A new infographic details municipal efforts to make cities more environmentally friendly.

With the definition of “green” still fuzzy when it comes to products, it’s even more difficult to measure the efforts of cities attempting to decrease their carbon footprint. What are water consumption policies like? How many cars on the road? What types of recycling programs and waste reduction efforts are underway? Are there any green building or alternative energy incentives?

HouseTrip set out to find out and measure the efforts of the world’s top “green” cities. Motivation for the project came from wanting to help draw attention to the importance of cutting global pollution generated by cities. With more than half of the world’s population now living in urban areas, cities are beginning to become leaders in environmentally responsible living. Data collected from the Siemens Green Cities Index and other sources provided the information to develop the infographic.

The inforgraphic shows which of these most progressive cities are doing what in the world of green: London, New York, Vancouver, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Stockholm. So what are these cities up to? Just 44 percent of New Yorkers own a car, for example. Compared with 95 percent of the rest of Americans, that’s a pretty huge difference. Head over to Amsterdam and you’ll see more bikes than people—one bike for every 0.73 people in fact. Copenhagen is among the cities embracing the benefits of green roofs, with legislation requiring green rooftops on all new buildings, which will add 5,000 square meters of vegetation. Vancouver and Copenhagen recycle 55 percent of all their waste. Vancouver generates 90 percent of its energy from renewable resources; Stockholm is at 60 percent.

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Images: HouseTrip

The post How Green is Your City? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Trees do more than provide shade.

Is the oak tree outside your home the next Superman? New research suggests that it may be more protective than it appears. Geoffrey Donovan conducted a study in Portland, Oregon, which showed a negative correlation between tree size and crime rates. The larger the crown area of trees, the lower the crime rates.

Well-established trees may deter potential burglars by creating the impression that an area is well cared for, and subject to effective authority. Donovan’s study controlled for a number of factors, including the ethnic makeup of the neighborhoods and the value of homes. However, Donovan also admits that areas with larger trees were probably historically well maintained, which resulted in lower crime rates.

This makes sense, as there is also a strong correlation between tree cover and income level. According to a study on the demand for urban forests, for every 1 percent increase in per capita income, there was a 1.76 percent increase in demand for forest cover. When income dropped by the same amount, demand for forest cover dropped by 1.26 percent. You can see this inequality from space (or Google maps).

If the ability to fight crime doesn’t seem like enough of a reason to plant trees, don’t forget the other valuable functions of urban trees. Urban trees keep your home cool by providing shade, scrub the air of toxins (and greenhouse gases!), and decrease storm runoff.

READ MORE:

Congresswoman Speaks for the Trees

Interview: Trees for the Future of Haiti

Green Innovations Inspired by Trees

–By Laura Hayden/image courtesy of Google Maps

Laura Hayden is an editorial intern at SIERRA Magazine. She is a rising senior at Mount Holyoke College, where she is pursuing a major in Environmental Studies, and a minor in Journalism. She has a passion for all things pertaining to growing (and eating) food, and renewable energy.

Image: Ed Coyle Photography

The post Can Urban Trees Fight Crime? appeared first on EcoSalon.

7 stories about cities working together to make their communities stronger and greener.

We love our cities – and while it’s easy to point to the negative environmental impacts of urban living, they’re less than half the story. From the 10 best cities for making their inhabitants feel healthy and happy to the subtle influences of city architecture on interior design, we’re fascinated by the impact of this most modern of social inventions, the urban sprawl. Here are seven examples from our archives of the fascinating things that happen when lots of people get together.

Human beings are increasingly an urban global culture. Take Africa: in 1900, less than 5% of this continent’s population lived in urban areas: today, it’s over 35% – and growing by more than 4% a year. Across our blue-green planet, more than 3 billion people cluster together in densely-populated forests of stone, metal and glass. We’ve always had this habit, but it’s only recently that we’ve developed the tools to really go to town.

Turning Cities In On Themselves: the Urban Eco Revolution

We’ve always thought we had roofs covered. They had to be barren, hostile places the rain and the wildlife slid from before they could do any damage. Nature had no place on our roofs. Except…we couldn’t have been more wrong. A green roof may require a little extra engineering behind the scenes, but it’s far better than its non-living counterparts for regulating house temperature, filtering out pollutants, scrubbing the surrounding air, controlling stormwater run-off, absorbing sound and many more factors that impact our quality of life. A green roof is a healthy roof.

