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Smart Growth Speaker Series
The Smart Growth Speaker Series is sponsored by the U.S. EPA, the National Building Museum and the Smart Growth Network. The speaker series is recognized as a leading public forum on development issues. The purpose of the series is to present a variety of approaches and tools for encouraging development that serves the economy, community and environment. It explores transportation choices, best development practices, energy and resource efficiency, architecture and design, local activism, regional approaches, land use, environmental impacts, industrial development (e.g., eco-industrial parks) as well as other topics related to smarter growth.
The Speaker Series is held once each month at the National Building Museum, 401 F Street N.W, Washington D.C. (Judiciary Square Metro). All lectures are free and registration is not required.
To get regular announcements about the Smart Growth Speaker Series, please fax or e-mail your name, organization, address, phone, fax, and e-mail address to the EPA's smart growth program at fax (202) 566-2868, e-mail Deloris Wingo-Huntley (wingo-huntley.deloris@epa.gov).
Upcoming Lectures
Please also check the National Building Museum's Calendar of Events: Lectures & Symposia
for upcoming events.
Audio recordings of many of the Smart Growth Speaker Series lectures are available at on the Smart Growth Online Web site.
July 17, 2009
Wednesday, 12:30-1:30pm
Retrofitting the Suburbs: A New Urbanist Perspective
Smart growth, new urbanism and green building have aligned a set of principles for change in the built environment. These address solutions for the evolving problems of energy resource depletion, climate change, and metropolitan growth. In contrast, much of the public discourse on these topics, including with regard to federal policy, focuses on technological solutions for alternative sources of energy and emissions reductions. Little attention is being given to fostering behavioral change for energy need or use, in particular with regard to the effect of land use patterns generating vehicular dependence and emissions. Changing technology appears to be easier than changing the already built environment.
Nevertheless, there are encouraging advancements in recent urban projects that provide hope for building reform as an energy conservation strategy. To illustrate how the regulatory framework can induce private investment to make the land use changes needed to encourage reduction of vehicular dependence, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture and partner in Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., will present examples of design and policy that are retrofitting suburban sites to make walkable, transit-oriented urban centers.
The Speaker Series takes a break in August.