Seeing the forest and the trees
Remarkable Objects
Jennifer Greenfeld is the Assistant Commissioner of Forestry, Horticulture, and Natural Resources for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Her job is to manage, think about, plan for nature in New York City. At the end of 2016, New York City released the results of their most recent street tree census, where they counted all the street trees along the city sidewalk. This was the culmination of about 18 months of work. Parks employees and over 2,000 citizen volunteers literally took to the streets to complete the census using surveyor’s wheels to precisely locate over half a...
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People Habitat
Remarkable Objects
Kaid Benfield thinks lovability is an under-recognized element of sustainability, because it’s the places that we love that we’ll fight for, invest in, and defend. He should know, because he’s been working in the field for over 30 years. He started his career as a litigator, and eventually he went on to direct the Sustainable Communities and Smart Growth program, and to co-found the LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system, as well as Smart Growth America. During this time, he wrote over a thousand posts about land planning, sustainable development, and creating places that work...
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Undiscovered Country
Remarkable Objects
We don’t pay too much attention to soil, particularly in the city – which is too bad, because everything we do aboveground affects what goes on below. Listen to our conversation with pedologist Jonathan Russell-Anelli, a faculty member at Cornell University studying the form and function of soil. Remarkable Objects is a production of DeepRoot Green Infrastructure. Learn more at www.deeproot.com. Want even more? Follow us on Twitter @RemarkableShow. Music: “Juparo” (Broke for Free) “Falcon Hood (Tight)” (Podington Bear) “Summer Days” (Kai Engel)
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Is Tree Planting Equitable?
Remarkable Objects
Shannon Lea Watkins spends a lot of time thinking about environmental justice. She’s a post-doctoral fellow at San Francisco State University, where she studies the relationship between people and trees. Her recent research paper, published in “Environment and Behavior,” asks an uncomfortable but important question: is tree planting equitable? Do subsidized trees distributed by non-profits get planted evenly across the city, regardless of income or race? Environmental justice is about access to natural resources and unequal exposure to environmental harms, but it’s also about access to...
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Creativity and Constraints
Remarkable Objects
The state of Minnesota has done something very unusual: they’ve formally recognized street trees, and the soil they grow in, as a best management practice for stormwater regulations. And they’ve created a crediting system to use street trees and soils to meet statewide regulatory standards. Our guest, Randy Neprash is a civil engineer and the sole staff member for the Minnesota Cities Stormwater Coalition, an organization of cities in Minnesota that are regulated for their stormwater discharges. Minnesota is the only state that we know of that has done this, and it could completely change...
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Hacking the City
Remarkable Objects
Cities are, almost by definition, slow-moving entities. But a playful design form known as the parklet has changed that, allowing everyday citizens to participate in making their neighborhoods more friendly, walkable, and generous. Robin Abad Ocubillo is the urban designer and lead policy planner for the San Francisco parklets program, and he has led the effort within the city of taking the unusual step of actually incorporating parklets into city code, thereby formalizing the important role they can play in the urban landscape. This podcast is a production of DeepRoot Green Infrastructure,...
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The Mighty Green Street
Remarkable Objects
Robert Goo loves water – we mean LOVES it. And he’s devoted nearly thirty years of his professional career to improving the health of our water resources. Robert works in the Office of Water for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; he focuses on how we develop and design our cities and infrastructure to preserve water quality. How do we reduce the amount of pollutants that get discharged into our waterways? And how can we alter our design and construction methods to create more nature-based development patterns that protect this invaluable resource? These are some of the questions...
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Quantifying the Landscape
Remarkable Objects
Barbara Deutsch is the Executive Director at the Landscape Architecture Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to research, scholarship, and advocacy. She and her small team are trying to advance the landscape architecture perspective by quantifying the benefits provided by landscape elements like plants and water. For the past six years they’ve been building a collection of over 100 case studies from projects across the United States. Each case study evaluates the landscape’s contributions in three areas: social, environmental, and economic. The purpose of the case studies is to arm designers...
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Introducing Remarkable Objects
Remarkable Objects
Introducing “Remarkable Objects,” a podcast from DeepRoot Green Infrastructure about the intersection of nature and urban design. Each episode will be a 15 to 20 minute interview with someone working at the intersection of nature and the urban environment. I’ll talk to them about their work and experience, and we’ll discuss what it means for the future of cities. Guests will include academics, designers, policy makers, and more. Episodes will cover everything from environmental justice, to the rise of the parklets, to creating "people habitat." How can we incorporate nature into our...
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