green | rising

The Future of Cities and Housing

August 11th, 2008 by Vihar Sheth
Posted in Economy, Government, Housing, Society

Thursday and Friday of last week I attended a conference called “Green Homes and Sustainable Communities”. ’twas very good. My mind was boggled by the great information presented, and while there’s no way to recap both days in their entirety, I will provide a few highlights.

The keynote speaker was a gentleman named Richard Register, who has a company called Ecocity Builders. I haven’t spent much time on the site but if even a fraction of the information he presented at the conference is available online, it will be well worth your while to visit. Plus, his book sounds fascinating. This was the dream part of the conference, but also something attainable within 50 to 100 years if we get our damn heads screwed on properly.

Most of the rest of the conference was filled with case studies of the development of green affordable housing and the current status and future potential of policy in this area. Practical, though both inspiring and frustrating. There are some extremely creative people out there.

One of the most memorable highlights came in the form of a controlled rant by a professor from MIT. The gist of his speech was that there’s a large disconnect between the people who need and could take on new jobs in the “green” economy and the expectations of how the “green” economy is expected to include these people. Basically, he said the skill level of the people who many pundits hope will fill the new jobs in the energy and construction industries is far from adequate. Further, if no education or social assistance is provided the “green” economy will never materialize.

Well, that was just a short look. I’ll right to summarize some other features when I get a chance. At worst, I’ll try to put up pictures from my tour of the Schiff Residences in the coming days.