Cities

Cities: The Path To Reducing Global Emissions

September 11, 2015 Staff, treealerts.org Create! Cities, Climate Change, Environment, health, Urban

By Staff for Tree Alerts - With many cities and regions around the world already demonstrating climate leadership, new research backs up the importance and huge potential benefits of urban areas going low-carbon. Annual global carbon emissions would drop by 3.7 gigatonnes per year by 2030 - the equivalent of India going zero-carbon - through investment in public and low emission transport, building efficiency, and waste management in cities. The report from New Climate Economy also finds the green measures would save massive amounts of money: US$17 trillion by 2050, which is equivalent to one-fifth of global GDP. This could be bumped up to as much as $22 trillion if national low-carbon policies are also put in place. Nick Godfrey, Head of Policy and Urban Development at the New Climate Economy, said "US$17 trillion in savings is actually a very conservative estimate because it only looks at direct energy savings generated from investment, which are a small proportion of the wider social, economic, and environmental benefits of these investments."

FBI Behind Mysterious Surveillance Aircraft Over US Cities

June 11, 2015 Jack Gillum, Eileen Sullivan and Eric Tucker, www.AP.org Educate! Cities, Drones, Surveillance, usa

By Jack Gillum, Eileen Sullivan and Eric Tucker for AP - Scores of low-flying planes circling American cities are part of a civilian air force operated by the FBI and obscured behind fictitious companies, The Associated Press has learned. The AP traced at least 50 aircraft back to the FBI, and identified more than 100 flights in 11 states over a 30-day period since late April, orbiting both major cities and rural areas. At least 115 planes, including 90 Cessna aircraft, were mentioned in a federal budget document from 2009. For decades, the planes have provided support to FBI surveillance operations on the ground. But now the aircraft are equipped with high-tech cameras, and in rare circumstances, technology capable of tracking thousands of cellphones, raising questions about how these surveillance flights affect Americans' privacy.

The Progressive Vision Of Urban America

August 13, 2014 Gary Younge, www.theguardian.com Organize! Chicago, Cities, Elections, Politics

After Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 one of his key aides, Rahm Emanuel, sat in the campaign’s favourite restaurant in Little Rock, Arkansas, venting his frustration at those who had tried to stand in their way. He would call out a name, ram his steak knife into the table and, like Bluto in Animal House, shout “Dead!” Then he would pull the knife out and call another name and stab the table again. Heaven only knows what damage he does to the furniture when he mentions Karen Lewis’s name. Emanuel, who was Barack Obama’s chief of staff, is now mayor of Chicago. Lewis is the head of the Chicago Teachers Union who got the better of him after leading the teachers in a strike two years ago. The two genuinely despise each other. When Lewis took on Emanuel over lengthening the school day, he told her: “Fuck you, Lewis!”; during the strike Lewis branded him a “liar and a bully”. Now Lewis is seriously considering running against Emanuel for the mayoralty next year. People are wearing buttons urging her candidacy and setting up Facebook pages to support her. When she showed up at a civil rights conference two months ago the crowd cheered “Run, Karen, run!”

City Governments Build Community Wealth

June 26, 2014 John Duda, www.community-wealth.org Create! Cities, Community, Cooperatives, New Economy

The past few weeks have seen a flurry of impressive activity at the level of city government, all around policies designed to build community wealth and encourage the growth of cooperative local economies. It's encouraging to see that the work of grassroots developers, local foundations, community activists, and field builders (like ourselves here at the Democracy Collaborative) is beginning to gain a foothold in the world of municipal policy. While certainly many of the models that have currently proven themselves on the ground have done so with the invaluable support and close cooperation of local policymakers, what's new and exciting in 2014 is the way an increasing number of city governments are stepping into leadership roles and catalyzing new projects and initiatives. Concentrated urban poverty remains a pressing issue; 2012 data shows that nearly 1 in 6 people living in major metropolitain areas lives below the poverty line. In Jacksonville, Florida—the state's most populated city and, geographically, the largest in the contiguous United States—Mayor Alvin Brown has the distinction of being not only the first African American to hold his position, but is also the first mayor in the United States to commission and convene a Community Wealth Building Roundtable to explore comprehensive approaches to tackling this problem head on.

City Fiber Networks Create Community High-Speed Internet

May 30, 2014 Next New Deal, www.nextnewdeal.net Create! Cities, Fiber, Internet Freedom, Municipal Networks

Municipal fiber networks are spreading from coast to coast, but not all community fiber is equal, and some cities have taken very different approaches. What are they getting right, and where is there room for improvement to ensure universal high-speed Internet access? Roosevelt Institute Fellow Susan Crawford, joined by Harvard Law School students John Connolly and Travis West and Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law student Melissa Nally, takes on these questions In a new paper published by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Read the abstract below, and click here to download the paper, "Community Fiber in Washington, D.C., Seattle, and San Francisco." This report provides detailed accounts of planning carried out in connection with community fiber networks in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, CA, and Seattle, WA. It includes information about existing fiber assets that the cities identified, funding mechanisms that were considered, and roadblocks that were encountered. Our hope is that this report will be helpful to other cities that are considering launching fiber optic networks.

The Rise Of The Progressive City

May 29, 2014 Michelle Goldberg, www.alternet.org Create! Cities, Cooperatives, New Economy, New York (NY), San Francisco

As the gears of federal government have ground to a halt, a new energy has been rocking the foundations of our urban centers. From Atlanta to Seattle and points in between, cities have begun seizing the initiative, transforming themselves into laboratories for progressive innovation. Cities Rising is The Nation’s chronicle of those urban experiments. * * * The Bush years were grim for progressives, but they did offer one small consolation: the hope that if only a smart and decent person could ascend to the White House, our politics could be repaired. Now, after years of destructive austerity and hopeless stalemate, that faith is dead. People on the left will debate where to lay the blame, but few will disagree that our federal institutions seem utterly unequal to the challenges of a country still reeling from economic crisis. Indeed, our national politics are so deformed that it’s hard even to imagine the steps necessary to fix things. Last year, The Boston Globe ran an award-winning series, “Broken City,” about the entropy in Washington. The final piece noted that potential remedies for the country’s problems are met with “almost complete indifference in Washington, the world’s capital of gridlock, even when alternative, perhaps better, ways are already at work, some in plain sight.”

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Cities: The Path To Reducing Global Emissions