Live Green Cincinnati team members recently helped with the Great American Cleanup down by the Cincinnati riverfront. Brianne took a few moments to speak to Chris Wiedeman, a member of the Downtown Resident’s Council about the project.

This is our first try at a video pod in our article feeds, so please inform us if you have trouble viewing the video below. Thanks in advance.

This just in from the University of Cincinnati sustainability website:

The UC community is invited to participate in the third in a series of presentations on the issue of climate change, with this latest event taking place on May 20.

“Climate Commitment 101″ will be held from noon-1 p.m. in the MainStreet Cinema in Tangeman University Center. Speakers include UC President Nancy Zimpher and Visiting Associate Professor Adrian Parr, who will present “The Politics of Sustainable Design.”

Take your lunch break and learn more about some details in UC’s commitment to the environment.

The Queen City is changing, and every person here has the opportunity to make a difference. This column is meant to demonstrate how life can be lived well and with a low environmental footprint. Yeah, maybe global warming is going to make you sweat this summer, but no need to panic get your head out of the paper bag, grab your canvas bag, and live green Cincinnati!

There is no doubt that Cincinnati and the areas surrounding it are heavily dependent on cars. As for me, I sold my car three years ago, shortly after I put my name on the deed for a place downtown. This turned out to be an incredibly smart decision, as the $8000 per year which AAA says is the average cost of owning a car annually goes directly into the equity of home ownership.
Not having a car of my own is not difficult, but it does require a bit of planning. Here are a few of my tips for how to prepare to go without your car successfully:

• Live near where you work. Or work near where you live and play. Being able to walk, catch a bus, or ride your bike to the office will save you cash and get you exercise. Better yet, find a neighbor going in the same direction, and make going to work an active social occasion.
• Share. Find a friend, neighbor, or family member with whom you can car-share or use the ride-share program. Take turns driving the carpool. I was able to find someone in my building to enter into a car-sharing agreement with so that I can drive myself somewhere in a pinch. Companies like ZipCar operating as nearby as Columbus combine car rental with car-sharing to give people even more flexibility.
• Take mass transit. Learn the nearby bus routes. Find stores and amenities you need along the transit routes so you can easily get what you need. At an average cost of $0.52 per mile for driving, according to that same 2007 AAA report, the cost of taking the bus is very often less than the cost of driving. For instance, taking the Metro between downtown and Clifton or the TANK shuttle to Covington and Newport is super easy, and I can get to the grocery store, the hospital, retail stores, the movies, friends’ homes and many other places from those quick routes for less than the cost of driving and parking.
• Leg it. Walking and riding your bike can be much more enjoyable than driving. Treat yourself to a pair of walking sneakers or a durable bike. My personal motto is this: “If you can see it, you can get to it.” This has actually created many fun adventures and unexpected discoveries both around Cincinnati and in other cities. I wouldn’t be renowned in my office for knowing where to eat lunch if I always walked the same path home.
• Barter with friends. Offer to pay for gas or lunch if someone else drives. Begging for rides is not cool, but carpooling or splitting the burden is. Do something nice for someone who offers to drive. I often just happen to have an “extra ticket” to a show or movie if my companion for the evening is willing to swing by and pick me up on his or her way to the destination.
• Go urban. You don’t have to live downtown to take advantage of a well-situated neighborhood for the carless. Many other parts of town, such as Clifton, Northside, Mt. Healthy, Mariemont, Oakley and Covington, have great, dense “towns” situated around a main street. These new urban-type neighborhoods often can provide just about anything you might need in a short walking range from where you live, they sit right on a convenient bus line, and they offer lots of social interaction.

If you’re up for the challenge, try it without your car for a few days. Heck, if you feel brave, go carless for a week! I have a good friend whose car was unfortunately totaled a few months back (luckily he was not hurt), and he used that as a catalyst to try living without a car. Months later, he’s happily joined the ranks of the Cincinnati car-free without looking back.

