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Cities generate most of the global economy, and most of its energy use, resource demands and climate emissions. How we build cities over the next decades will largely determine whether we can deliver a bright green future.

Alex Steffen

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Alex Steffen
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: January 1
Environmentalist
Writer
Oakland
California
Whether
Determine
Emissions
Future
Climate
Resource
Use
Green
Deliver
Energy
Build
Largely
Next
Resources
Demands
Demand
Bright
Cities
Decades
Economy
Global
Generate

More quotes by Alex Steffen

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There's no law of physics that says we have to be an unsustainable society - in fact, quite the opposite. The planet's ready to work with us if we're ready to think differently, but we do have to make that jump and start to do things in new ways.
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The planet's biggest problems have to do with sustainability, environmental decline, global poverty, disease, conflict and so forth. Really, they're all interconnected - it's one big problem, which is that the way we're doing things can't go on.
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Cities are responsible for the vast majority of the creation of the economy. They're also places into which we pour the vast majority of resources, the vast majority of energy and the places where a huge percentage of the decisions about how systems are built and how products designed, etc., happen.
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If mass media, social isolation in the suburbs, alienating workplaces and long car commutes create a bunker mentality, the Internet does the opposite.
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There is no such thing as garbage, just useful stuff in the wrong place.
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I think we're going to start to see a new model of civic advocacy where people get together once in a while to protest, but it's more about an ongoing, sustained engagement in issues, networks and communities about which people care.
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By looking at climate change as a clean energy generation problem, we're setting ourselves up not to solve it.
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For carbon-neutral cities, there are things worth talking about in how our consumption patterns can change - sharing goods, etc. - but those are a fraction of the impacts of transportation and building energy use. If we need to choose priority actions, the most important things are to densify, provide transit, and green the buildings.
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Deep walkability describes a city that is built in such a way that you can move from one area to another on foot, on bicycle, on transit and have an experience that remains a pleasant one, that you feel you are welcome not just in the neighborhood but moving between neighborhoods.
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For most people, using the Internet broadens their sense of who 'we' is and actually ends up leaving us in a place of greater compassion and understanding. It leaves us more connected to a larger group of people and more at one with a lot more people in our community.
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The denser places get, the lower the amount of energy people use to get around it.
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Clean air and water, a diversity of animal and plant species, soil and mineral resources, and predictable weather are annuities that will pay dividends for as long as the human race survives – and may even extend our stay on Earth.
Alex Steffen
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We have to craft new political realities, not only in places like India, Afghanistan, Kenya, Pakistan, but here at home as well. Another world is possible.
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In almost all city governments in America, the small group of people who don't want change are able to block change.
Alex Steffen
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Powerful people doing bad things LIKE cynical, despairing citizens.
Alex Steffen
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Cities offer us powerful leverage on our most stubborn, wasteful practices. Long commutes in our cars, big power bills from our energy-hogging buildings, shopping trips to buy stuff that'll spend a few short months in our homes and long centuries in our landfills.
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Copenhagen has done a remarkable job creating streets that are focused on bicycles and pedestrians.
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Urban retrofitting: creating different sorts of spaces and uses out of places that are already there.
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By fundamentally changing how we design the places and systems that enable our daily lives, we can slash emissions way beyond the immediate carbon savings - because our own personal emissions are just the tip of a vast iceberg of energy and resources consumed far from our view.
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I think there's a gigantic generation gap in terms of how people understand the Internet and how much they think technology is an important factor in social change.
Alex Steffen