17 Living Roofs: The High Tech Green Future of Architecture

Forget the days of mindlessly jumping in a taxi to go from point A to point B. Urban hiking is all about planning, executing and enjoying the journey, another great example of slow travel. According to the Urban Dictionary, urban hiking is “the exploration of diverse urban environments on foot.” Conservation and travel groups alike promote urban hiking, as it not only gets people outdoors and active, but also allows them to explore the ins and outs of urban landscapes.

The City Girl’s Guide to Urban Hiking

In the convenience-drugged city of tomorrow, the only sweat you’ll break is when you’re deciding which button to push. Utopian dream? We say: urban nightmare. We spend our day in the thrall of convenience technology…and then heads straight to the nearest super-expensive gym to compensate. With modern life in full swing, who needs The Onion? Luckily there are architects who recognize the danger and, like Nintendo, are sneaking gyms into our lives without us realising. Their thinking is: why consume electricity when calories can be burnt instead? So the urban fabric gets a healthy makeover, like the much maligned stairwell. Cars are zoned out of existence and replaced with their human-powered counterparts (saving you cash in all sorts of ways). Parks and paths are expanded, and everywhere can be reached by a sidewalk. Healthy commuter, coming through. For specifics, check out the New York City Department of Design + Construction’s Active Design Guidelines.

Where Cities are Taking Us: 10 Urban Eco Trends

Turns out that this urban foraging thing is a bit of a movement. There are groups springing up all over the country – not to be confused withFreegans – a philosophy I support in principal, though you’ll never catch me dumpster diving. I prefer the idea of waste diversion before it hits the dumpster. Portland, Oregon has a network, Santa Fe has a map, LA has Fallen Fruit, San Francisco has a wild foraged food CSA.

The New Hunter Gatherers: Urban Foragers

Honking cars emit foul black clouds, skyscrapers blot out the sun, litter lines the gutters and healthy green space can be hard to come by. But in many of America’s biggest cities, these negative traits are being eclipsed by clean, efficient public transit, bike-friendly infrastructure, multiplying trees, reliance on renewable energy and a fierce pride in locally-produced products. Slashing greenhouse gas emissions and coming close to zero waste is no easy feat for a metropolis with a population of at least 250,000, but these 10 cities – from Boston to San Francisco – prove that sustainability is possible on the largest of scales, in good economic times and bad.

Hard Economic Times Be Damned: 10 U.S. Cities Make Their Own Green

Let’s meditate for a moment on how people really want to live – in aesthetically-pleasing, affordable homes with shared outdoor space, tree-shaded dead-end streets that keep the neighborhood cooler in the summer, save money on infrastructure, eliminate through traffic and create quiet and safe spaces for children to play and neighbors to meet. Spaces for ball games, picnics, gardens, vineyards, and orchards. Beneath the SUVs and strip malls, suburbia has a green heart.

New Urbanism and the Green Heart of Suburbia

Images: Ofer Wolberger for Popular Mechanics; ecogeek; brartist; telmo32; bentza; Tony the Misfit; Pear Biter and Mike Behnken.

The post From The Vault: Celebrating the Concrete Jungle appeared first on EcoSalon.

City girl, fear not: urban gardening is easy, simple, and fire-escape-proof.

What’s new in the EcoSalon Community? Me! It’s Mike Lieberman of Urban Organic Gardener and the Eco-Salon Manscaping feature from earlier in the year.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with my work, I show people with little to no land how to start growing their own food so they can avoid toxic pesticides, eat healthier and not feel limited by their lack of experience and space.

That’s what I’m going to be sharing with you in a 2012 series here on EcoSalon. Since I’m a man of the people, I would love to know what questions or topics you would like to see covered? I’ll do my best to get them answered.

Have a great rest of 2011 and look forward to connecting with more of you in 2012!

Mike Lieberman shows people with little to no land how to start growing their own food so they can avoid toxic pesticides, eat healthier and not feel limited by their lack of experience and space. Catch him on Twitter and Facebook.

Image: LOLren

The post Coming in 2012: Urban Gardener Series with Mike Lieberman appeared first on EcoSalon.

