Sustainable Urban Development
With cities expected to host about 70 percent of the world's population, sustainable urban development is key to making communities worldwide more resilient against the growing threat of climate change. Find out about the latest urban practices from across the world aiming to make our cities more sustainable and inclusive in these good-news stories from The Optimist Daily.
This design makes social distancing at the park a beautiful thing
As city dwellers have flocked outside during the pandemic, some cities have shut down urban parks because of fears of overcrowding—at a time when people could most use the mental and physical health benefits of green space. A new design, proposed for a vacant lot in the city of Vienna, shows how Read More...
Los Angeles hotels open their doors to the homeless during COVID-19
Communities around the world are under shelter in place orders, but staying home is not an option for homeless populations. A Los Angeles hotel is hoping to protect the health of its community’s most vulnerable residents by opening their doors to those living on the streets. The hotel, which Read More...
Oakland Slow Streets project makes social distancing easier
If you live in a heavily populated area, maintaining social distancing practices while taking walks around the neighborhood can be a challenge and require weaving around people and across streets. Oakland, California is helping residents get outside by closing 74 miles of streets in the city for Read More...
One Norwegian town is building aviary hotels to save seabird populations
When the town of Tromsø, Norway began building more hotels to accommodate flocks of tourists searching for a glimpse of the northern lights, they received some additional unanticipated guests: seabirds. Seabirds, such as the local kittiwake, have struggled to survive in their natural sea Read More...
The UAE is going all in on indoor farming
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is situated in the scorching Arabian desert, which makes growing food outdoors a nightmare. The UAE currently imports 80 percent of its food because of this, but the government is pushing hard to localize food through the power of indoor farming. In an industrial Read More...
This experimental housing complex holds the key to a clean, stable grid
In the small town of Basalt, Colorado, a small housing development that was meant to stand as a bulwark against skyrocketing housing prices is now dually serving as a living laboratory for testing advanced power grid technologies. The hope is that, one day, these technologies could turn every home Read More...
City dwellers are going hyper-local to experience nature
Most shelter-at-home orders allowed for people to visit national parks or nature preserves, but when too many people starting visiting these places, governments started restricting access to them as well. And although it’s frustrating to be separated from the great outdoors, staying home has Read More...
Urban planners now know which tree is best for sound absorption in the city
Cities are notoriously noisy places, which is why urban planners are increasingly turning to trees as a buffer for noise. To identify which trees do the best job at muffling noise, researchers from University College London (UCL) recently evaluated 13 species of tree such as beech or willow trees Read More...
Nigerian citizen designs portable hand-washing stations for his city
Hand-washing is one of the most promoted and effective ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but what about regions where hand-washing facilities are not readily accessible? An estimated 157 million Nigerians lack adequate hand-washing facilities, which prompted one resident, Bamigbose Adams, to Read More...
The case for building things out of actual living materials
If we want to build a sustainable future, we may have to revisit what it is we’re actually building things out of. And though the science around the idea is just beginning to emerge, one prime candidate may be using actual living materials like fungus. Or concrete churned out by tiny microbial Read More...