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Entries from November 1, 2007 - December 1, 2007
Who has Atlanta's highest Walk Scores?
The greenest homes are not just energy-efficient, they're location-efficient meaning they will be found in neighborhoods with stores and amenities within walking distance.
Buying a house in a walkable neighborhood is not only good for the environment, it's good for your health [burn calories not fossil fuels, baby!]. And the community and local economy where you live benefit, too. It also may be good for the resale value of your home. According to the National Association of Realtors, “Buyers want it all within walking distance. The next hot market could be homes in walkable neighborhoods.”
Walk Score is a righteous new Internet mapping tool that helps buyers and real estate agents find homes in walkable neighborhoods by showing a map of what's nearby and calculating a Walk Score for any property.
So I wanted to explore where high-scoring walkable neighborhoods in Atlanta are found through a little competition amongst my site visitors. To make it worth your while, the site visitor with the highest Walk Score gets a $50 cash prize.
Here's how we roll stroll:
- Visit WalkScore.com and input your home address. Calculate your Walk Score and post it with your address in a reader comment to this post [click the "Post a comment" link below].
- Homeowner with the highest Walk Score is the winner and gets extra greenbacks this Christmas.
- Homeowners within 1/2 mile of a MARTA Station get 10 points added to their Walk Score.
- Winner must be the legal owner of record for the home they submit.
- Winning address must be a legal non-commercial residence able to receive mail from the US postal service, because that's where I'm snail-mailing the check.
- Refer visitors to the competition and, if you refer the winner to the site, you will receive a $25 cash prize.
- You receive the $25 referral fee if winner will confirm that you referred him/her.
- In the event of a tie score, the home with the most stores and amenities under one mile wins.
- If there is a tie on stores, amenities and score, the participant who posted the earliest wins, so post today!
- Post your results by Dec. 20, 2007.
- All decisions are final.
Walk On, Brothers and Sisters!
8 Comments
PrintAquarius Tower - Atlanta condos will have solar panels, wind turbines....and robotic parking?
Downtown Atlanta will soon have a "lighthouse in sustainable architecture as a counterpoint to the Georgia Acquarium." Aquarius Tower will feature many cutting edge features making it one of the most eco-friendly residential developments in the country. All 113 units will be south-facing and overlooking Centennial Park with solar panels and wind turbines for reduced energy consumption by the residents.
The roof-line of the building acts like a wind-collector that channels and concentrates wind into turbines integrated into the architecture.
Of particular note is what is being described as one of the most advanced parking systems of the twenty-first century. The space age parking technology optimizes space utilization and robotically stores and retrieves your car on command!
The condos feature all the amenities you would expect in homes starting at $300,000 for a one bedroom and should be available for occupancy by the end of 2009.
Unorthodox Urban Honey Pioneers
I've got bees on the brain lately. It's hard not to, with all the buzz about. Bee Movie is playing at the theaters. My favorite TV show, Pushing Daisies, has Chuck doing her Unorthodox Urban Honey Pioneer thing. Then there's the news of 3,000 year-old beehives discovered in northern Israel. Turns out the Promised Land was flowing with honey and that beekeeping was a highly organized industry. But the most significant story concerning bees is, of course, the much-reported disappearing bee population known as Colony Collapse Disorder.
Regardless of whether Colony Collapse Disorder is the result of climate change, pesticides or cell phones it's clear that bees are essential to life as we know it and have always been a vital human ally. The humble honey bee is responsible for every third bite we consume in our diet. These pollinators affect 35% of the world’s crop production, increasing the output of 87 of the leading food crops worldwide. Without hardworking bees to help spread the pollen, a third of our crops wouldn't get fertilized.
The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) launched a new initiative earlier this year to save the falling bee population. It believes that city dwellers could start raising hives on rooftops, behind garden walls and on private lots. Tim Lovett from the BBKA believes that the plan could be beneficial for people, as well as bees, "Many new urban beekeepers see working with a colony of honeybees as a healthy change to the stress of office life. Tending bees is peaceful, keeps you in touch with nature - and bees only sting when provoked." There's also The Pollinator Partnership whose goal is to empower folks to help save the bees.
The ancient beehives discovered in Israel are considered unique because of their location in the middle of what was a thriving city. Perhaps they knew something that we are only now re-discovering. Bees-Online.com reports that:
there is a growing recognition that bees living in cities tend to produce more and better honey than those kept in the countryside. "Bees can fly up to five miles for food, but they tend not to stray more than a mile from the hive," said Davies. "Many people think the honey crops in cities are of a higher quality than those made by bees in the countryside because there's a near-constant flow of tremendously varied nectar to be harvested in cities from all the parks, trees, gardens and window boxes," he added. "If you compare these multiple harvesting opportunities to those offered by the countryside, which tends to be grouped into areas dominated by a single crop which only flowers once a year, it's clear why cities are such good places to keep bees."
