Portland's Heart of Green

Portland has consistently proved itself to be a green leader for American cities. Just this morning I stumbled upon two very interesting new developments taking root in the Pacific Northwest. The first is the spread of a simple but alluring grassroots idea: free tool libraries. These libraries, which work just like book lending libraries, are designed to make tools accessible while encouraging community and sustainability. I definitely could have used one of these in BK when I was trying to build my own shelves!

The second, a larger scale project, is a new design for the re-vamping of Portland's federal building. The re-modeled building will have a 200 ft. vegetation wall and solar panels, which combined will reduce the buildings energy consumption by 60-65%! This expensive project has been met with quite a bit of opposition, but ultimately it is an investment for the future of the building as well as for the environment.

I've never been to Portland, but it seems like a pretty forward moving/thinking place. My hope is that one day NYC can really commit to going green and take on these types of projects, both small and large scale, for our neighborhoods, as well as for the rest of the world to see.

Thanks to Rex Arrow for showing me this building!