Until just over a decade ago, there was no such thing as a Sustainability Director or
Chief Resilience Officer for cities. Now, cities feel incomplete without them. What are
these jobs and why are they so essential to achieving urban sustainability goals? We
pose these questions to our guests, Melanie Nutter, former Director of San Francisco’s
Department of Environment, and Susie Strife, Director of the Office of Sustainability,
Climate Action and Resilience for Boulder County, Colorado.

Rushad Nanavatty, Managing Director and lead of the Rocky Mountain Institute’s
Urban Transformation program, and Ben Holland, Senior Associate and Policy
Liaison at RMI, join us to explore the connection between transportation and land use,
and how each affects our ability to achieve our climate goals, from commuting to street
design to electric vehicles.

We look at sustainability, health and wellness in buildings and real estate. Beyond a
zero-carbon built environment, what other goals should we be aiming for in creating
better, greener, more inclusive cities? And how do we get there? Our guests are Brad
Jacobson, Principal at EHDD, a San Francisco-based architecture firm leading the way
towards a carbon-neutral built environment, and Alaina Ladner, who heads the
sustainability practice at JLL’s Project & Development Services in the West.

Renowned urban designer and planner Peter Calthorpe joins us to discuss his big idea
for making California, and the rest of the nation, more sustainable. He calls it
“Reinventing the strip.” Calthorpe is a founding member of the Congress for the New
Urbanism and author of several books, including “Sustainable Communities,” “The
Next American Metropolis,” “The Regional City: Planning for the End of Sprawl,” and
“Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change.”

Cities around the world are trying to find ways to reclaim their streets for people, for
walking, biking, and scootering from point to point. The goal is to make cities safer,
cleaner and more fun while reducing or eliminating altogether the number of cars and
trucks that have dominated urban landscapes for almost a century. We talk to the Lord
Mayor of Heidelberg, Germany, Dr. Eckart Wurzner, about his city’s efforts to create a
car-free community, and Chris Shears, an urban designer, and planner who has long
advocated for transit-oriented, infill development to move Americans beyond
auto-dependence.