Friday, 22 May 2009 12:51

The greenest city in the world?

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Writing on the BBC Website, Mark Mardell profiles Freiburg, perhaps the world's greenest city. Mardell writes:

What is missing is the constant low thrum of traffic in the background. It's not that cars are completely banned from the city, but most of the centre, rather than the odd street, is a pedestrian zone. You pedal or walk to trams or trains. Freiburg can lay claim to being the greenest city in the world, and it's all rather pleasant.

...In one suburb that's home to 5,000 people, Vauban, they take things further. The flats are overflowing with quite literal greenness, vegetation tumbling down their outside, and they are green inside as well - low-energy housing. 

Cars aren't banned even here, but there is little space for them. The wide roads are clearly made for trams and bikes and people.

Martin Kummrow moved here from Berlin so he could live the green life. If he wants to drive somewhere he just has to register that he wants to use a pool car and an electronic swipe car lets him in.

 

 

Last modified on Friday, 22 May 2009 12:58
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Lenny Antonelli

Lenny Antonelli is deputy editor of Passive House Plus. He also writes regularly for the Irish Times, and has contributed to a variety of other publications including the Sunday Times, the CS Monitor, Village, the Sunday Tribune amd the Dubliner. He is currently working on a radio documentary on Ireland's oceans. 

lennyantonelli.ie/
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