CUNY Institute For Sustainable Cities

This talk looks at the challenge of the Sustainable Megacity through Sao Paulo’s experience as a city of 20 million people, with expansion that ranges from formal urban development to the informal context of huge slums. This work signalizes parameters for a city that is reinventing itself through eco-urbanism after the "expanding and exhausting" model of the 21st Century when the city grew by 27,000% in population and 40,000% in urban territory.

Carlos Leite is an Architect and Urbanist with a Master and PhD in Urban Design from the University of Sao Paulo and a Postdoc from California Polytechnic University where he was Visiting Professor. He is Professor at the School of Architecture and Planning, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, Sao Paulo. He is releasing his first book: Cidades Sustentaveis, Cidades Inteligentes in Brazil (Bookman). He is principal at Stuchi & Leite Projetos:www.stuchileite.com

This program is the first in a series designed to increase awareness and dialogue between residents and stakeholders of New York City and other communities in the Hudson Watershed.

Recording of a panel discussion held at Roosevelt House, NYC on Wednesday, December 1st, 2010 - 1PM-5PM.

Session 4 Wed. April 28, 2010

Reviving the Estuary: Science, Politics, and Education

Moderator: Dr. John Waldman, Queens College

Speakers/Panelists

Deborah A. Mans, Executive Director, NY/NJ Baykeeper

Christopher J. Collins, Executive Director, Solar One

Cortney Worrall, Director of Programs, Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance

Murray Fisher, Urban Assembly New York Harbor School

William Kornblum, Author, At Sea in the City: New York at the Water’s Edge

In 1609, New York’s future waterfront was an arcadian shore of forests, wetlands, beaches, and sand bars, according to Eric Sanderson's book Mannahatta. That landscape is lost forever, but visions of a post-industrial, neo-natural waterfront are longstanding. In 1944, futurists Paul and Percival Goodman proposed that Manhattan "open out toward the water," lining its gritty waterfront with new parks. They were prescient: today the water’s edge of Manhattan is evolving from a "no-man's-land" into a "highly desirable zone of parks," in the words of writer Phillip Lopate.

The newly designated "Manhattan Waterfront Greenway" is cobbled together from many bits and pieces like Battery Park City, Hudson River Park, Riverside Park South, restored Harlem River parks, and tiny Stuyvesant Cove Park––each with its own chronicle of past and present struggles among property owners, community groups, developers, politicians, planners, lawyers, and other stakeholders. Elsewhere in the city, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, Governors Island, the South Bronx Greenway, Pelham Bay South Waterfront Park, the Bronx River Greenway, and Gateway National Recreation Area are among many waterfront works in progress.

The colloquium series will address selected topics and issues relating to what has been achieved and what remains to be done to continue the transformation of New York’s waterfronts.

Session 3 Wed. April 7, 2010

Seizing Opportunities: Waterfront Works in Progress

Moderator: Dr. Melissa Checker, Queens College, CUNY

Speakers/Panelists

Robert Pirani, Regional Plan Association and Governors Island Alliance––Governors Island

Kate Van Tassel, NYCEDC and Miquela Craytor, Sustainable South Bronx––South Bronx Greenway

Ambassador William J. vanden Heuvel, Four Freedoms Park

Nancy Webster, Acting Executive-Director, Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy

Joshua Laird, Asst. Commissioner, NYC Parks and Recreation

Background

In 1609, New York’s future waterfront was an arcadian shore of forests, wetlands, beaches, and sand bars, according to Eric Sanderson's book Mannahatta. That landscape is lost forever, but visions of a post-industrial, neo-natural waterfront are longstanding. In 1944, futurists Paul and Percival Goodman proposed that Manhattan "open out toward the water," lining its gritty waterfront with new parks. They were prescient: today the water’s edge of Manhattan is evolving from a "no-man's-land" into a "highly desirable zone of parks," in the words of writer Phillip Lopate.

