Spring yard + plants in afternoon sunlight

CNT Launches Affordability Index

Ever wonder how housing can be so inexpensive in some metro areas compared to others? And more to the point, ever wonder how much higher the cost of living must be in some outlying areas where housing is cheaper but getting to work - and school, shopping and play - all require a car? The Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology has just launched a 'housing-transportation-affordability index' that calculates just that, and in more than 50 communities. And they've done so in a very visual, easy-to-grasp way. This work is the result of a 2-year study, but in typical CNT fashion the result is not a dull report that you'll never read but a very user-friendly new web site.

CNT's Scott Bernstein explains:
“The index tells an alternative story of affordability than we’ve become accustomed to hearing. The real estate pages may list 2- and 3-bedroom homes for under $175,000 in suburban communities. That sounds affordable, right? But once you factor in transportation costs, the bargain goes away. Transportation costs can be as much or more than housing costs. The index protects consumers by divulging those costs and helps planners and decision-makers work toward providing truly affordable housing.”

Check out the new site here: http://htaindex.cnt.org.

The Reader Looks at Green Living

Kudos to the Reader's Mick Dumke for a nice piece on living green. This is a story that has been done over and over - but Dumke manages to pack it full of informed nuggets.

Filling the tub for a bath uses around 70 gallons of water, while showering generally takes 10 to 25 for every five minutes.

The average car produces five to six metric tons of greenhouse gases each year, and automobiles are responsible for about 9 percent of the country’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.

Don’t rinse the dishes first—just put them in the racks and wait to run the dishwasher until the whole thing’s full. The average machine uses 9 to 12 gallons of water per load, while washing by hand typically takes up to twice as much.

A 2005 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that about 4 percent of all residential electricity went to power TVs, and the bigger the set, the more juice it requires. Cutting TV power consumption by 25 percent a year would save consumers hundreds of millions of dollars and keep about seven million metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, the study estimated.

See the story at http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/greenday.

Suburbs moving on alt energy

There's a story in the Sunday Tribune on suburbs that are moving forward in turbines at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-windpower_13apr13,0,552015.story.

While some popular models are still between 4 and 7 stories tall, Bright Idea Energy Solutions, an Illinois firm, is marketing bladeless, vertical-axis turbines as small as 4 feet tall for the residential market. Sales have doubled since last year, said Creede Hargraves, the firm's vice president of Midwest operations.

I want one now!

Edgewater at night

Here's a view of the el zipping by at the overpass near the Dominick's

Curitiba Exhibit + Cafe Igarai Artwork Up At Metropolis (Night Of)

Hey, thx to friends + family for coming out to Metropolis Cafe on Granville to see the Curitiba panels along with the amazing exhibit on Cafe Igarai from Sao Paulo state. Here is the link to Igarai's website (in English) which has a description of their women's business project built around embroidery. It's http://www.fafbrazil.com/fafbr/ip.asp?op=News&lg=E&sc=A.

New Yorker on Complicated Game of Measuring Carbon Footprint

Nice piece looks at the new Scarlet A - having an excessive carbon footprint, whether on the individual or corporate level. This piece looks at how complex though it is to accurately measure something's carbon wastefulness.

"Should the carbon label on a jar of peanut butter include the emissions caused by the fertilizer, calcium, and potassium applied to the original crop of peanuts? What about the energy used to boil the peanuts once they have been harvested, or to mold the jar and print the labels? Seen this way, carbon costs multiply rapidly. A few months ago, scientists at the Stockholm Environment Institute reported that the carbon footprint of Christmas—including food, travel, lighting, and gifts—was six hundred and fifty kilograms per person. That is as much, they estimated, as the weight of “one thousand Christmas puddings” for every resident of England."

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/25/080225fa_fact_specter

IAMS Festival 2008

InterAmerican Magnet School, a diverse public school and a leader in dual-language instruction, held its annual Fiesta Cultural March 27, 2008. Here is a slide show on the event. Enjoy!

http://www.webng.com/Gabilondo/iams%20slideshow/IAMS%20test/

Curitiba Exhibit + Cafe Igarai Artwork Up At Metropolis Cafe in Edgewater

Invitation for Metropolis Cafe
Sunday, April 6, 6:30pm to 8:00pm

Dear friends,
We are happy to invite you for the opening of an exciting exhibit at Metropolis Café in Chicago, this Sunday, April 6, 2008, from 6:30pm to 8:00 pm.

Address: 1039 W. Granville Ave, Chicago, phone: 773 -764 0400
site: www.metropoliscoffee.com

The exhibit is about Sustainability in Brazil: a rural and an urban project.
The theme of the rural project is crafts with coffee as a theme by the group Café Igarai.
The theme of the urban project is Curitiba, a city that is a model of sustainability.
Below you will find more detailed information about the two joint exhibits.

Sustainability in Rural Brazil
Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza – an organic coffee farm
Mococa – Sao Paulo

Cafe Igarai is a project designed first for the women who live at Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza, which grew into the neighboring village of Igarai. The women work in the coffee fields but that takes only 4 to 5 months of the year. So the project has the purpose of giving them another source of income. The theme of their embroidery is coffee. They were encouraged to draw what they see, their working environment: coffee trees, beans, cups, terraces, etc. The women are descendants of Italian immigrants so embroidery is very much part of their culture. They knew mostly only cross stitches when they started, but they had a natural talent for learning very fast all the new stitches they were taught.

The exhibit was designed to show and tell who these women are and how they started. We can see their faces, read a little about them. At the bottom of the banners are the original exams at the end of their training course: the new stitches they learned. The embroidered pictures that are for sale for $150.00 are a way to fundraise for them. The fabrics were natural dyed, another of their new skills, and all designs are theirs. Highlighting the importance of original design, natural dyeing and elaborate embroidery and crochet as a means of expression, as well as coffee as a theme is important to encourage them to evolve in a way that supports the development or their own identity. The prices of other items range from $9.00 to $28.00.

Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza sells its gourmet organic coffee to Metropolis Café.
See www.fafbrazil.com and www.igarai.blogspot.com

"Sustainability in the Big City:
What Chicago Can Learn From Curitiba"

This exhibit is an overview of the sustainable city of Curitiba in southern Brazil and lessons it offers our own environmental efforts here in Chicago. Curitiba has been at the forefront in urban sustainability for more than 30 years with outstanding policies in transit-oriented development and bus rapid transit (BRT), sustainable zoning, green space, architecture preservation, affordable housing, recycling and environmental education. This project was funded by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Architecture and is posted on the Center for Neighborhood Technology's web site. For more information contact Carmen Vidal-Hallett, LEED AP, International Associate AIA at cvidalhallett@gmail.com.

http://www.fafbrasil.com/fafbr/ip.asp?op=C-Metropolis&sc=C&m=xC00200Programs&lg=E