Tag Archives: Sustainability

RSVP for Upcoming event: Leadership Through Landscape

Posted on by

Special Event: Leadership Through Landscape

Leadership Through Landscape
Exploring the Power of Place and
Its Influence on Public Leadership and Sustainability Policy

June 6, 2013 ~ 6:00 PM

Artisphere ~ 1101 Wilson Boulevard ~ Arlington VA 22209

Mayor Bob

Join the Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institute (MI) and the Arlington Economic Development (AED) in welcoming back Sir Robert Harvey to Arlington, VA. Introduction from the Right Honorable Michael Moore, New Zealand Ambassador to the United States.

For the past 25 years Bob Harvey (still known affectionately as Mayor Bob) has infused the diverse dimensions of sustainability throughout his work as an elected official, international peace envoy, President of the New Zealand Labour Party, businessman, and most recently Chairman of the Auckland waterfront authority. A charismatic speaker and visionary thinker, Harvey came to sustainability through his strong personal and professional bond with the amazing landscape of Auckland’s west region. As a young leader of a local surf club at Karekare Beach, Harvey’s respect and reverence for Waitakere’s rugged coastline and temperate rainforest set the foundation for one of his first political activities — advocating for national legislation that permanently protects the Waitakere Rainforest and Ranges from encroaching suburban development. For Mayor Bob, Leadership through Landscape does not end with acts of conservation and preservation, but becomes a starting point for a dialogue with nature, understanding the landscape, listening to the landscape, and learning from the landscape in ways that reflect the values of New Zealand’s indigenous Maori culture. Building on these themes, Mayor Bob will offer his insights and observations on how sustainability leaders in the US can leverage their own landscapes to support their work in making sustainable communities.

MI and AED welcomes the Right Honorable Michael Moore, New Zealand Ambassador to the US, for introducing Mayor Bob; and commentators, Jay Fisette, Vice Chair, Arlington County Board and Susannah Drake, ASLA, AIA, Principal, delandstudio, New York City.

 The Full Flier is available here.  Please RSVP by June 4th.

Hanff to present at Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference, Bethesda, MD, on April 15th

Posted on by

Colleges and universwebsite graphic 2013 (2)ities are incubators of innovation, tackling the biggest challenges of society through creative means. The 2013 Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference provides the setting to learn, share and explore how campuses are using their passion for innovation to develop technologies, infrastructure, programs and curricula that address the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges.

Jessica HanffJessica Hfig3-leed-nd-logo (2)anff will be presenting with Jason Hercules of the US Green Building Council on “Using LEED for Neighborhood Development to Create a Sustainable Campus.” Jessica worked for many years on campus sustainability issues while a program coordinator with the National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Ecology program and is a researcher on campus planning practices. LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) integrates the principles of smart growth, new urbanism and green building into the first national rating system for neighborhood planning and design. This session will serve as a primer for how to use LEED-ND as a tool for sustainable campus development, including requirements and focus areas of the program, and an in-depth look at successful projects.

Study Green Cities Abroad in Russia, Summer 2013

Posted on by
Reply

The GSI Russia Project is a special study abroad course being offered as part of the Virginia Tech Natural Resources program line-up for Summer II 2013. This course and project will be examining the opportunities and challenges for urban greening and sustainability in Russia’s megacities. The course extends over 10 weeks, including 8 weeks of online work and 10 days of travel to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and is offered for 6 credits. Though there are additional costs associated with study abroad, you can apply for financial aid to cover these expenses, plus the university offers a 20% discount on graduate credits for study abroad courses. To learn more and to apply for the project team, visit the Greening of Russia’s Cities Project or contact Courtney Kimmel in CLiGs directly.

Lecture Series #2: “Greening the Nation’s Capital: the Promise and Potential of the Sustainable DC Plan” by Harriet Tregoning

Posted on by

HTJoin us on March 28, 2013, as Harriet Tregoning, Director of the District of Columbia Office of Planning, discusses the Sustainable DC Plan and how her office, along with the District Department of the Environment and other partner agencies, plans to transform the District into a “more socially equitable, environmentally responsive and economically prosperous community.”

Hosted by: Urban Affairs and Planning Program
All events will convene at the Virginia Tech Research Center Arlington
900 N Glebe Rd, Arlington, VA 22203
RSVP by March 28th

East/West Falls Church Room

6:00 – 6:30 PM UAP Alumni Networking Reception with students and prospective students
6:30-7:30 PM (Presentation)
7:30-8:30 (discussion)
Light Refreshments will be served

Full Flyer Available here.

