Planning for optimization requires an updated wardrobe By: Tony Pauker and Mary Lydon [space] Have you ever tried to squeeze into an outfit that you wore to your high school prom – you know the light blue tuxedo with the ruffles or that yellow taffeta gown? It didn’t really fit. [space]As the years went by, […]
Building for Optimization By: Tony Pauker and Mary Lydon [space] As our region seeks the best solutions for managing growth in the coming decades, we could learn a great deal from a small Southern town about 2,100 miles to the east. [space] North Charleston, the third-largest city in South Carolina, set out six years ago […]
Moving beyond sustainability to optimization By: Mary McLellan and Michael Stepner [space] “Sustainability is just a minimum. If I asked you, ‘How’s your relationship with your wife?’ And you said, ‘Sustainable,’ I’d say, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry for you!’” –Michael Braungort, Dwell Magazine, September 2006. [space]During the last year, our columns have discussed the importance […]
What San Diego can learn from Vancouver By: Mary McLellan and Michael Stepner [space]San Diego and Vancouver: They’ve got far more in common that you think. And what’s more, here in San Diego we need to learn from what they’ve done right; currently, we’re 25 years behind the curve. [space]This was brought home to us […]
Community values: The secret ingredient to sustaining a vision By: Mary McLellan and Michael Stepner [space] “It is not that you don’t need leadership and vision, but success comes from consensus within the community.” -Amanda Burden, New York City Commissioner of City Planning. [space] The age-old questions of our region are: “What do we want […]
The tipping point into the Green Revolution By: Mary McLellan and Michael Stepner [space] “The mayor (public servant) who tends only to current necessities forfeits the City of Tomorrow while the mere visionary stumbles over the pot holes of the present. City chiefs must know how to balance two vital items, necessity and possibility.” — […]
Greening the city with parks, plazas, open spaces By: Mary McLellan and Michael Stepner [space] “In building the city, let us remember that the material things which will endure the longest are those that express the spirit of man in art. In the art of landscape and architecture, the spirit of a city can be […]
Integrated communities key to economic evolution By: Mary McLellan and Michael Stepner [space] “No neighborhood can be truly livable without retail services, and no metropolitan area can be truly sustainable with rot at its core.” — Michael Beyard, ULI Fellow for Retail and Entertainment, Urban Land, The Forgotten Frontier [space]Michael Beyard’s quote is music to […]
San Diego must grow up By: Mary McLellan and Michael Stepner “Smart growth is a compact, efficient and environmentally sensitive pattern of development that provides people with additional travel, housing and employment choices by focusing future growth away from rural areas and closer to existing and planned job centers and public facilities.” — SANDAG […]
Wake up to the sustainability revolution By: Mary McLellan and Michael Stepner Sustain\ se-‘stan\ 1: to give support or relief to 2: to supply with sustenance: nourish 3: to keep up: prolong Degrade\ di’grad\ 1: reduced far below ordinary standards of civilized life and conduct 2: characterized by degeneration of structure or function Optimum\ ap-te-mem\ […]