Closing off streets to cars to create pedestrian malls doesn’t always work.

Land Use Digest, published by the Urban Land Institute, reported in its May 1996 issue that Chicago is joining such cities as Eugene, Little Rock, and Norfolk in reverting pedestrian malls back into regular streets. Merchants have complained in these cities that... Read more

The Natural House Catalog: Everything You Need to Create an Environmentally Friendly Home, by David Pearson. Simon & Schuster, 1996. Paperback, 286 pages, $23.

The Natural House Book uses a similar format—beautiful, high-quality photos and clear, concise text—... Read more

The City of Santa Monica, California, has hired a team of local and international designers, researchers, and engineers to draft Sustainable Development Guidelines for new buildings. This effort grew out of Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Program and out of controversy over the redevelopment of the... Read more

An innovative section of highway near Los Angeles with “congestion pricing” is considered successful after six months of operation, and it could be the wave of things to come. The July issue of

Planning described a 10-mile segment of Route 91 with two lanes in either direction, known as FasTrak, in which tolls vary from $0.25 during the... Read more

Rural by Design: Maintaining Small Town Character by Randall Arendt. Planners Press, American Planning Association, Chicago, IL, 1994. Hardcover, 460 pages, $86.

This hefty volume is a detailed and comprehensive guide to land-use planning in rural America. In clear language with excellent examples and... Read more

In a unique effort, a native-plant nursery, landscape architect, and Habitat for Humanity affiliate have teamed up to salvage native plants and use them for landscaping low-income houses. For a year-and-a-half, Roy Beaty and his Willowell Nursery in Tigard, Oregon, have specialized in native plants, and beginning last... Read more

An adobe house under construction in a Lakota Sioux community in South Dakota, with assistance from the Yestermorrow Design-Build School. Material for these adobe... Read more

You Are

Well, sort of. At least we know more about the demographics and interests of the 13% of

EBN subscribers who made it through our first-ever Reader Survey. Thanks again to those of you who took the time and returned the survey. We’ll try to keep it shorter next time. As promised, here are some highlights... Read more

The Austin, Texas, 5th Annual Green Builder Conference will host the award ceremony of the Green Built Birdhouse Competition. The grand prize is two round-trip airline tickets to Europe. The contest is sponsored by the Conference, Austin’s AIA chapter, and Dynamic Reprographics. Conference attendance is required for entry into the contest (see... Read more

Schuller Corporation, a publicly traded manufacturer of fiberglass insulation based in Denver, Colorado, announced on May 17 that it is acquiring NRG Barriers of Portland, Maine, one of the nation’s leading producers of polyisocyanurate foam insulation. Both Schuller and NRG have been leaders in improving the environmental characteristics of... Read more

The Smart Wood Program of the New York City-based Rainforest Alliance recently announced a series of new partnerships and initiatives that should help make certification available to a wider range of forestry programs. In the Northeast, Smart Wood has teamed up with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). As a member of the emerging Smart Wood... Read more

Nuclear proponents have often pointed to the low electricity prices in France as evidence that high reliance on nuclear power keeps electricity prices low. But by comparing

pre-tax electricity rates, that claim is dispelled. According to the May/June issue of

World Watch Magazine, the three European countries with the lowest pre... Read more

Congratulations on an excellent May/June 1996 issue! Very seldom do I read any magazine and find fewer things to pick at than this particular issue of

EBN. But I do have two. As we have discussed in the past, the name of CMHC, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, would seem to make more sense as the Canadian Mortgage and Housing... Read more

by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, 700 Montreal Road, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0P7, Canada. 235 pages, paperback, $29.99.

The pilot lights on gas-fired fireplaces waste a lot of energy. That’s one conclusion of a recent study by Skip Hayden of the Combustion Gas Research Laboratory of CANMET and Consumers Gas, a major Canadian gas utility. Fifty-two homes with significant use of gas fireplaces were surveyed; 38 of these had continuous pilots. In the homes with... Read more

With great interest, I read your well-researched article on cork flooring in the January/February issue (Vol. 5, No. 1). As you concluded in the article, the harvest of commercial cork from the cork oak (

Quercus suber) tree is a relatively benign extraction that is one of nature’s best examples of a renewable, non-timber forest resource... Read more

by Eoin O. Cofaigh, John A. Olley, and J. Owen Lewis of the Energy Research Group, University College, Dublin. 1996. James & James (Science Publishers) Ltd., on behalf of the European Commission, Directorate General XII for Science Research and Development. Paperback, 160 pages, $50.00.

Scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, have achieved a new world record in thin-film photovoltaic cell efficiency. A record 17.7% “sunlight-to-electricity” efficiency was achieved with a compound semiconductor called copper indium gallium diselenide. While this efficiency is 60% higher than the... Read more