In HCN’s second annual issue dedicated to the future of the West, we take a special look at urban sustainability. Packed with facts, figures, and uncommon narratives, this issue includes stories of new and surprising sustainability initiatives in Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and more.
Two Angelenos debate the city’s sustainability efforts
The conversation between Jon Christensen and Emily Green begins at minute 41:29.
How Vancouver, B.C. became North America’s smart-growth leader
It wasn’t visionary city officials; it was a movement to save the city’s ethnic Chinese neighborhoods in the ’60s.
Oilfield workers on Facebook, dynamite in a sperm whale, and more.
NORTH DAKOTA, MONTANAThere’s now a brilliant, low-cost way to start a newspaper smack in the middle of nowhere: Just open up a Facebook page or two, and share what you know and what you’d like to know more about. Ask local readers to pitch in with Smartphone photos and tips, and voilà! You’re in business,…
A (very small) room with a view
Microhousing catches on in Seattle and other Western cities.
Brave new L.A.
Los Angeles is an unlikely model of urban sustainability for the West and the world.
The Vegas Paradox
In Sin City, excess and efficiency walk hand-in-hand.
Is basic solar technology the key to an energy revolution?
Plain old photovoltaic panels and innovations in energy storage and distributed generation could remake our electricity system.
Phoenix tries to rise from the flames
The Sunbelt city is one of the nation’s most sweltering urban heat islands. But simple solutions to help cool it are at hand.
Will an apple a day keep the food desert away?
Reinventing the Garden of Eden in the Emerald City.
Oakland transforms waste to renewable energy
More than 100 semi trucks enter the back gate of the Oakland, Calif., wastewater treatment plant every day, carrying tons of unusual and often disgusting freight: tons of cheese whey, chicken blood and heads, used cooking oil. And yet wastewater director Bennett Horenstein enthusiastically welcomes it. It is, after all, free fuel. Machines pulverize the…
L.A. is here to stay
Paul set his mug of wine down and glowered at me over his glasses. Los Angeles? Why would any magazine editor include Los Angeles in a special issue on environmental sustainability? My friend and former professor had good reason to ask. The camper Paul calls home, where I had stopped for dinner that October night,…
Las Vegas Periphery: Views from the Edge, by Laurie Brown and Sally Denton
Las Vegas Periphery: Views from the EdgePhotographs by Laurie Brown, essay by Sally Denton, 96 pages, hardcover: $60. George F. Thompson Publishing, 2013 At the edge of cities, development and nature collide. That juxtaposition has always fascinated photographer Laurie Brown, and she explores it fully in Las Vegas Periphery. Focusing on a city that symbolizes…
The shareable city: building a better legal foundation for urban sustainability
A conversation with a sharing economy guru.
Building better homes in Indian Country
Tribes use green building to address housing shortages.
Battling plasticulture
An Oregon company turns plastic waste into fuel.
Social media startup cuts food waste
Last spring, following a Sunday farmers market, Nick Papadopoulos, general manager of Bloomfield Farms in Sonoma County, Calif., surveyed his unsold produce: 40 pounds of soon-to-wilt organic broccoli. Normally, it would end up in the compost pile. Instead, he snapped a picture and posted it to the farm’s Facebook page: “We’d love to get this…
From paradise paved to paradise saved?
Driving around in circles looking for parking is so 1935 – the year Oklahoma City installed the world’s first parking meter. Parking’s waste of gas, time and space has recently inspired a host of phone applications to help people find spots more quickly, or even sublet their empty residential spaces. Though handy, the apps are…
Stopping deforestation, one pair of chopsticks at a time
HCN student essay contest winner.