One day this week, I realized how much freedom being in an urban area without an automobile afforded me. On any given day, I walk to work, meet friends at a local lunch diner, stop into a drug store to pick up milk and cereal, take a bike ride over to Newport, make dinner at home, and end the evening around the corner to get coffee and chat with my neighborhood barista. No gas money. No parking. No traffic.

Lots of fresh air and personal interactions.

So go car free and carefree. I highly recommend it.

Originally printed in the April 15th issue of Pulse DT.

This posting from Building Cincinnati makes an important point about green residential building.

“Even “eco-fitting” a 3,000-square-foot house doesn’t necessarily make it eco-friendly - a 2005 analysis in the Journal of Industrial Ecology concluded that one of these homes, even if rated as super-efficient, consumes 50 percent more energy that a 1,500-square-foot house built only to mediocre energy standards. “

Here’s an idea, maybe the city and county can develop to the environment’s needs and still create world-class living space. How about planning an eco-amazing home-a-rama 2012 on The Banks, and enforce a 2000 square foot maximum living space size limit? The stage is set for New Urbanism to meet the critical mass of Cincinnati residents.

Live Green Cincinnati made time to witness the groundbreaking ceremony this week at The Banks. Our ears perked up when we heard County Commissioner Todd Portune mention in his speech that The Banks would involve green building and green purchasing in the development.

We’ll hold you to that!

A well developed banks could be the ultimate urbanist small footprint key to making Cincinnati the most livable, walkable, visited, active, interesting, environmentally conscious, and enjoyable city in the nation.

No pressure!

The brightest spot of The Banks proposals so far is that of the Riverfront Park. What better way to link the major sports facilities, museum, and massive new development to the city? If you’ve ever traveled northbound on I-75 from the airport, you know what it’s like to come around the curve into the city and see that beautiful, historical skyline rise before you. Try imagining that same amazing skyline with the stately Ohio River, a bustle of activity, and a relaxing expanse of usable green space adding color, oxygen, and inspiration to the city. Once this “front yard” of the city is in place, everything else will follow.

An infill design charette for OTR is being held this Saturday, click here for details. Make time to participate and use your skills to help deveolp a liveable, walkable, and environmentally friendly urban city.

The Building Cincinnati blog reports that Over The Rhine is to be studied for a potential LEED green historic building and neighborhood redevelopment. It’s a great part of the LAND-HC strategy to utilize historic buildings to bring to life a dense, urban neighborhood that is walkable and a minimal use of new resources.

The news is coming out, and surprise: this year Homearama will be featuring large houses in an upscale new neighborhood development.

The good news is that it looks like Charmont, a featured home, does have a focus on energy efficient home technology and is even an Energy Star qualified home.

At the same time in Florida, a site is being prepared for a new development of sustainably built homes. Orientation of the homes to the sun for maximum passive solar benefits, natural and geothermal heating and cooling, and wastewater recycling are all part of the package.

Granted, new development is not preferable when sufficient residential stock exists and can be remodeled or refurbished to meet the needs. Sprawling developments take over where farms and forests and habitats used to dwell. However, the population is ever increasing and people need to go somewhere. If you need to develop new living environments, consider making a low-impact, highly energy efficient, walkable community along the lines of the New Urbanist ideals or to LEED-ND (neighborhood development) green building guidelines. Not only are these community developments good for the environment in greenspace saved and transportation pollution prevented, but they are healthy places to live and incredibly in demand - selling out all over the country in the midst of a real estate bubble burst. The New Urbanist communities trend back toward traditional communities; before the era of stripmalls, office parks, and endless surface parking lots separated by 6 lane roads from your home - forcing sidewalks to disappear and you to drive everywhere you go.

For next year’s Homearama, let’s challenge ourselves to showcase the model of space efficient, renewable material friendly, alternative energy driven, energy efficient, designer homes available. We may not recapture the magic of the soda fountain and independent neighborhood drug store, but we can certainly relearn to respect our natural resources and meet our neighbors.