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 city) that encourage carbon-free transport. Traditionally Iranian cities have had a rich culture of bicycling […]
Green Prophet’s 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 a strengthened infrastructure for Tehran’s beating heart. In July 2010, Nader Karami, the mayor of Zone 12 […]
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 in 2009 and has recently committed a further $10billion to the cause. Masdar City in […]
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 the global United Religions Initiative (URI), dedicated to promoting interfaith cooperation. About 50 representatives 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 is normal to have just a crust of bread to munch on throughout the afternoon […]
“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 here) was practical and sited specific planning examples at the anniversary conference at the Technion-Israel’s Institute of Technology, England’s planner Mr. Robert Upton’s […]
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 2010. After brief greetings from representatives of The Center for Urban & Regional Studies, the […]
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 even. And though not all ideas are equally useful, there’s no question that when great […]
Bahrain government supports initiatives to bring business back to the families. Defying globalization and thinking locally? Explore what’s happening in this Middle East island kingdom. Mohammed Jaffar is a 19-year-old street vendor in Muharraq, Bahrain, who sells a variety of locally grown greens and fruits. He is made popular among customers by local eggs produced […]
Diversifying away from oil Yemen plans to build six beach resorts over the next five years to draw tourists. How much will be sustainable? The Yemen Tourism and Promotion Board announced the plan on Thursday to boost the country’s tourism industry. Each of the planned six facilities along the Yemeni coast is valued at $150 […]
“The Sufi Order International (SOI) community desired to build an interspiritual temple called the ‘Universel’ at the Abode of the Message located in the Berkshire Mountains near New Lebanon, New York,” taken from Geotectura’s online literature. Although we previously covered their Greenest Building in Israel, which is currently in the process of acquiring LEED certification, as […]
Tel Aviv highlights green buildings, spaces, construction techniques, and gardens during its annual “Houses from Within” weekend. [image via: Ykravitz] One spring weekend every year, for the past few years, Tel Aviv celebrates its architecture and invites the public to learn about the special structures that get to call the city their home. These structures […]
Students in Tel Aviv propose business “net” – work for peace. Left to right: David Welch, Ohad Kot, Danielle Angel, David McGeady and Osher Perry from Nets of Peace. As one of the largest seafood producers in the Middle East, Israel’s innovative fish-farming industry is booming. Just a few miles downshore in Gaza, though, fishermen […]
From garbage dump to municipal park. The impressions of Alexandria I shared in a recent post were largely negative, so here I’ll present a happier picture: a green oasis in Cairo built upon a former garbage dump. The photos are mine; the background information comes mainly from touregypt.net.
Tractors carving up the face of a hill in preparation for the new town. (Photo credit: Green Prophet) About a half hour’s drive north of Ramallah, construction has begun on the first planned Palestinian city. Surrounded by sleepy hilltop villages and terraced olive orchards, Rawabi, which means “hills” Arabic, is being marketed as a green and […]