Monday, March 24, 2008

Life in Germany's Greenest Neighborhood



Is this the greenest city in the world? - Guardian UK
Eco housing, car-free streets and socially conscious neighbours have made the German city of Freiburg a shining example of sustainability. But this brave utopian vision of clean living has its fair share of dirty linen, finds Andrew Purvis


While the green infrastructure is all in place, the reality is that green towns are still made up of people with all their quirks. Healthy societies requires diversity, not just good planning.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds lovely, but some of the most "in your face" people remind me of what I dislike about "enlightened" cities like Berkeley.

Homogeneous neighborhoods are problematic, even in "green towns."

Brains said...

I lived in Germany for three years; trust me, they aren't "in your face" about green living at all. It's been very normalized.

As for Berkeley, it is certainly not green in a transportation sense. Berks gets two lousy BART stations 2.6 miles apart and an unreliable bus system. Ergo, good public transit is lacking and Berkeley appears homogenous.

The irksome thing about this Guardian article is that it places a carfree neighborhood under much more scrutiny than a car-dependent neighborhood. Remember, cars and driveways are the main methods for getting away from ethnically diverse places.