For immediate release
Contact: Anthony Flint 617-503-2116
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (May 25, 2010) – The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy is a co-sponsor of the Meeting of the Minds, an annual leadership summit of political, business and nonprofit sector leaders on innovative approaches to sustainability and mobility in cities and regions.
“Connecting the Dots: The Innovations We Need for Sustainable Cities”, convenes on June 16-18, 2010, in Omaha, is hosted by Urban Age Institute and the Joslyn Institute for Sustainable Communities. The aim of the gathering is to highlight locally generated innovations poised to be funded by the federal government, on energy independence, zoning reform, smart mobility, and clean transport.
Peter Pollock, the Boulder-based Ronald Smith Fellow at the Lincoln Institute, will lead the session “The sustainable city in the sustainable region,” exploring the variety of scales at which sustainability can be viewed and the range of policy alternatives that relate to the development of sustainable cities and regions. The panelists include Peter J. Park, manager of Community Planning and Development for Denver, Robert E. Lang, professor of sociology and director of Brookings Mountain West at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas, and Thomas K. Wright, executive director of the Regional Plan Association of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Other sessions will focus on lessons learned from four cities—two American cities and two cities in the Netherlands—grappling with sustainable urban development. Charles Rutheiser, senior fellow in the Anne E. Casey Foundation’s Civic Sites and Initiatives Unit, and Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, will present on the experiences of Baltimore and San Francisco, respectively. Saskia Ruijsink, specialist in urban and regional management at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, will introduce a new short film detailing how Rotterdam and Delft are dealing with climate change.
Zerofootprint Foundation’s CEO Ron Dembo will showcase the Re-Skinning Awards’ winning projects. Each prize winner demonstrates innovative retrofitting technologies and systems ready to be applied in today’s market. Each winner’s work features replicable solutions which are designed to enhance both the efficiency and livability of the world’s existing housing stock.
Sustainability coordinators from the largest cities in the Midwest will also lead sessions on integrating sustainability into comprehensive plans and the imperative of energy efficiency. A third session will feature the “Living Labs” scattered around the world’s cities, chaired by Neal Peirce of the Washington Post Writers Group will discuss policy experimentation around the world’s cities in conjunction with the launch of the new news service Citiscope, while Barbara Hewson, chief of the Urban Finance Branch of the United Nations Habitat Programme, will lead a debate on smart financing for affordable housing.
In association with the first Regional Energy Innovation Summit, convening on June 16 in Omaha, guests of the White House Office of Social Innovation and the Kauffman Foundation with participate in an evening program featuring Howard Buffett, policy advisor in the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, will share findings from the Energy Innovation Summit.
Other global partners include Toyota, Siemens AG, Cemex, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Urban Land Institute, Jones Lang LaSalle, Gallup, UN-Habitat, UN Global Compact Cities Programmes, Regional Plan Association and Metropolis.
Urban Age Institute
The Urban Age Institute is an independent nonprofit ‘think-and-do tank’ working to support innovators based inside the world’s cities. It publishes Urban Age Magazine and delivers programs around the globe.
Joslyn Institute for Sustainable Communities
The Joslyn Institute for Sustainable Communities, based out of Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, engages both the local and international community to promote an integrated approach to sustainability through education, public visioning and partnership.
The Meeting of the Minds seeks to foster innovation in infrastructure, technology, energy, transport, water, and finance for more livable cities. The gathering has been held in Oakland, Portland, and recently in New York, with a focus on sustainable public finance.
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