City bees also tend to be livelier than their country cousins. 'The higher temperature of the city means that bees stay awake for longer during the day and are more active,' said John Hauxwell, chairman of the North London Beekeeping Association, who has seen his group's membership double in the last five years."
The world could use a a whole lot more Unorthodox Urban Honey Pioneers to join their ranks. Atlanta already has a few. You can read a couple of their blogs at Linda's Bees and Urban Apiary.
Burke Sisco
It appears that the premise to M. Night Shyamalan's new movie, "The Happening," involves Colony Collapse Disorder as one of the first signs of a worldwide epidemic that causes a corresponding human die-off that may be coming from ecological pay-back. A visit to "The Happening" website production notes section features a quote sometimes attributed [I think erroneously] to Einstein: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the earth, then man would only have four years of life left."
Bellwood Quarry not just another pretty park for the BeltLine
The Quarry, in northwest Atlanta, will become Atlanta’s newest and largest park. That the new Westside Park will add over 300 acres of greenspace is significant -- we need more greenspace Intown. But of equal importance to Atlanta is the fact that this greenspace will surround a water reservoir that could hold up to 1.2 billion gallons of water.
It's components like this that make the BeltLine such a compelling vision of a greener Atlanta. The popular metaphor for the BeltLine has been that of an Emerald Necklace with parks and amenities as the jewels adorning it. With a resource as precious as a new reservoir and the sheer scope of America's most ambitious redevelopment project, a better metaphor might be that of a crown (or even a halo).
And when the Bellwood Quarry is transformed into Westside Park it will be the crown jewel.
Burke Sisco
Being a conservative and conservationist not inconsistent says Gingrich in new book
Newt Gingrich attempts to find much-needed common ground in his new book, A Contract with the Earth. While acknowledging the polarization of Democrats and Republicans on environmental issues, his plea is for "bipartisan environmentalism," arguing that environmental stewardship should be on the agenda of both parties and all peoples, liberal or conservative. His book expresses an optimistic, hopeful view that the biggest issues of the century can be solved by the world's most entreprenuerial nation striking a proper balance between Government regulations and incentives.Atlanta Journal-Constitution covers EcoBroker
Thanks to Julie Hairston and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for including a little bit of my story with their story on EcoBrokers in last Tuesday's Business section [GREEN HOUSE EFFECT: Playing up listings' eco-friendly features breathes some life into real estate market].
The story appears as Realtors go 'green' to meet consumer demand in their Living Green online content.
Burke Sisco
Smart Growth Online picked up the story, too: EcoBrokers Helping Consumers Find "Green" Housing in Atlanta.
Plenty of water from the sky
The innocence of a child in the rain can open our eyes to a solution to Atlanta's water crisis. Rainwater harvesting is an ancient practice due for a renaissance. And not just for watering our lawns.
Michael Reynolds, renegade architect/prophet of the New Mexico desert, has been preaching/practicing rainwater harvesting and water conservation for years. His Earthships channel rainwater from roofs with a potable surface to underground cisterns. The cisterns gravity feed Water Organization Modules (WOM), a filtration and pumping device that routes the water according to different levels of household use, including drinking water. Water is used in a conventional way for bathing or washing dishes, except that the resulting graywater is not sent down the drain but is used to water indoor gardens and exterior landscaping. The flush toilet is the third use of the water. After the toilet, the water is contained and treated, and used a fourth time in exterior botanical cells. He's written an entire book on the subject, Water From the Sky.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Dripping Springs, Texas (I'm not making this up), Richard Heinichen has developed his own system for rainwater harvesting with hundreds of household installations in the area. His closed-loop system uses no chlorine or other chemical germicides for disinfection. His is the first and possibly only company licensed to bottle rainwater in America. He's got his own book entitled Rainwater Collection for the Mechanically Challenged.
As Michael Reynolds says, "We must begin now... learning to harvest water in each individual home. We must use this water many times before putting it back into the earth. When we do put it back, it must be in a form that works with existing nurturing forces and phenomena of the earth."
Burke Sisco
Sandy Springs City Council is considering making water conservation systems mandatory in homes built in the city that are $500,000 and above.
And rainwater catchment is not just being planned for housing and strictly for typical water usage.
Destiny USA, a NY hotel project, will feature green buildings [literally] shaped like blades of grass and will generate electricity from hydro-electric turbines using rainwater collected on the roof!
