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April 16, 2012
Better Building Conference 2012: International Conference For a Sustainable Built Environment

This far reaching conference investigates the opportunities and challenges for companies working in the green sector. The event takes the format of 12 seminars, with 3 parallel streams of workshops and debates packed into one day featuring leading Irish and international experts, designers, academics, innovators and investors in sustainability for the built environment.

April 9, 2012
Morph My City Challenge Encourages Innovation in Sustainable Urban Planning

The 2012 National Infrastructure Summit is coming up this September10-12 in Regina (SK), Canada and in conjuction with this event, an innovative challenge is being introduced as a form of social engineering. The event focuses on the creation and elaboration of the best and sustainable ideas related to the growth of the City of Regina. Architects, engineers, students, city planners and innovators from around the world are invited to enter the Morph My City Challenge (MMCC) - two innovative competitions aiming to encourage and reward radical new approaches to sustainable urban planning.

March 22, 2012
Paint The Town Green

Hundreds of communities have trash pick-ups or recycling initiatives, tree planting and energy conservation. But just a handful are writing comprehensive sustainability plans or reinventing themselves as meccas of green economic development. Kaid Benfield writes frequently on the NRDC Switchboard blog about some of the best of the best, and here are a few more, along with the tools that have made them successful.

March 12, 2012
Morph My City Challenge

(Deadline: May 29, 2012) Ahead of the 2012 National Infrastructure Summit, the City of Regina is seeking radical new approaches to sustainable urban planning.

Morph My City Challenge (MMCC) is a two-part innovation competition aiming to encourage and reward radical new approaches to sustainable urban planning. Architects, engineers, students, city planners and innovators from around the world are invited to enter this Challenge.

Entrants in the MMCC can choose to enter one of two categories, aiming for one of two prizes:

February 15, 2012
Community Led Revitalization And Place Making

As demand for quality environments in our cities continues to increase, more attention is being paid to the opportunity presented by urban revitalisation as a sustainable alternative to broad scale urban renewal. Around the world urban revitalisation is being catalysed by housing, cultural, retail, infrastructure and city centre projects that spur on infill development, adaptive re-use and other local investment.

As demand for quality environments in our cities continues to increase, more attention is being paid to the opportunity presented by urban revitalisation as a sustainable alternative to broad scale urban renewal. Around the world urban revitalisation is being catalysed by housing, cultural, retail, infrastructure and city centre projects that spur on infill development, adaptive re-use and other local investment.

February 15, 2012
Sustainability Practice Network (SPN) Panel: Gamifying Sustainability

Panel presentation discussing how game-design principles are being used to promote sustainability. Games motivate people to voluntarily take on hard work, but they are as popular as they are for a reason -- they provide a rewarding challenge, with constant feedback and a clear set of goals.

Co-host: NYU Stern – Social Enterprise Association

RSVP:  events@sustainabilitypractice.net

Venue: NYU Stern, Kaufman Management Center 44 West 4th Street New York NY 10012 

February 13, 2012
Geodesign Gathers Momentum

The term geodesign,once hard to define, is becoming part of the vernacular in the design field. That observation opened this year's GeoDesign Summit, a gathering of professionals interested in using geospatial technologies to arrive at the best and most sustainable design solutions.

The term geodesign,once hard to define, is becoming part of the vernacular in the design field. That observation opened this year's GeoDesign Summit, a gathering of professionals interested in using geospatial technologies to arrive at the best and most sustainable design solutions.

December 29, 2011
Retrofitting for Energy Efficiency Conference

Retrofitting for Energy Efficiency Brisbane has been specifically developed to align with the challenges and aims of the City of Brisbane. Attendees will learn how to best achieve real value for money in your building retrofit. Listen to case studies from industry leaders across the value chain – Uncover emerging technologies, best practice scheduling and retrofit management and most importantly – how to get the most bang for your buck!

Retrofitting and Re-building for Climate Resilience

Retrofitting for Energy Efficiency Brisbane has been specifically developed to align with the challenges and aims of the City of Brisbane. Attendees will learn how to best achieve real value for money in your building retrofit. Listen to case studies from industry leaders across the value chain – Uncover emerging technologies, best practice scheduling and retrofit management and most importantly – how to get the most bang for your buck!

December 1, 2011
Social Cities: How to Engage Citizens With Digital Media

The increasing growth and complexity of cities raises the question how we can use digital media technologies and principles from online culture to design livable and lively cities. How can digital media aid citizens to engage with their environment, with fellow urbanites, and with issues at stake in their cities? Most mobile and location-based apps are about personalized consumption and sharing preferences with an in-group of like-minded people. Can we use digital technologies to help solve collective problems in the city too?

The increasing growth and complexity of cities raises the question how we can use digital media technologies and principles from online culture to design livable and lively cities. How can digital media aid citizens to engage with their environment, with fellow urbanites, and with issues at stake in their cities? Most mobile and location-based apps are about personalized consumption and sharing preferences with an in-group of like-minded people. Can we use digital technologies to help solve collective problems in the city too?

August 22, 2011
Playing Games: Three Fun Tools for Planning Your Community’s Future

If you’ve been to a typical community meeting or zoning hearing, you might not guess that planning can be fun. But a suite of new games and activities are making it more interactive, exciting, and enjoyable than ever to help plan your community’s future. These three tools represent a range of games and activities for planning, from cardboard models to high tech platforms.

July 15, 2011
The Price of Gas: Global and Local Problems Caused by Pollution

Some experts say the true price of gas is much higher than simply the current dollar per gallon. This animated feature from the Center for Investigative Reporting calculates the carbon footprint and other "external costs" of gasoline use in the U.S.

January 23, 2011
Living City Block

If the Urban Land Institute’s predictions are correct, 80% of our current building stock will still be in use in the year 2050, and as population trends continue to shift to city-living it’s more imperative then ever to cultivate thriving urban centers.  Living City Block (LCB) hopes to lead the way in restoring our urban cores, one block at a time.  By fostering inner-city rejuvenations that create resilient, prosperous and healthy neighborhoods, LCB hopes to spark similar movements in surrounding areas, thereby strengthening the entire urban fabric over time.

October 21, 2010
Challenging the People with Challenge.gov

Earlier this month the website challenge.gov went live to the public.  A forum for citizen engagement, Challenge hopes to turn the typical participatory paradigm on its head.  Bev Godwin, director of new media and citizen engagement at U.S. General Services Administration equates it to the next form of citizen engagement; going beyond participation to co-creation.  

Earlier this month the website challenge.gov went live to the public.  A forum for citizen engagement, Challenge hopes to turn the typical participatory paradigm on its head.  Bev Godwin, director of new media and citizen engagement at U.S.

September 21, 2010
Cultivating Innovation

Here at Engaging Cities, we love to tout the possibilities that public participation and collaboration can provide for planning. With the goal of innovation in mind, how can we better stimulate the great minds of people collaborating to make great things happen?  As it turns out, some of the experts at the Harvard Business Review have a few suggestions.  First on their list is meeting people’s needs.

May 18, 2010
CityOne: Sim City for the real world

Apparently IBM has a serious games department, and just the other day they released CityOne, a video game that plops you into the role of being a city planner, trying to solve the business and environmental problems that today’s modern cities are facing. The ultimate goal is to teach citizens how to better cope with complex modern problems by showing them the range of solutions that available today (and I presume offered as part of IBM’s consulting services), ranging from smart grids, to better IT, to smart environmental policy.