As of February 2010, the WEF WaterBlog has moved to a new spot! Bookmark http://www.wef.org/blogs/ into your favorites - this is where you'll find the latest WaterBlog, along with all of the archived blogs.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
The WEF WaterBlog Has Moved!
As of February 2010, the WEF WaterBlog has moved to a new spot! Bookmark http://www.wef.org/blogs/ into your favorites - this is where you'll find the latest WaterBlog, along with all of the archived blogs.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Urban Rivers: Don’t Miss the Boat to a Sustainable Future for Our Cities!
By Paul Freedman, 2009-2010 President of WEF
There was a time when large urban cities, like Boston, saw their waterfront locations as assets in transporting wastes away from the city and supporting navigation, commerce, and manufacturing. These urban cities still see the waterfront asset today, but in a different light. Today’s cities want to integrate their waters into urban life as part of building greener, cleaner places for living, recreation, and supporting business and commerce. I mentioned Boston because it’s the site of WEF’s Cities of the Future and Urban River Restoration 2010 conferences. There practitioners and visionaries will take a comprehensive look at revitalizing urban rivers and waterfronts and explore the exciting possibilities for sustainable urban environments, our cities of the future.
For successful and sustainable cities and urban river restoration, integrated planning is essential. Multiple stakeholders with different agendas, problems, and budgets must get together and develop one vision to leverage rivers as a source of water supply, social and commercial enhancement, even spiritual renewal. This event will bring major players together, including city planners and administrators, transportation and landscape engineers and architects, public works directors and other officials, to focus on urban river restoration, and they’ll be sharing ideas in the context of sustainability and a population shift back into cities. Collaborative input from different types of professionals is needed to create sustainable urban infrastructure and the interdependent engineered and natural systems that will characterize our future cities. That is why WEF for the first time has simultaneously co-located two specialty conferences, Cities of the Future and Urban River Restoration.
Revitalizing cities and especially major urban industrial areas that are abandoned or scarred can be realized with the right kind of vision and integrated planning. The outcome can be vibrant sustainable cities with triple bottom line benefits including a cleaner environment, enhanced lifestyles, and stronger economies. With the right stakeholders and an eye toward sustainability, water quality leaders can start planning today or certainly in Boston next month. Be sure to plan to attend this exciting event!
There was a time when large urban cities, like Boston, saw their waterfront locations as assets in transporting wastes away from the city and supporting navigation, commerce, and manufacturing. These urban cities still see the waterfront asset today, but in a different light. Today’s cities want to integrate their waters into urban life as part of building greener, cleaner places for living, recreation, and supporting business and commerce. I mentioned Boston because it’s the site of WEF’s Cities of the Future and Urban River Restoration 2010 conferences. There practitioners and visionaries will take a comprehensive look at revitalizing urban rivers and waterfronts and explore the exciting possibilities for sustainable urban environments, our cities of the future.
For successful and sustainable cities and urban river restoration, integrated planning is essential. Multiple stakeholders with different agendas, problems, and budgets must get together and develop one vision to leverage rivers as a source of water supply, social and commercial enhancement, even spiritual renewal. This event will bring major players together, including city planners and administrators, transportation and landscape engineers and architects, public works directors and other officials, to focus on urban river restoration, and they’ll be sharing ideas in the context of sustainability and a population shift back into cities. Collaborative input from different types of professionals is needed to create sustainable urban infrastructure and the interdependent engineered and natural systems that will characterize our future cities. That is why WEF for the first time has simultaneously co-located two specialty conferences, Cities of the Future and Urban River Restoration.
Revitalizing cities and especially major urban industrial areas that are abandoned or scarred can be realized with the right kind of vision and integrated planning. The outcome can be vibrant sustainable cities with triple bottom line benefits including a cleaner environment, enhanced lifestyles, and stronger economies. With the right stakeholders and an eye toward sustainability, water quality leaders can start planning today or certainly in Boston next month. Be sure to plan to attend this exciting event!
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