SmithREAD MORE
Cities Are Tapping Residents to Study Climate Change Impacts
On very hot days, Victor Sanchez makes sure to leave his home in the afternoon. "The sun just pours in," he said of his top-floor, west-facing apartment in Harlem, where he has two fans but no air conditioner. Sanchez usually finds a shaded bench in nearby Morningside Park, sees a film or rides his bike toREAD MORE
Extreme Weather Is Only Getting Worse. Can Cities Protect Public Transit?
Last September, New York City was so thoroughly inundated by Hurricane Ida that some commuters waded through water up to their waists just to get in and out of the subway station. Across the country, extreme heat battered the West Coast, melting Portland’s streetcar power cables. This summer is seeing similar headlines, with heatwaves warping theREAD MORE
How Cities Can Help the U.S. Reduce Food-Related Emissions
The United States must cut back on its meat consumption in order to meet its climate goals. Meat and dairy account for nearly 15 percent of global greenhouse emissions, and Americans eat more meat per capita than any other country. Though it is long understood that reducing meat consumption is one of the most meaningful waysREAD MORE