The newly designated "Manhattan Waterfront Greenway" is cobbled together from many bits and pieces like Battery Park City, Hudson River Park, Riverside Park South, restored Harlem River parks, and tiny Stuyvesant Cove Park––each with its own chronicle of past and present struggles among property owners, community groups, developers, politicians, planners, lawyers, and other stakeholders. Elsewhere in the city, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, Governors Island, the South Bronx Greenway, Pelham Bay South Waterfront Park, the Bronx River Greenway, and Gateway National Recreation Area are among many waterfront works in progress.

The colloquium series will address selected topics and issues relating to what has been achieved and what remains to be done to continue the transformation of New York’s waterfronts.

GreenHome NYC is pleased to announce their February 17 monthly forum, The Women of Green, at a location to be determined. In this 1.5 hour presentation, attendees will meet 12 women in the green field, established professionals who are trying and succeeding in changing the environmental movement. The presentation will be done in Pecha Kucha format, where each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds - giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to present. This is a forum for women (and maybe well-behaved men) to see the breadth of careers in the sustainable field that don’t involve what we like to call the green “bling” (ground source heat pumps, solar, wind, bamboo, green roofs, and the like).

This will be held as the regular monthly forum meeting of GreenHomeNYC (www.greenhomenyc.org) an all- volunteer organization dedicated to helping people in the NYC region green their lives. It is being done in cooperation with Hunter’s CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities;

Admission is free but attendees can make a tax-deductable contribution to GreenHomeNYC at the forum.

The Women of Green

Chris Benedict, Chris Benedict, RA: Doing more with Less

Catherine Bobenhausen, Veridian Energy and Environmental: Greening Professionals

Erica Brabon, Steven Winter Associates: Health and Safety

Mary Brennan, Community Preservation Corporation: Green Lending

Annie Chadwick, Clinton Community Garden: Community Gardening

Sharon Griffith, NYSERDA: 30 + NYSERDA and Weatherization

Maureen Mahle, Steven Winter Assoc.: Green Design and LEED Certification

Ariella Maron, NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services: Greening a Government

Charlotte Mathews, The Related Companies: Big and Green

Tatiana Morin, NYC Soil and Water Conservation District: The water we waste

Lesley Patrick, Hunter CUNY ISC: Trees or Global Warming

Session 2 Wed. March 17, 2010:

Waterfront Parks: Old, New, Green, Blue

Moderator: Dr. Rutherford H. Platt

Speakers/Panelists

Amy Gavaris, Executive Vice President for the New York Restoration Project

Dr. Vicky Gholson, Friends of Riverbank State Park

Peter Mullan, Planning Director, Friends of The High Line Greenway

Connie Fishman, Executive Director, Hudson River Park Trust

Jeanne DuPont, Rockaway Waterfront Alliance, Queens

In 1609, New York’s future waterfront was an arcadian shore of forests, wetlands, beaches, and sand bars, according to Eric Sanderson's book Mannahatta. That landscape is lost forever, but visions of a post-industrial, neo-natural waterfront are longstanding. In 1944, futurists Paul and Percival Goodman proposed that Manhattan "open out toward the water,” lining its gritty waterfront with new parks. They were prescient: today the water’s edge of Manhattan is evolving from a "no-man's-land" into a "highly desirable zone of parks," in the words of writer Phillip Lopate.

The newly designated “Manhattan Waterfront Greenway” is cobbled together from many bits and pieces like Battery Park City, Hudson River Park, Riverside Park South, restored Harlem River parks, and tiny Stuyvesant Cove Park––each with its own chronicle of past and present struggles among property owners, community groups, developers, politicians, planners, lawyers, and other stakeholders. Elsewhere in the city, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, Governors Island, the South Bronx Greenway, Pelham Bay South Waterfront Park, the Bronx River Greenway, and Gateway National Recreation Area are among many waterfront works in progress.

The colloquium series will address selected topics and issues relating to what has been achieved and what remains to be done to continue the transformation of New York’s waterfronts.

