Green Cities, a report from Living Cities, is one of the first assessments of exactly how 40 of the country's largest cities are trying to limit their carbon footprints and take the steps needed to raise these efforts to the next level.
Based on conversations with the leading thinkers and practitioners in the field, the report is an effort to showcase and support the innovative ways in which cities are creating an equitable green economy -- one that connects low-income people and under-invested urban communities to the economic mainstream. According to the featured survey included, it is here where cities have generally fallen short.
Don Chen, Program Officer at the Ford Foundation, addressing the latter point, notes that, ''This report shows that cities are leaders in using green strategies to advance economic recovery efforts and create better jobs. But it also signals the urgent need for these efforts reach more people -- including low-income and working families -- to build stronger communities for the long term.
Living Cities' is also serving as a resource to inform the usage of federal dollars available through stimulus funds and the workforce dollars associated with investments in the energy efficiency sector. The Green Cities report is focused on building energy retrofits, green workforce development and transit-oriented development, three areas also identified as priorities by local leaders and to which the recently passed stimulus bill brings extraordinary new resources.
The report was initiated and conducted by Living Cities, a long-standing collaboration of 21 of the world's largest foundations and financial institutions.
45 pages; available online as a PDF document at the resource link below.
Resource: http://www.livingcities.org/GreenCitiesReport.pdf
