Coming attractions (in addition to Summer)

The Jackpine Writers' Bloc of Park Rapids/Menahga MN area announces the release of Volume 23 of The Talking Stick. This publication is a collection of prose and poetry by writers with a connection to Minnesota, including work by me, My Minnesota's principal blogger. Books will be available for sale later this year at the Jackpine Writers' Bloc web site , amazon.com, and several northern MN book stores.

On a different front, although I haven't written about it much, I'm on the board of the United States Green Building Council—Minnesota. In a few weeks we'll be presenting our Third Annual IMPACT Conference, IMPACT 2014– Building a Better Tomorrow.

Thursday May 15 | 8:00 am – 5:00 pm
Union Depot
214 4th St East | St. Paul MN 55101

IMPACT 2014 will bring together Minnesota’s green building community for outstanding education opportunities, quality networking and a showcase of innovative products and services. Education tracks are Energy & Performance and Design & Human Factors, along with innovative keynote sessions including Matt Grocoff's closing address titled "Designing for the Post-Carbon Economy: It's Zero or Nothing".

As an added bonus, the Union Depot will receive their LEED plaque during the conference opening and the story of the Union Depot’s historic renovation and journey to LEED certification will be incorporated into the conference experience. If you're interested in helping to build a more sustainable Minnesota, why not plan on attending. As Wendell Berry notes, our future is, in part, about our places.

Learn more and register

Wendell Berry

FOR THE FUTURE

Planting trees early in spring,
we make a place for birds to sing
in time to come. How do we know?
They are singing here now.
There is no guarantee
that singing will ever be.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Connecting the dots

© harrington

Before the demolition, before construction started, before the recent water main break, this is the Jaguar dealership that stood on the site of the new Whole Foods mixed use development at Hennepin and Washington in Minneapolis. I believe that Minnesota could use a whole lot more mixed use development in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Spring Valley, Thief River Falls, Rochester and points in between. There's a recently completed mixed use affordable housing development I know about in Rochester. Cascade Creek Apartments received a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver Certification from the US Green Building Council. Minnesota has a growing number of developments that are LEED certified, including commercial, residential and mixed uses. They'll help us live healthier, more energy-efficient lives in a more sustainable and resilient Minnesota. If you noticed the recent coverage on climate change, you'll understand (I hope) why that's important. Not as a LEED project, but as part of a Main Street revitalization, the downtown commercial center of a southeastern Minnesota county is pulling together mixed us renovation by combining commercial improvements on the ground floor with the rehabilitation of residential apartments on the second floor. This should put more potential customers on the street to patronize downtown businesses. It also helps provide work force housing for local employers and gives empty nesters an opportunity to get away from yard work (some love it, others don't) and snow shoveling (some love it ...). Mixed use development and infill development are challenging, usually more so than building big boxes on the outskirts. Minnesota's Environment and Energy Report Card mentions several times the need to connect the dots. Mixed use development in My Minnesota's large cities or small towns is about as dot-connected as it gets.

Gratitude III

© harrington

This morning I'll be participating in a meeting of the board of the US Green Building Council-Minnesota Chapter. One of the many things for which I'm grateful is that My Minnesota has one of the most active and dedicated chapters in the organization. USGBC are the folks who brought us "green building" and sustainable development through LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). One of the less used, but I think more promising, LEED rating systems is for Neighborhood Development (ND). Many of the other systems (except LEED for Homes) focus largely on the design, construction and operation of the individual building or project. But, as we learn more about reducing energy consumption and how many people actually want to live in walkable neighborhoods, we're discovering that often it takes as much or more energy to get inhabitants to their destination as it does to keep them comfortable and healthy once they're inside. LEED-ND is one way to get a handle on that king of concern. I have some quibbles with the criteria in LEED-ND and how well they may fit with rural centers, many of whom also want to be known as being "green and sustainabe." That's one of the reasons I'll be at the board meeting. The Minnesota chapter is prioritizing a collaborative "Dynamic Green Approach" to engaging communities, schools and the governmental sector. I'm excited about that approach because My Minnesota certainly doesn't have one size or shade of green that fits all.