The Green City

Philadelphia and many other major cities have made the shift to becoming 'green cities'. There have been some good examples of cities that have been successful in implementing green practices and that have advanced the functionality of their urban/environmental practices. Portland, Vancouver, and Austin for example have in a variety of ways implemented practices that help make them 'greener' cities.

In order to address the challenge of becoming a truly green city, Philadelphia must establish the context and framework in which it will be working to establish this reality.

Specifically, Philadelphia’s challenges are those that counter the concepts that ultimately combine to make a city green. In my analysis of the principal obstacles to Philadelphia’s greenness, I will be working with concept of ‘green city’ as one that exemplifies several basic yet crucial ecological and economic principals underlying a ‘green city’. Urban sustainability, new urbanism, industrial ecology, and smart growth are interconnected concepts that I will be using as indicators for the base level of a city’s greenness. These concepts will surface throughout my examination of the environmental challenges that the City of Philadelphia currently faces.