A celebration of men’s urban street wear.

Fashion for the urban man’s newfangled eclecticism is defined by shortcut tailoring of preppy classics paired with offbeat hats, bespoke and on-trend sneakers, designer shades and the accessory fixture that has witnessed high speed travel from Paris this summer – the essential neck wrap.

If it first took its cue from the skater-sneaker culture and hipsters on New York’s Lower East Side, the more refined hybrid still harnesses youthful flair while appealing to the 30-something working man. Metro eco means pulling off fashion jewelry and solid perfume balm by adding the edgy factor to trump any preconceived girlish references.

“Skinny style bow ties, watches, and masculine bracelets are some of my personal favorite ways to deepen my own look right now, and walking the streets of New York every day, it seems others have come to the same realization,”  shares Dan Mims, founder of The Ethical Man site catering to the upscale working man. He adds that style for men is on the march.

“Men are so much more psychologically open to it now and also the economy is tight and men have realized they need to up their game in new ways to keep the job they like and to get the one they want. The urban working man is really going for looks that can be described as sophisticated, unique and confident. This means balancing universal tenets of style with personal tastes. ”

We’ve marched out a few looks to this end:

1. The Tightly Cut classic Suit

Skinny silhouetting tweaks the Brooks Brothers classics in new sexy tailoring for suits like designs by Topman – a  leader in color and fabrications in this category.

2. Hip Sunglasses

The Proof is in the bamboo and sustainably harvested woods in the break out shades by Proof, which has a mission to look good and do good. For every pair sold, a portion goes to causes such as aiding an eye clinic in India and replanting depleted forests in Haiti.

3. The Skinny Bow Tie

Bow ties are always a statement for young men, so make sure you’re ready for the heat that comes with them. These gingham checks are handcrafted from preppy Pierrepont Hicks.

4.  Canvas Slip-Ons

Nail nautical chic with these kickers from Generic Surplus.

5. The Unisex Wristband

Bracelets, I mean wrist bands by The Ethical Man are billed as less 80’s gym class and more gladiator contest. Each piece is comprised of both software and hardware like this gray faux suede and black accent wire with a worn brass chain and hook.

Tough and cool.

6. Vintage Chambray Scarf

This chambray scarf from by Steven Alan is our top pick for cool nights.

7. Military Watch

This classic military watch by Citizen called the Eco Drive is made from stainless steel, is water resistant and never needs a battery.

8. Sustainable Sneakers

Macbeth Matthews Vegan shoes in black and grey can suit up or denim down with thin soles that are more office ready than their boarder bound cousins.

9. Skinny Neckties

Jaan J’s skinny neckties are vegan and versatile. Pluck from variety of patterns from wide stripe to tartan to a solid.

10.The Fedora

Boxcar Willy’s Fedora from Sturbanclothing has sustainability topped. The trend has no end in sight. Expect to see the fedora through to fall and flannel.

Images: The Ethical Man; Topman, iwant Proof, American Apparel, Citizen Watch, Amazon, Alternative Outfitters, Jaan J Culturata

The post 10 Fashion Finds for The Sophisticated Urban Man appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnThe film “Truck Farm” proves that small scale urban farming efforts are part of the solution.

I’ve seen Truck Farm pop up around the web over the last year, in fact I remember when it was up for a NAU’s 2nd annual Grant for Change. But beyond some cool looking photos of a garden in the back of an old, black, Dodge truck – the kind of photos that make their way onto green and design blogs and give you a general feeling of goodness – I didn’t really have a grasp of what Truck Farm was. Until last week.

Packed into an auditorium with hundreds of other people at Mountainfilm in Telluride, I didn’t know what to expect. Can you really make a 48 minute film about growing a garden in the bed of a truck?

After a presentation on food the day before by the film’s directors, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, I knew that it would be smart and funny and most likely touch on some of the things in which I believe strongly. What transpired was one of the best films I have seen in awhile. Sewn into the story of a Brooklynite transforming the bed of his truck into a garden are glimpses into how we start changing our food policy, from the ground up.

Watch the trailer for Truck Farm here.

Truck Farm is quirky and humorous, yet it hits on the themes that we so often discuss when it comes to food: thinking about where our food comes from, the importance of reconnecting to what we eat, building community and being part of an underground movement that feels empowered to make change.

