Earlier this month I was fortunate to take-in Green Community, an exhibit currently on display at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. The exhibit runs through October of this year and I would recommend seeing it if you’re in the D.C. area. Not only is the National Building Museum in a really great building (even if the columns are fake!) there is just a lot of cool stuff to see; photography exhibits, hands-on learning, and a great gift shop.
The Green Community exhibit highlights technology and ideas put into place in cities and neighborhoods around the U.S. and the world that have attempted to make a better place out of a bad one. The exhibit is designed well and has plenty of text (too much for me actually, don’t go there if you’re tired).
The highlighted communities come from diverse climates but there are still opportunities to learn from each one. The topics include transportation, land conservation, resource efficiency, waste, and reinvigorating/repurposing/remediating. These problems are actually very new to humankind. On one hand it seems we need to look backward to move forward, but on the other, the technological advances are tremendous. One thing is clear, we can’t have “business-as-usual.”
It seems to me that a “sustainable community” boils down to good urban planning and design partnered with the best agricultural and conservation practices in the areas surrounding the city. Throw in some renewable energy and I think we’d be all right.