Schilling assists the City of Newburgh with the launch of its Code Enforcement Initiative

Posted on by
Schilling MI Photo

Director Joe Schilling

Joseph Schilling, Interim Director of the Metropolitan Institute and Professor and Program Director of the Urban Affairs & Planning Program-Alexandria, partnered with Kermit Lind, retired Cleveland Marshall College of Law professor in the City of Newburgh, NY to head the launch of its new Strategic Code Enforcement Initiative.  Both are law professors with extensive experience in helping cities rebound from near catastrophic conditions.  Click here for more details.

Information Techology and Local Sustainability Planning

Posted on by

Kevin Desouza and Joe Schilling co-authored an exploration of local sustainability planning in the PM Magazine of ICMA. The article, available online, provides a preliminary snapshot of local government sustainability plans and discusses ways that information technologies can enhance their design and implementation.

These are just a few of the questions we are exploring at the Metropolitan Institute’s Sustainability Planning Lab. Virginia Tech’s Sustainability Planning Lab is continuing to inventory, catalog, and assess the current planning landscape. Starting with a preliminary list of 240 cities, we found that 84 of these places did not have a true sustainability plan, but instead relied on an assortment of plans and programs.

Information technology plays a pivotal role in advancing sustainability. Instead of relying on a small cohort of experts to interpret residents’ needs and desires, through crowd sourcing and modeling solutions, residents themselves develop and even implement solutions to urban issues.

Faculty Fellow Showcase: Ralph Hall

Posted on by

Ralph Hall in Senegal

Faculty Fellow Ralph Hall, assistant professor in the Urban Affairs and Planning program in the School of Public and International Affairs, explores the transdisciplinary approach to solving sustainability problems and its applications in many corners of the world.

Q. What are your main research projects at the present time?

My research interests currently fall into three broad areas that are linked by the theme of sustainability. The first and broadest area relates to identifying ways to transform industrial and emerging economies towards sustainable development. Over the past ten years I have been working with Prof. Nicholas Ashford (at MIT) on a textbook that explores the many dimensions of sustainable development and how national, multinational, and international political and legal mechanisms can be used to further sustainable development. In 2011, we published the textbook – Technology, Globalization, and Sustainable Development: Transforming the Industrial State (Yale University Press) – and have since been working on articles to further extend this work. I would describe this research area as transdisciplinary, which means that the problems being addressed require solutions that can originate from any discipline. This first research area builds the broad foundation for my other two research interests.

My second research area focuses on sustainable transportation and continues the research I began with my PhD at MIT. I research decision-support frameworks that transportation agencies and practitioners can use to transition their transportation systems towards sustainability. This research also has broader applicability to other sectors of the economy and I hope to expand it into energy systems, agriculture, etc. My most recent work in this area relates to the design of performance measurement frameworks for transportation agencies. In 2011, I was an adviser to a research project that created A Guidebook for Sustainability Performance Measurement for Transportation Agencies. This guidebook was informed by best-practice case studies and practitioner interviews and has inspired a second book that I am working on with Dr. Henrik Gudmundsson (Technical University of Denmark), Dr. Greg Marsden (University of Leeds), and Dr. Josias Zietsman (Texas A&M University). This book will provide students and practitioners with a deep understanding of the basic concepts of sustainability as well as a coherent framework for how to apply them consistently in the context of transportation planning, management, and decision making at different levels of an agency. The purpose of the textbook is to outline an approach for measuring the performance of transportation systems against key sustainability principles.

My final research area relates to sustainable water supply and sanitation systems in developing regions. This applied, empirical research began during my postdoc at Stanford University and has since taken me to India, Colombia, Senegal, and Mozambique.

Continue reading →

Tuesdays at APA with Ralph Buehler

Posted on by

Dr Ralph Buehler, faculty fellow with the Metropolitan Institute, will be presenting at Tuesdays at APA in Washington, D.C., on February 21st at 5:30pm. The topic of his presentation is: Travel Behavior, Transport Policy, and Sustainable Transport in Germany and the USA. More details (including RSVP instructions) are available at the APA site. The events are free and open to APA members and nonmembers.

Continuing Spotlight on Shrinking Cities

Posted on by

Associate Director Joseph Schilling explores the challenges of the shrinking cities in the November 2011 issue of Planning. In his article ”The Incredible Shrinking City,” author James Krohe, Jr. explores the new world of planning smaller, better, cities.

“Part of the challenge is that folks want to describe and address the problems of declining cities based on past experiences, such as urban renewal,” says Joe Schilling, who heads the Sustainable Communities Initiative of Virginia Tech University’s Metropolitan Institute. However, he warns, “the classic economic development quick fixes of convention centers and riverfront projects have been tried. They deliver a brief bump to the economy. But they do not address the broken systems that impede community economic development.”