Spring Break
Nutter, Janssen discuss 'green' cities
Omkar Baxi
Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: News
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The discussion was open to the public and moderated by Larry Platt, editor in chief of Philadelphia Magazine.
The discussion was the second of a three-part series held by the National Constitution Center entitled "Red, White, Blue, and Green" that focuses on environmental issues in the Philadelphia region. "Sustainable Cities" dealt with making modern cities more environmentally friendly. While Philadelphia was the focus of the discussion, Janssen also talked about Greensburg and the experiences there in green-building.
Greensburg was hit by a major tornado May 4, 2007, which left two-thirds of the town in complete rubble with only a few buildings left intact. After the presiding mayor stepped down, Janssen took over the task of rebuilding the city and decided to make it a more environmentally-friendly town.
With 95 percent of the town gone, Janssen said he and the Greensburg community "realized that [they] had a clean slate, a town that had nothing left. Why not put it back right, why not make a smaller footprint on the environment and make Greensburg America's 'Greentown'?"
According to Nutter, the story and achievements of Janssen and Greensburg are directly applicable and instructional to the city of Philadelphia. Nutter's plans for making the city "greener" encompass creating a new sustainability chair in the city cabinet and emphasizing the financial advantages of going green.
"Green is always portrayed as a liberal, conservative, [political] issue. But really, it is an economic issue. And if you cast it in those terms, it's easy to sell," Janssen said.
Nutter agreed, emphasizing that the false assumption of green ideas being costly needs to be corrected in order for Philadelphia to succeed as a "green" city.
"One of the big issues in Philadelphia about sustainability in the development community is really more about the automatic assumption that going green is going to cost more," Nutter said. "And that is a tremendously short term view. In a largely democratic city like Philadelphia, the issue is more a financial issue."
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