Nutter Butter — New Sustainability Director Eyes PlaNYC
June 21, 2008 by Philadelphia's Remax City Space
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Did you know that Philadelphia’s population peaked in the 1950’s at 2 million people? Did you know that since then we have dropped to about 1 ½ million? That’s a loss of 500,000 people when the nation’s population since then has grown exponentially! To top off that astounding fact, in the 50’s there were enough homes built to house 2 ½ million people in Philadelphia, and so that is why as Dr. Mark Alan Hughes (“Call me Mark,” he says,) explains, there seems to be about a million too few people walking the streets when you look around. What does that have to do with Michael Nutter or Sustainability (my two favorite things to blog about), and who is this Mark guy? Read on…
Mark Alan Hughes, if you haven’t heard or read any of my recent blog posts, is Nutter’s newly appointed Director of Sustainability. He comes to us from UPENN and the Philly Daily News, as well as others, and is the man in charge of bringing Nutter’s goal of being the greenest city in the country to fruition. Last night I had the honor of attending his first public appearance since being hired by Nutter at the Academy of Natural Sciences. After a panel of experts who are scientifically studying our city’s water, parks, buildings, etc explained their findings in a language that I hope most of the people in the room didn’t understand (because I couldn’t make any sense of it) Hughes stepped up and spoke to the rest of us in common English. He discusses in brief, a green space plan, community involvement in land use, zoning updates, local food policy, alternative fuel specifications, and improving use of Fairmount Park to name a few. The idea is simply for Philadelphia to evolve into city that’s economy and community work to improve quality of life and the environment by combined efforts and reciprocation of all local residents and businesses. As a leader in sustainable cities we will hopefully have a huge draw for new residents as well as the infrastructure support them, which will in turn keep our economy strong and our city growing.
Hughes want to build on an existing green plan, developed by some planners in a well known neighboring city which will remain anonymous. The strategy is called PlaNYC. Whoops! Think I just gave it away. You can actually order your own copy for free (plus shipping) or download the plan online (save some trees!) . Hughes claims that is by far the best plan of it’s kind by far, but don’t take his word for it. Take a look for yourself and you will see the challenges that they are dealing with and their solutions. Although our cities are similar, keep in mind we have a lot more in our favor as we are not an island and have space to spread out a bit more as well as the fact that we are not expecting to have a population around 9 ¼ million by 2030. We have an edge. Let’s use it!
Anyway, in closing let me just say,
Good hire, Mayor Nutter, and thanks to Mark Hughes for stepping up an taking on the Dragon. (Had to be there…)
Rachel Lipton
REALTOR, Certified EcoBroker
RE/MAX City Space
direct: 215-625-7940
cell: 215-868-5972
email: rlipton@phillycityspace.com
website: www.livegreeninphilly.com
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