The Solarium

A Blog from New America's Smart Strategy Initiative

Smart Growth and the Legacy of FDR

  • By
  • Parry VanLandingham
October 4, 2012
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“The long-continued lag in building is a drag on all industry and trade. This presents an urgent problem which is the common concern of industry, labor, and government. All business needs the infusion of orders and the diffusion of purchasing power that come when building is thriving. Great numbers of people look directly or indirectly to the construction industry for employment. This industry, to a greater extent than any other, can put idle funds to work and thus speed up the circulation of the nation's money supply.

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Despite Economic Anxieties, Urban Developments Rise

  • By
  • Rei Tang
July 23, 2012
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In downtown Washington D.C., the scaffolds of a $950 million development, the CityCenter DC, are rising. In the place of D.C.’s old convention-center-turned-parking-lot, the new three-block development will include residential units, commercial space, and public parks and plazas. It will be pedestrian-oriented, LEED certified, and gardens will line the rooftops.

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A New American Dream Becomes Reality As Cities Grow More Than Suburbs

  • By
  • Rei Tang
June 29, 2012
Families bike together in Portland, by Steven Vance

According to the 2011 census estimates, for the first since 1920—nearly a century—cities are growing more than suburbs. A recent study shows 77% of millennials want to live in the urban core. 28 year-old Denver resident, Jaclyn King said, “I will never live in the suburbs… I just like being connected to everything down here—concerts, work, restaurants, all of it.

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No More Rios

  • By
  • Patrick C. Doherty
June 28, 2012
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Working Towards a More Sustainable Food System

  • By
  • Claire McCleskey
April 26, 2012
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China’s Strategic Food Concerns

  • By
  • Rei Tang
April 13, 2012
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In my last post, I wrote about the recent National Intelligence Council report on global water security. Here’s the gist of it:

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Strategic Resources: The NIC Looks at Water

  • By
  • Rei Tang
March 30, 2012
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On March 22, the National Intelligence Council, a senior body of U.S. government intelligence analysts, released an unclassified report on global water security. The report assesses the effect of global water problems on geopolitics to 2040, the next thirty years. Annual global water requirements will reach 6,900 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2030, 40 percent above current sustainable water supplies.

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The Business Case for Sustainability

  • By
  • Rei Tang
March 19, 2012
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The MIT Sloan Management Review in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group recently released a report, “Sustainability Nears a Tipping Point.” In a survey of over 4,000 managers from 113 countries, the study found “70% of companies have placed sustainability permanently on their management agendas.”

Sustainability is here and it is the future. It is transforming companies, commercial networks, and industries. Will the tipping point soon reach government?

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Sustainability as a Strategic Imperative

  • By
  • Patrick C. Doherty
May 13, 2011
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America should “pursue her enduring interests of prosperity and security through a strategy of sustainability that is built upon the solid foundation of our national values.” These are the conclusions of Navy Captain Wayne Porter and Colonel Mark “Puck” Mykleby of the Marine Corps, in a paper released last month by the non-partisan Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars.

Don't Take the Bait: Focus on Egypt

  • By
  • Patrick C. Doherty
March 18, 2011

I could not help notice last night that Russia and China abstained from the UN Security Council vote on the intervention in Libya. 

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