Though urban density is better for the environment, we don’t have to give up all the benefits of country living (such as locally-grown food) Though we laud the farmers who rough it on the land, grow food that we can…
Masdar City has experienced knee-buckling setbacks, but we haven’t heard the last of them just yet Masdar City is hanging on tenterhooks. After questioning the dicey science of carbon credits for big energy companies, we then published assurances by Masdar’s…
Tehran has bikes routes in place, but people aren’t using them because they’re needed in dense urban cores. We all know about the importance of cycling for health and for creating sustainable cities and communities (like Vauban the German car-less…
Green Prophet’s newest writer, Merhdad, explores some of the “urban” issues in giving the ancient 500 year old Bazaar of Tehran, sustainable by design, a modern facelift. Plans in a new $20 million budget call for bike paths, trams, and…
Abu Dhabi’s oil wealth funds energy infrastructure transformation with General Electric at the helm. In 2005, a light bulb went off for GE, which pledged to spend $1.5 billion on alternative technology by 2010. Their Ecomagination department eclipsed that goal…
A green oasis in Amman – the King Hussein Park, Jordan. Greetings from Amman, where I’m representing the Green Prophet at the URI MENA 8th annual conference. What’s URI MENA? It’s the Middle East – North Africa (MENA) region of…
It’s hard to think green, when you’re thinking about your next dinner. A UN story documents the lack of protein in Egyptian children, and that a whopping 16% of all kids living there are malnourished. For seven-year-old Ahmed Yasser, it…
“How Do We Want to Live?” asks England’s Former Secretary-General of the Royal Town Planning Institute Robert Upton at an urban planning conference in Israel. Whereas Colombian planner Oscar Diaz (who we interviewed) was practical and sited specific planning examples at…
Mr. Oscar Diaz Inspires Israeli Planners to Build For People, Not Cars. We promised to bring more news from the Technion-Israel’s Institute of Technology, where the Center for Urban and Regional Studies’ 40th anniversary conference was held yesterday, 3rd June…
Oscar Edmundo Diaz and Robert Upton Are Expected to Share Urban Planning Pearls With Israel [image via Technion-Israel Institute of Technology] Before globalization, ideas and technology ambled across the oceans and progress piddled along. Now cooperation happens in seconds. Microseconds…