Along the way, the acclaimed Marion Nestle takes a bite of the Truck Farm‘s salad and smiles, gourmet chefs pay for truck grown herbs, even if the bounty is small, teens at a community garden donate a pepper plant to be put in the bed, and after taking the truck on a school tour, children are inspired to start building gardens in whatever objects they can find.

But Truck Farm itself is only the beginning.

There’s a point in the film when one of the chefs interviewed points out that he loves the concept, but he’s still not sure if it’s part of the global solution to food issues.

But what if it is the solution?

Since the success of the Brooklyn Truck Farm, individuals around the country have started their own versions. Even strolling through Telluride I saw one parked downtown, and in Denver you can buy Truck Farm produce at the farmers market. The number of urban farms and their capacity have increased exponentially. We may not be solving the problems of the global food supply with these efforts, but they’re certainly heartening.

Efforts like these prove that there is a group of people out there that are truly concerned with where their food comes from and honoring the connection to what they eat. Above that, they’re willing to think creatively about what it’s going to take to encourage entire communities to move in that direction.

Cheney and Ellis remind us that the demand is there; that in urban spaces, restaurants want locally grown goods, be it from a rooftop farm or the back of a truck. And if the demand is there, we need to start thinking about increasing the supply, from window gardens to planters of herbs.

With two food related films under their belts (Cheney and Ellis are also the brains behind King Corn), the duo knows the importance of educating and empowering food leaders. Enter their FoodCorps national service program, an initiative with visionary “volunteers for a yearlong term of public service in school food systems,” a place that we know desperately needs help. Run as an AmeriCorps program, in its first year Food Corps has placed leaders in ten states to start seriously working on building gardens, connecting kids to farmers and more.

As Ellis says, when it comes to changing the food movement, “gardens are such a powerful place to start.” Makes you want to go build a garden in your truck doesn’t it?

If we all take the steps to grow some of our own food, even if it’s a small amount, then we become part of the solution, and the more of us that do it, the bigger our movement becomes. And maybe then, we can start talking about this as being part of a global solution. After all, couldn’t we all use a little more “think globally, act locally”?

Images: The Tasty Buzz, Truck Farm

The post Foodie Underground: Truck Farm appeared first on EcoSalon.

As a fellow writer friend of mine recently said, “City = landscape. Treat it that way.” Sometimes we’re so caught up in doing the right things to get away from city life that we forget how rich the urban landscape itself can be. We all know that we should be making an effort to spend more time outdoors, but if you’re not lucky enough to live with acres of, say, a protected wildlife refuge in your backyard, it can be difficult to find the time to invest in driving a few hours just to take a quick hike. Which is why I love the concept of urban hiking.

Yes, I am fully aware that the words “urban hiking” can easily be equated to “walking,” but somewhere along the line we lost respect for this simple, yet energizing and fun, activity. Urban hiking is taking the simple human function of walking and turning it into a vehicle to slowing down and truly exploring the nooks and crannies of new cities, and even our own neighborhoods that we think we know like the back of our hands.

Sometimes the best adventures are right down the street, and we’ve got a list of tips and suggestions to make sure you find them, and enjoy yourself while you’re at it.

1. Plan a fruit hunt.

Spring and summer are quickly approaching, and you know what that means? Fruit picking season. Finding fresh fruit isn’t limited to rural environments, there are plenty of cities filled to the brims with fig trees, apple trees, plum trees and beyond. Urban fruit harvesting groups have popped up around the country with one simple goal: making use of fruit that would otherwise go to waste.

Many cities have fruit groups that even provide maps. Two such projects are Forage Oakland and the Philadelphia Orchard Project. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, check out Fallen Fruit. And if you can’t find a local organization that maps out fruit hot spots, take an afternoon to explore a neighborhood and make your own.

2. Pack a picnic.

There’s no point in going hungry on your urban hike, and packing a picnic allows you to do two things: prepare a tasty, organic meal and explore a local park. Figure out ahead of time where you want to spend your lunch hour and plan accordingly. Then fill your backpack with a gourmet picnic. How about a Quinoa Salad with Dried Cranberries and Pumpkin Seeds partnered with a fresh baguette and some goat cheese? Just make sure to pack reusable utensils and drinking vessels.

