Mobility 21 Panelists: Boomers & Millennials Seek Walkable Urban Lifestyle

More than 1,000 professionals and elected officials gathered for Southern California's largest transportation summit October 29.

At an afternoon breakout, planning directors from Los Angeles and San Diego focused on California's Sustainable Communities Strategy and its implications for senior citizens.

Walkable urban neighborhoods are becoming more important for Boomers as they age; and the same dense urban lifestyle is preferred by Millennials. This makes the demand for such housing strong, but creates vocal opposition in neighborhoods with strong activists. As a result, panelists noted that politicians are happy to cut the ribbon on a new transit line, but not at all happy to be known for promoting high-density, transit-oriented residential development.

The challenges for urban designers: taking advantage of a demand for sustainable lifestyles, leveraging political will, and designing communities, transportation, and information technology to serve a growing senior population.

Elise Kalfayan, Editorial Director, Industry Speaks™. Elise Kalfayan blogs about transportation, development, and regional issues facing Southern California on her community news blog SunroomDesk.com. She can be reached at ekalfayan@industryspeaks.com.

2013 California Economic Summit, November 7-8

The Second Annual California Economic Summit will take place in Los Angeles on November 7-8, 2013. The 2013 theme is Advancing the Triple Bottom Line: a prosperous economy, a sustainable environment and community equity.

The first summit was held in 2012 in the Bay Area. Continuing the collaboration of California Forward and the California Stewardship Network, the 2013 meetings will feature the work of several action teams during the past year.

See the California Economic Summit webpage for more information, registration information.

Creating Active Cities Through Design - Course Reviewed on Industry Speaks

Are you interested in the importance of designing the built environment to foster a healthier community? This clearly presented and documented five-chapter course is a positive, initial study to help you commence further research and implement design with evidence-based strategies.
Read the full review by Armando Gonzalez, FAIA, here.

July 23: The Inaugural Greater LA Building Data Bake-off

... or, "How Cloud-based Data Visualization and Analytics Are Transforming Energy Efficiency Practices": The Los Angeles 2030 District is hosting this inaugural event focusing on the latest building automation software for energy and sustainability data acquisition, monitoring, visualization, analytics and controls for existing buildings. These tools are indispensable for high performance building operations.

The presentation panel will be moderated by William Lowery, who shepherded the Los Angeles Firemen's Credit Union to a LEED Platinum certification.

Tuesday, July 23, 7-9am, Gensler Red Zone, 500 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, 90007. Registration link here.

You Got A Better Idea? National Competition Seeks Innovative Sustainability - Call for Entries Issued

The Holcim Awards opened its Call for Entries on July 1st. This national competition recognizes innovative projects and future-concepts that stretch conventional notions about sustainability within non-conventional boundaries—excellence in architecture, degree of transferability, social and economic performance and environmental balance.

This competition takes place in each of five regions: Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Oh...I forgot . . .more than $2 million will be awarded. So, you got a better idea? Let's see it! For more information check out the Holcim Foundation Awards webpage.

Karen Compton, CPSM. Karen Compton is principal of A3K Consulting (Glendale, CA), a business development and strategic planning firm specializing in the architecture, engineering and construction industries. Ms. Compton is also the founder of Industry Speaks™, a web-based business-to-business portal that connects AEC firms with experienced consultants, provides peer reviews of consultants, reports on key industry trends, and publishes expert reviews of professional courses and books. Contact her at kcompton@a3kconsulting.com.