Overview Sustainable Not Sustainable Other Urban Sights About
   Overview
    I recently read Richard Register's book "EcoCities", which suggests that building sustainable cities can be an important tool to help minimize our impact on the environment. "EcoCities" inspired me to read other books such as the "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" (Jane Jacobs), and eventually attend the EcoCities World Conference in San Francisco. This conference helped me to realize that in order to prevent worst case environmental scenarios from occurring, positive steps must be taken to achieve meaningful environmental changes.
    I believe that I can have the best positive impact on our environment by first obtaining an education in Environmental Design, and then by acting in a local capacity as a city or regional planner. Perhaps urban planners can help pave the way (so to speak) towards a healthier global environment.
    This web site attempts to express through photography my concern for the environment, my interst in the built enviroment that we live in, and how by we might be able to better protect the environment that sustains us by building more sustainable cities.
    How to use the site:
    Three topic areas can be visited by using the links at the top of the screen, or by clicking on various areas of the city map. These include:
    Sustainable: Observed sustainable practices.
    Not Sustainable: Observed unsustainable pratices.
    Other Urban Sights: Other urban sights caught on film.
   Sustainable
    I'm worried about the path that our society is on. Most of us in North America and Europe enjoy very comfortable lifestyles, mostly made possible through the use of non-renewable resources. Not only are these resources going to run out at some point in the future, using them is creating pollution that is degrading our environment.
    In a finite world we cannot continue to consume limited resources and also maintain economic and population growth.
    I believe that if we can mold our cities into more sustainable environments, we can better manage our limited resources, and hopefully avert serious environmental consequences.
    Here are some of the things that I feel we're doing right.
   Sustainable
   alternate transport
   building usage
   clean energy
   connection with nature
   density
   education
   mass transit
   recycling
   Not Sustainable
    I believe that it is in our society's best interest to move away from not sustainable practices. The cumulative effects of over six billion people following current production, consumption and pollution levels is leading us down a path towards eventual environmental devastation.
    In my opinion these problems are not outside the realm of human capacity to resolve, so there is still hope.
    Please take a look at some of the not-sustainable practices that I feel we need to work on as a society.
   Not Sustainable
   cars cars cars
   environmental damage
   oil dependance
   paved over
   road infrastructure
   sprawl
   usage
   Towards Sustainability - what we need to do more of...
    Moving towards sustainable built environments, in my opinion, should not be taken lightly. Personal lifestyle changes such as recycling paper and commuting to work on public transit (if these opions are available) are a definate step in the right direction. Applied by large groups of people, these types of changes can have a real and positive impact on the environment.
    However, I think that governmental leadership with long term planning and initiatives will be required to help move society towards a more sustainable model. I belive that the types of changes needed must come in the form of rules and regulions on building and land use, energy stategies, incentives and education.
    But how do we go about accomplishing this? That is not an easy question, and I don't think that there are easy answers. However, I have some thoughts on practices that I feel we're doing correctly but in limited capacity now, and if applied on a larger scale could very much help to reduce our impact on the environemnt and lead towards true sustainability.
   Towards Sustainability
   access to nature
   densification
   developing around transit
   diversity
   expanding transit
   green energy reliance
   health
   recycle everything
   reduce and reuse
   restoration
   sustainability
   Other Urban Sights
    Cities are complex organisms, and I think that sustainable cities cannot be fully understood without considering the interrelationships of all possible factors when investigating any one feature.
    These pages contain other urban observations that I've had while building this portfolio.
   Other Urban Sights
   manhole covers
   miscellaneous
   About
    This web site showcases my photography as my creative portolio, and is meant to be included with my application to the Master of Envrironmental Design program at the University of Calgary (Deadline Feb 1, 2009). Should I be selected for admission, my intended area of focus will be Urban Systems Design.
    Other documents included with this application:
    Acknowledgements:
    I would like to acknowledge and thank my husband Sean McLennan, who built the behind-the-scene Javascript functions that run this web site.
    Created by: Jason Archibald, January 2009