3. Keep a detailed urban hiker’s travel journal.

Take time to truly appreciate your local urban surroundings and start documenting them. You don’t have to be a Picasso or Proust, just willing to take a couple of notes and sketches now and then of what you’ve seen and done. Journaling lets you explore your creative side and also gives you a reference point for places you might want to remember later.

4. Don’t dress to kill.

Nobody said urban hiking adventures meant dressing in dowdy sweat pants and muddy trainers, but you should still probably keep the heels at home. That being said, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be looking good while staying comfortable, and there are some great eco-picks out there if you’re looking to inject a breath of fresh air into your urban hiking wardrobe. Check out our From Yoga to Yardwork picks for starters.

5. Take friends!

Make your urban hike a girl’s day out. Plan a shorter itinerary to allow for a slower pace – more talking equals less walking – but that hits a few key hot spots: cute cafe for lunch, a local bakery for afternoon coffee and a corner bar for evening cocktails. If you’re having trouble thinking about where to go, pick a theme for the day: Boutique Shopping, Urban Parks, Undiscovered Food Carts, etc.

Each week here at EcoSalon, the editors choose a post from the archives that we think you’ll love. The original post can be found here.

Images: Ewan-M, ginnerobot, Anna Brones, Anna Brones, mugley, Let Ideas Compete

The post Take a Hike: 5 More Great Tips for the Urban Explorer appeared first on EcoSalon.

We’ve always thought we had roofs covered. They had to be barren, hostile places the rain and the wildlife slid from before they could do any damage. Nature had no place on our roofs. Except – we couldn’t have been more wrong. A green roof may required a little extra engineering behind the scenes, but it’s far better than its non-living counterparts for regulating house temperature, filtering out pollutants, scrubbing the surrounding air, controlling stormwater run-off, absorbing sound and many more factors that impact our quality of life. A green roof is a healthy roof.

Green design is an enormously popular trend in modern architecture. Take a look at these 17 examples – some in place today, and others still on the drawing board. We may have got it wrong in the past, but we’re certainly making up for lost time.

ACROS Fukuoka, in Fukuoka City, Japan. 35,000 plants, 76 species – and the city’s best view from an office window.

Art and Exhibition Hall roof garden – Bonn, Germany.

Chicago City Hall – the coolest place to be, thanks to this $2.5 million rooftop garden (not open to the public – the 11-storey drop might have something to do with this).

California’s Academy of Sciences (SF) is covered in rolling hills – the perfect place for students to grab their lunch in the sun.

Looking like the ultimate vegan pizza, the Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Green Roof Research is a department that practices what it preaches.

Marriott Hotel, Victoria, BA. Keeping an underground car park cool in the summer, toasty-warm in the winter.

The forwarding link isn’t working, but this rooftop garden (wherever it is) found on This Girl’s Gone Green is an extraordinary achievement – it grows crops!

This design by architect Hoerr Shaudt graces the roof of 900 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago. A haven of natural tranquility, 10 floors up.

After a long, hard day in the School of Art Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), what more cathartic way to unwind than to walk all over it?

This idyllic spot may look terrestrial, but it’s a thing of the air, roofing Toronto’s Mountain Equipment Coop.

The Waldspirale in Darmstadt, Germany, is all about being unique. It doesn’t look like any building you’ve ever seen. Every one of its 1,000+ windows is different – ditto for all the doorhandles. And running along spiraling rooftop is a tree-lined garden (the wald or “wood” in its name).

Turfed roof near Gol, Norway. In days past, this sight would be grounds to condemn your neighbors as the laziest people on the planet. Now they’re obviously the cleverest (although we’re a little worried about that bowing roof).

Vancouver Public Library, Canada. Beautiful, useful, and definitely out of bounds – note the lack of protective barrier around the edge.

And now to more speculative matters. This proposed village for Heden, a sleepy cityblock in Sweden’s Gothenburg, has more than a touch of Hobbiton about it…

…as does this proposal by designer Friedenreich Hundertwasser.

Should green roofs be built to be scaled on foot? The designers of this proposal for the 2007 Fit City 2 conference in New York certainly think so – and there’s a good reason for thinking they’re right.

