Peter Calthorpe: Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change: China Grows, USA Refills

Peter Calthorpe, Principal Calthorpe Associates

Response by Alan Mountjoy, Principal NBBJ
Discussion Moderate by Alex Krieger, Professor at GSD

Peter Calthorpe has been named one of 25 “innovators on the cutting edge” by Newsweek Magazine for his work redefining the models of urban and suburban growth in America. Throughout his long and honored career in urban design, planning, and architecture, he has been a pioneer of innovative approaches to urban revitalization, suburban growth, and regional planning.

In the 1986 he, along with Sim Van der Ryn, published Sustainable Communities, a book that inspired several generations of new thinking in environmental design and helped launch ‘sustainability’ as a defining goal of many ecological efforts.  In the early 90’s he developed the concept of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) highlighted in The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream,an idea that is now the foundation of many national policies and best planning practices. Around the same time he became a founder of the Congress for New Urbanism and was its first board president, helping launch a movement that has helped to transform planning and development in the USA.

In 2001 he published The Regional City: Planning for the End of Sprawl with Bill Fulton, explaining how regional-scale planning and design can integrate urban revitalization and suburban renewal into a coherent vision of metropolitan growth. His new book Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change documents new work and analysis relating patterns of development to energy and carbon consumption, along with other environmental, social and economic impacts. 

Through design, innovation, publications, and realized projects, Peter Calthorpe’s 30 year practice has helped solidify a national trend towards the key principles of New Urbanism: that successful places – whether neighborhoods, villages, or urban centers – must be diverse in use and user, human scaled, and environmentally sustainable.  In recognition of this broad body of work, he was awarded ULI’s prestigious “J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development” in 2006.

Reception in The Stubbins (Room112) at 3:30pm, food serving and networking

Hosted by ChinaGSD Students and Scholars Association

 

ChinaGSD Students and Scholars Association

Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the Public Programs Office at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected].

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