Eco-Friendly Development in the Suburbs

What wasn't there to like?

Redevelopment.  Rail.  LEED certification.  Electric transportation.  Heat island reduction.  Pervious concrete drainage.  Native plants.  We threw in 3D virtual, global collaboration to boot.

We thought all these things, on paper, added up to be a magnet for environmentally-minded people. Apparently, some other people did too.

However, we just found out that a once-approved excursion during the EcoSummit 2012 to the Port Authority has now, since, been canceled.  The Summit is almost five months away and, yet, the crystal ball showed not enough interest.

We'll now have to find another way to get the concept that suburban development can, indeed, be eco-friendly to the environmental movement.

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Here's what the proposal read:

Eco-Friendly Development in the Suburbs

Licking County, Ohio epitomizes the Joel Kotkin (author of The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050) vision of the future which sees eco-friendly development in the United States for the next 40 years will be most robust in amenity-rich suburban locations offering green infrastructure.  At one location, the Central Ohio Aerospace & Technology Center in Central Licking County, participants can pay witness to that vision. 

In one compact location, the excursion host, the Heath-Newark-Licking County Port Authority will show off its redevelopment of the former Newark Air Force Base which is, today, an eco-friendly suburban industrial park with pragmatic, real-life applications of eco-friendly infrastructure.  Participants will see use of a rail line for freight, recreational paths for commuting, LEED-certified buildings, Segway PT’s for on-site transportation, green manufacturing practices, heat island reduction techniques, pervious concrete drainage systems, and more.   

The excursion will also expect to include a live demonstration of The Boeing Company’s Virtual Customer Integration Lab, a glimpse into the future of global collaboration via a virtual, 3-D environment used by Boeing today.