Session 1: Wed. Feb. 24, 2010:

"Opening Out Towards the Water"– The Big Picture

Moderator: Dr. William Solecki, Director, CISC

Speakers/Panelists

Dr. Rutherford H. Platt, Senior Fellow, CISC

Robert Yaro, President, Regional Plan Association

Linda Cox, Executive Director, Bronx River Alliance

Wilbur L. Woods, Director, Waterfront and Open Space Planning, New York City Department of City Planning

Roland Lewis, CEO, Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance

In 1609, New York’s future waterfront was an arcadian shore of forests, wetlands, beaches, and sand bars, according to Eric Sanderson's book Mannahatta. That landscape is lost forever, but visions of a post-industrial, neo-natural waterfront are longstanding. In 1944, futurists Paul and Percival Goodman proposed that Manhattan "open out toward the water,” lining its gritty waterfront with new parks. They were prescient: today the water’s edge of Manhattan is evolving from a "no-man's-land" into a "highly desirable zone of parks," in the words of writer Phillip Lopate.

The newly designated “Manhattan Waterfront Greenway” is cobbled together from many bits and pieces like Battery Park City, Hudson River Park, Riverside Park South, restored Harlem River parks, and tiny Stuyvesant Cove Park––each with its own chronicle of past and present struggles among property owners, community groups, developers, politicians, planners, lawyers, and other stakeholders. Elsewhere in the city, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, Governors Island, the South Bronx Greenway, Pelham Bay South Waterfront Park, the Bronx River Greenway, and Gateway National Recreation Area are among many waterfront works in progress.

Martin V. Melosi is Distinguished University Professor of History and Director of the Center for Public History at the University of Houston. He was born in San Jose, California, and received his PhD in History at the University of Texas in Austin. His primary fields of study are environmental history, urban history, and the history of energy. He is the author or editor of sixteen books and more than 80 articles and book chapters, including the award-winning The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (2000, 2008). In April/May, 2008, he was visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. In 2000-01 he held the Fulbright Chair in American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark, and also has been a visiting faculty member at the University of Paris, University of Helsinki, Tampere Technological University, Peking University, and Shanghai University. In 2005 he was awarded the Ester Farfel Award at the University of Houston in recognition of career achievement in research, teaching, and scholarship. He has been president of the American Society for Environmental History, the Urban History Association, the Public Works Historical Society, and the National Council on Public History.

Dr. William Solecki's research focuses on the urban environmental change and urban land use and suburbanization. Solecki is the Director of the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities and a professor in the Department of Geography at Hunter College, CUNY. He has served on several U.S. National Research Council committees including the Special Committee on Problems in the Environment (SCOPE). He currently is a member of the International Geographical Union (IGU) Megacity Study Group and the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP), Urbanization and Global Environmental Change Scientific Steering Committee. He currently serves (has served) as the co-leader of several climate impacts and land use studies both statewide and in the New York metropolitan region, including the New York City Panel on Climate Change, the Statewide Integrated Assessment for Effective Climate Change Adaptation Strategies (ClimAID) project, and the Metropolitan East Coast Assessment of Impacts of Potential Climate Variability and Change. He holds in degrees in Geography from Columbia University (BA) and Rutgers University (MA, Ph.D).

Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies where she heads the Climate Impacts Group. She has organized and led large-scale interdisciplinary regional, national, and international studies of climate change impacts and adaptation. She is a co-chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, a body of experts convened by the Mayor advising the city on adaptation for its critical infrastructure. She has co-led the Metropolitan East Coast Regional Assessment of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, sponsored by the U.S. Global Change Research Program. She is a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report observed changes chapter, and served on the IPCC Task Group on Data and Scenarios for Impact and Climate Assessment. Dr. Rosenzweig's research involves the development of interdisciplinary methodologies to assess the potential impacts of and adaptations to global environmental change. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she joins impact models with climate models to predict future outcomes of both land-based and urban systems under altered climate conditions. She is a Professor at Barnard College and a Senior Research Scientist at the Columbia Earth Institute.