This summer 2009 edition of Living Cities Monthly provides an in-depth look at the Green Boot Camp: Recovery through Retrofitting, which was held at the beginning of June in Cambridge. The coverage includes a detailed account of the camp, a focused look at the camp’s purpose and curriculum as well as information on Living Cities’ follow-up work to the camp. Information on the organization’s New York City- and Washington, D.C.-based summer associates is also provided.
The Living Cities Green Boot Camp: Recovery through Retrofitting, which was part of the Project on Municipal Innovation (PMI), was held May 31 through June 2 at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, and at a nearby hotel in Cambridge. The response to and execution of the camp, which was implemented by the Institute for Sustainable Communities, was extraordinary. MORE>
The primary purpose of the Green Boot Camp: Recovery through Retrofitting was to help participating cities accelerate their progress in planning and implementing large-scale building energy retrofit systems. Living Cities believes that while there is no “one size fits all” solution, early experience — building on decades of piecemeal approaches — suggests that such systems must include four primary components. MORE>
Living Cities will be working closely with the participating cities from the Green Boot Camp in the weeks ahead, on several levels. Living Cities will provide grant funds that enable cities to assemble the four critical pieces described in the article “Putting Together the Pieces of a Retrofit System,” especially in areas where current city efforts may not be as far along. Such areas may include integrating affordable housing into the first phase of retrofit systems building, or forging new partnerships with organized labor. MORE>
Living Cities is currently hosting six summer associates, four of whom are based at the New York headquarters and two in the Washington, D.C., office. Find out a little about them. MORE>