And finally – this example looks as speculative as they come. But it’s reality: the blueprint for the Vancouver Convention Center, currently expanding rapidly in time to host the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. The 6-acre living roof will house a whopping 400,000 varieties of native plant life – Inhabitat has a closer look here.

More information: Green Roofs (what else?)

Each week here at EcoSalon, the editors choose a post from the archives that we think you’ll love. The original post can be found here.

Images: hans s / metaefficient / Deutsche Telekom / NREL / California Academy of Sciences / Inhabitat / Treehugger / pnwra / food2gro / trendir / Nanyang Technological University / sookie / Hundertwasser / IGPOTY / Terri Meyer Boake / Kjellengren Kaminsky Architecture / Ecogeek / Archidose / Inhabitat.

The post 17 Living Roofs: The High Tech Future of Architecture appeared first on EcoSalon.

But that’s the old model of city life. Crocodile Dundee wasn’t too far off the mark when he said cities must be friendly because so many people want to live together. They’re the biggest physical expressions of our social nature on this planet. They’re filled with people, every one of them an individual – and so in these eco-conscious times where everyone can step up and contribute, cities are where things happen.

Here are 10 urban trends that will shape of the cities of tomorrow.

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Keep The City Buzzing

Bees are on the wane, and we have no idea why. Entire populations are dying or disappearing as part of the baffling phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Bad news in itself, but the sting in the tale is that without bees, many of our staple crops are doomed. While scientists search for the answers, the urban backyard remedy is obvious – and here’s how it works. Bee hives only need a little land to thrive – and you’d be following in the footsteps of committed enthusiasts like Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L Jackson. Further incentive needed? One word: honey.

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Urban Growth

Escalating food prices, and all that land out back? Put the two together and turning your place into an edible garden is a no-brainer. But even if you’re squeezed into a concreted corner or you’re halfway up a towerblock, there’s still room for some horticultural creativity. Agricultural skyscrapers are on the rise (as it were) but while city-planners develop a coherently green strategy, it’s all about self-expression. Snake some vines over your balcony or up the wall. Let your potted plants grab onto windows and railings. Make your city come alive!

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Up Where The Air Is Green

But whatever is done in the vertical is being done tenfold in the horizontal. Green roofs have captured the urban imagination like no other eco-craze, and it’s not hard to see why: they’re beautiful, they have a deeply practical element, and…did we say how beautiful? Of course there are new architectural challenges that come with having tons of topsoil and greenery piled on your ceiling – and there’s the usual amount of half-hearted bandwaggoning. (Yes, Astroturf is cheating). But wouldn’t it be nice to have a little less of the “concrete”, a little more of the “jungle”? I bet the local wildlife would think so.

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Seed-Bomb It Back To The Stone Age

If you’re heartsick of seeing drab, neglected patches of municipal land blighting your neighborhood…you could be a guerrilla gardener waiting to join the green revolution. “Fighting the filth with forks and flowers”, these law-skirting folk are on a mission to bring budding life to every corner of our cities by any means possible. They sneak out at night with seeds and trowel, beautifying furiously before daylight exposes their efforts to the cops, or they plant greenery while hidden in full view. Sound like your kind of thing? Sign up here (you rebel, you).

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Cleaning The Streets: Electric Cars and Friendly Rides

It’s been on the horizon for years (far too many of them) but now the electric car is starting to make headway in the place it’s best suited for – the urban grid. Where else is it practical to build recharging stations at the kind of density that suits the electric car’s shorter range? Ah, but that’s changing too – some of the models on our 2009 roundup hold enough juice to compare favorably to their gas-powered counterparts. These admirable advances aside, do you really need your own car? If not, and if braving the public transport isn’t an option, grab a lift with someone else – because urban carpooling is here to stay.

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Commute Yourself Slim

In the convenience-drugged city of tomorrow, the only sweat you’ll break is when you’re deciding which button to push. Utopian dream? We say: urban nightmare. We spend our day in the thrall of convenience technology…and then heads straight to the nearest super-expensive gym to compensate. With modern life in full swing, who needs The Onion? Luckily there are architects who recognise the danger and, like Nintendo, are sneaking gyms into our lives without us realising. Their thinking is: why consume electricity when calories can be burnt instead? So the urban fabric gets a healthy makeover, like the much maligned stairwell. Cars are zoned out of existence and replaced with their human-powered counterparts (saving you cash in all sorts of ways). Parks and paths are expanded, and everywhere can be reached by a sidewalk. Healthy commuter, coming through. For specifics, check out the New York City Department of Design + Construction’s Active Design Guidelines.

