Via Wikipedia

Freiburg, Germany has become a stunning model of sustainability, thanks in part to Wulf Daseking, the city’s Head of Urban Planning since 1984.

For Professor Wulf Daseking, the City of Freiburg’s Head of Urban Planning, longevity and continuity aren’t just buzzwords on a whiteboard but themes to live and plan by. After 26 years at the helm of Germany’s Environmental Capital, Daseking embodies the notion of sustainability in a city that has seen only four planning directors since World War II.

However, the secret ingredient that earned Freiburg the Academy of Urbanism’s European City of the Year Award in 2010 is Daseking’s flair for bold and unconventional thinking. From Seepark, a former gravel pit turned recreational eco-park, to Wiehrebahnhof, an old train station cooperatively rebuilt into a thriving cultural arts center, the Professor’s fingerprints are all over the projects in the “you can’t do that” category.

Read the intervew

Our goal is to build a strong and vibrant transit advocacy group that gives a voice to the interests and concerns of the millions of us who use the TTC.

Are You Concerned about Transit in Toronto? Then Join the Crowd!

Thousands of transit users from across the city want a TTC that works for them.
Now you have chance to be heard and make real changes.
Join us for the founding meeting of TTCriders, Toronto’s new voice for transit riders, and help us reshape how Toronto does transit.

Wednesday June 22nd, 2011
7:00pm – 9:00pm
North York Civic Centre
5100 Yonge Street (at North York Centre Subway station)
Committee Room 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1RvgfoXGTs

The New Bus for London is inspired by the much-loved Routemaster and will use the latest green technology when it launches in 2012.

The Mayor unveiled the design for the New Bus for London in May 2010.

The New Bus for London will meet London Buses’ requirements for vehicles in public service in London, including high standards of accessibility, safety and emissions abatement. In addition, it will be more durable, more fuel efficient and better ventilated. The bus will incorporate a double-deck and a platform at the rear near-side corner, so passengers will be able to get on and off easily.

In the world today more than 2,6 billion of people has no access to basic sanitation. That means that 40 out of 100 person lacks even the most simple latrine to perform their needs. The lack of toilets affects both society and the individual through the contamination of fresh water and ground water. Human faeces contain viruses, bacteria, worms and parasites which kills and infects people with serious diseases. One child in the world dies every 15 seconds due to contaminated water.

http://www.peepoople.com

Whenever it seems like there’s a surplus of doom and gloom running through the headlines, you hear about a story like this: at-risk teenagers staying in Covenant House, a homeless shelter in New York City, have set about cultivating green roofs on skyscrapers around the city. Their goal is to create a citywide “skyscraper garden” across Manhattan.

The teens recently completed the first stage of the project, done in collaboration with Seeding the City–planting a green roof on the ninth story of a building in midtown Manhattan.

Read the rest on TreeHugger

Dale Kropf calls it Independence Day: On July 3, his five grocery stores in southwestern Ontario ceased to be Sobeys franchises.

Corporate policies prevented him from buying local products, he says, so he joined forces with four other former Sobeys franchisees and formed the independent Hometown Grocers Co-Op.

“We feel that local food, local presence is huge in our market and we wanted to take advantage of that,” Kropf says.
Canadians are increasingly subscribing to the “buy local” and “100 mile diet” philosophies due to concerns over imported food, Kropf adds. “The pressure was always mounting — the more recalls, the more bad press from China or wherever the product was coming from. I know that in our case, our private label pickles are made in Indonesia. I couldn’t believe that.”

As a franchisee for a large grocery chain, Kropf says, corporate policies stipulating that he only buy federally inspected meat prevented him from stocking local products. Most federally inspected meat in Canada comes from large corporations such as Maple Leaf, Cargill and Tyson.

Read more on CBC