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Iler Planning Group Creates the Green City of the Future
When you picture a booming urban area, grey, not green, is probably the color that springs to mind. Carbonfund.org partner Iler Planning Group (IPG) wants to change that.
These days, cutting-edge communities plan for a greener future. In Florida, where global warming poses an imminent threat through rising sea levels, severe storms, and drought, IPG is leading the charge by helping communities plan for sustainable growth.
For decades, cities have grown in an unsustainable manner, consuming land and other resources at a perilous rate. Efforts by the environmental movement were largely piecemeal, limited to minimal recycling programs and the occasional hybrid vehicle. With its comprehensive approach to green planning, IPG pledges to change all this.
The city of Doral, FL will be the first to benefit. Doral commissioned IPG to develop an innovative Green Master Plan to reduce the city’s contribution to global warming. Not only will the plan address such problem areas as vehicle travel, energy efficiency, water use, and land allocation, but it will look further, reversing flawed city initiatives that act counter to sustainable growth, like the prohibition against urban agriculture, which could work to reduce the nearly 1,500 miles that vegetables currently travel before arriving at a Doral family table.
In September, IPG shared its message with urban planning groups across the state as these groups convened in Miami for the Florida Chapter of the American Planning Association (FAPA) Annual Conference. This year, the conference was devoted to sustainable planning. As the leader in the field, IPG President Henry Iler led a seminar about incorporating green planning principles into urban planning strategy.
“Green design and CO2 neutral strategies are being implemented by communities and developers to address global warming. However, most are too narrowly focused on hybrid vehicles, carbon offsets and LEED-certified development,” said Iler. “This issue will only have real results if an integrated, community-wide approach is utilized. This also requires changing how cities operate as municipal service providers and employers.”
Furthermore, IPG is offsetting its own carbon emissions through Carbonfund.org in order to limit its environmental footprint and set an example.
The Green Plan concept has the potential to transform the public and private planning landscape in the next 5-10 years, bringing green issues into harmony with urban growth. Moreover, cities that embrace this concept stand to benefit from significant financial savings from increased efficiencies in energy and resources. As groundbreakers in the field of green urban development, IPG is forging a path that all will most likely soon follow: the path to the brighter, more sustainable future of community living.
To learn more about IPG and its Green Plan, visit www.ipgplan.com.