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One for Me, One for You…

My mum has a logistics problem. Thanks to some absurdly prolific fruit trees, her freezer is permanently half-full with surplus she has to freeze or it goes to waste. What she needs is a local fruit exchange – a social network (online and offline) that collects and distributes surplus produce for the good of the neighborhood. Take San Francisco’s version, Neighborhood Fruit, working like a foodie’s version of Freecycle – the goods are there for free, you collect them yourself, and first come is first served. If you like free food (ie. if you have a pulse) or want to reclaim your freezer, find your local fruit exchange…and if there’s none at hand, why not start one (pdf)?

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Serving the Needy (With Servings)

Gone are the days that it’s acceptable for shops to chuck unused food away at closing time (and having worked as a barista for a certain worldwide coffee chain, I’ve seen my fair share of that). While up to a third of household groceries still go into the trash, restaurants are acting rather more respectably by offering up their output to local charities and nonprofit organisations, or directly into the hands of the homeless on the street. Check out the National Restaurant Association’s food donation work, and their guide to doing it (PDF).

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It’s Cheaper Online (or, How We Killed The High Street)

Here’s a phrase to fill a shopkeeper with dread: “No, I won’t buy it here, I’ll get it on eBay / Amazon /Craigslist”. Online retailing is gargantuan business, simply because it’s usually the way to pick up the best goods from anywhere in the globe at the best price. Is it green? With minimal packaging and low overheads, you’t think so – except it’s also the quickest method of wiping out profits for urban retailers and for killing small traders. (Even the big ones aren’t safe – take the fate of Borders UK.) However, counter that with the fact that they’re billion-dollar recycling machines that often do a lot of good.

No matter your view, the bottom line is that online retailing is on the rise – and shopping is changing forever.

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Neighbors are a Big Deal

But why spend money at all? Before money there was bartering, and thanks to the people-connecting power of the Internet, it’s firmly back in fashion (although we wouldn’t say “money is dead” – merely looking a bit peaky). If it fits through the post, it’s being swapped: books, DVDs, clothes, gadgets, plant seeds and tons more. Yet cities are where this is taking place in person, exchanging goods and services and reinforcing social bonds. Bartering binds people together.

And for the more intrepid barterer – why not trade homes with a complete stranger?

Each week here at EcoSalon, the editors choose a post from the archives that we think you’ll love. The original post can be found here.

Images: telmo32, NNECAPA, axiepics, bbjee, ubrayj02, frankh, emrank, Alex E. Proimos, eHow and paul(dex) busy @ work

The post Where Cities Are Taking Us: 10 Urban Eco Trends appeared first on EcoSalon.

The point of Foodie Underground is to take a look at all things related to the underground food movement, but sometimes all those cool, avant-garde, underground things start to add up and lead to more than just a small movement; they start to become mainstream.

Food carts can be found in smaller cities that don’t start with words like “San” and “New,” a town without a farmers’ market is getting harder to find, and around the country people are starting to think about what the word “organic” really means. They may have started as underground trends, but the fact that more people are paying attention to what they eat and where it comes from is a good thing.

Proof? The National Restaurant Association surveyed almost 2,000 chefs to find out what they think the trends of 2010 will be come year’s end, and the answer wasn’t bacon. At the top of the list was locally grown produce, with 88 percent of the chefs naming it a hot trend. Some of the other trends that ranked highly in various categories were restaurants with on-site gardens, environmentally friendly kitchen equipment, locally produced wine and beer, and organic produce.

Where does that put the underground food movement? In a good spot. It means that all the efforts that go into sourcing food locally, brewing craft beers, supporting community gardens, and all the other things that conscious foodies around the country partake in on a regular basis are having a significant positive impact.

The work comes in turning these trends into culinary norms; until the general population comes to expect locally sourced produce whenever possible, and puts a value on organic, fresh food, then we’ve still got plenty of hours to put in supporting the ongoing underground movement.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

Image: bokchoi-snowpea

The post Foodie Underground: Local Foods and Sustainability Really Booming appeared first on EcoSalon.