[Photo courtesy of Spencer Lindsay]
Summitgoers push for sustainable cities
Is there life after cars? Could your house be transformed into a unit in a mixed-use, multifamily building with a vegetable garden on the roof? Would you drink “toilet to tap” water – purified, recycled sewage – or would you rather die of thirst?
These questions and many others like them were asked – and at least partially answered – by an eclectic group of avant-garde designers, builders, planners, organizers, artists and mayors (including Gavin Newsom) from around the world. They gathered at the Ecocity World Summit conference in San Francisco last month to share their ideas and experiences in an effort to create sustainable cities – and there was a palpable sense of urgency in their voices as they spoke of climate change, water and food shortages, soil depletion, deforestation and poverty.