Sacramento-area experiment could help merge a 'clean' future with viable neighborhoods

The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept that encourages planners to develop neighborhoods that are easily accessible within a 15-minute walk, bike or public transit ride. The 15-minute city idea promotes health and wellness by encouraging residents to walk and bike more, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and fosters a sense of community among locals.

Cars are Europe’s second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and the leading killer of children. In recent years, Paris has implemented an array of measures to prioritize pedestrians, cyclists, and transit while reducing car use. As a result, car use has dropped about 45% since 1990, the use of public transit has risen by 30% and the share of cyclists has increased tenfold.

The Park East freeway teardown was completed 20 years ago and opened up 24 acres of prime real estate that has since seen increased property values, more space for pedestrians and recreation and has generated over $1 billion in private investment. The teardown has also resulted in less vehicle emissions in the area and further development and revitalization of the surrounding neighborhoods. Now, other areas in the city are turning to the success of the Park East teardown to inspire more freeway removals.

As strip malls continue to decline, some urban planning and real estate experts are advocating to turn the spaces into mixed-use developments with both residential and commercial spaces. This redevelopment is an opportunity to revitalize and enrich a community by creating a village-like setting, like Woburn Village, with its 175,000 square-feet of commercial space and 350 housing units.

The TAC Farm is a Black-owned and operated farm working to boost the local economy. TAC Farm also uses organic, climate-friendly farming processes, like enriching the soil with compost and installing windbreaks to protect crops.

Germany’s three-month experiment with €9 tickets for a month of unlimited travel on public transportation saved about 1.8 metric tons of CO2 emissions. The experiment was launched in an effort to cut fuel consumption and relieve a cost of living crisis and sold about 52 million tickets.

Too Good To Go offers a digital platform where food businesses can offer food approaching its expiration date at a third of its original cost. Too Good To Go helps supermarkets recover costs, connects people with cheap food and reduces food waste. Since launching in 2016, the program has saved more than 11 million meals in Denmark alone and the company has now expanded across 17 countries in Europe and North America.

Stuttgart is using a “nature-based response” to climate change by leveraging earth-cooling tools already available in the natural world. The city has created a vast network of ventilation channels – green parkways and corridors of water and trees – designed to funnel cooler breezes into the city at night and naturally lower air temperatures.

To avoid the waste that would incur from demolishing structures such as houses and apartment buildings, a reuse center in Maryland works with deconstruction crews to disassemble the buildings and then sells the salvaged materials at a reduced cost. Although "the trend is hardly noticed," this type of movement has spread across the United States and is mostly led by women.

Informal settlement residents across the Global South are developing grassroots solutions to climate-driven heat, flooding, and disease. Such solutions include using white reflective roof paint to reduce indoor temperatures and implementing a simplified low-cost sewer system to connect residents to the city's main sewage infrastructure to prevent cholera cases.