Urban Retrofits: How to Make a City Green -- Without Tearing It Down

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Michael Fitzgerald writes an interesting article in the Boston Globe with a number of suggestions for "retrofitting. In the past several years, engineers, urban planners, and entrepreneurs have come up with imaginative new ways to take what we now know about living more energy-efficiently, and grafting that technology onto cities without clearing away what’s already there." Suggestions include reskinning, bikes on demand, smart grids, mobility hubs, solar rentals and podcars. Oh well, five out of six ain't bad. More at the Boston Globe.

To balance this quality journalism, the Globe also ran the The Silliest Article Ever on the Local Food Movement.

Tom Keane writes in A Bitter Reality:

The local food movement is an affectation based on bad logic and bad economics, one that, widely adopted, would actually harm the environment and potentially impoverish millions. Particularly here in New England, it would also turn mealtimes into dull, pallid affairs.

Now having just gone through my second winter of local vegetables like turnip and potatoes, I can say that there is nothing dull and pallid about it, even in Canada. In fact, just about every point in the article can be challenged, but fortunately a whole lot of smart commenters in Boston got there first. Read them at

As our own Jeff Nield wrote in our discussion of this:A Bitter Reality

There are oodles of reasons why the 100 Mile Diet doesn't fix the food system. But, the food system is broken and needs fixing. Local food, like organics, is an entry point for people to start thinking about all the linkages of the system and how things can improve.

More on Local Food: Eating Local Food: The Movement, Locavores and More