Sustainability Videos

COVERING ALL TOPICS OF SUSTAINABILITY:

1. e2 film series
   Summary: A PBS series about innovators who envision a better quality of life on earth:  socially, culturally, economically and ecologically.  The series explores attainable solutions to pressing environmental and social challenges, and its stories are taken from a variety of fields including design, energy, transportation, water, food and urban development.  (Select the “webcasts” tab, NOT the podcasts tab, and view the various films by selecting the play arrow by the name of the film).

NEW URBANISM/SMART GROWTH:

1. Making Sense of Place film series:
   “Making Sense of Place: Portland”
   Summary:  Portland embarked on a grand experiment in city planning in 1973: an urban growth boundary containing development within a 22-square-mile area, protecting surrounding farmland and open space. The experience of Portland provides a example for planning in the 21st century, involving issues of economic development, gentrification, local food and farming, property rights, and civic participation.
   “Making Sense of Place: Cleveland”
   Summary:  Focuses on the deterioration in the urban core and older suburbs in what was once America’s 5th-largest city while growth at the suburban periphery continues. The film explores the interrelationships of individual choices, the democratic process and market forces in the region. Many factors contribute to the patterns of the last several decades, including issues of race and class, taxes and schools, and major shifts in population and jobs.
   “Making Sense of Place: Phoenix”
   Summary:  Focuses on urban growth and change in and around Phoenix, Arizona. In only half a century, Phoenix has expanded from a small desert town into the sixth largest city in the country. The film explores the interrelationships both caused by and affecting individual choices, the democratic process and market forces in the region. This development pattern, which is providing homes and jobs to 100,000 new residents each year, is also threatening the region’s unique desert environment.
2. “Built to Last:  New Urbanism”
   Summary:  This video asks the question “What’s the greatest threat to our planet?” and shows how re-imagining our cities and suburbs to be sustainable and walkable will cut carbon emissions, commutes and calories.
3. Short documentary piece on Robert Moses
   Summary:  Robert Moses vs. Jane Jacobs.  Rationalism meets advocacy planning.  20th century (and 21st century) transportation planning meets traditional urban form.
4. Short documentary pieces on Jane Jacobs
   Summary:  Critique of Philadelphia’s Convention Center expansion using the teachings of Jane Jacobs.  She described four things that make for a healthy and vibrant city district–this piece looks at those four things and how they relate to the convention center additions.
5. Short documentary pieces on Jan Jacobs 2
   Summary:   An interview with legendary author, Jane Jacobs, who wrote “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.”  The piece explores the role of the built environment in physical activity and public health.
6. Bogota; Building a Sustainable City
   Summary:  A documentary from the PBS e2 series.  During his tenure as mayor of Bogota, Colombia, Enrique Penalosa was both revered and scorned for his urban planning and transportation policies.  His public works projects, which largely favored the pedestrian experience, were unlike anything previously built in Bogota.  Penalosa describes the environmental and social importance of minimizing automobile culture.

TRANSPORTATION:

1. “Moving Beyond the Automobile:  Highway Removal”
   Summary:  Discussion of specific examples of urban expressway removal and the positive economic effects (job growth, municipal revenue generation, urban vibrancy) which resulted.
2. “Taken for a Ride”
   Summary:  Taken for a Ride reveals the little known history of the auto and oil industry takeover and dismantling of streetcar lines.  Across the nation tracks were torn up, sometimes overnight, and diesel buses placed on city streets.  At the same time, the highway lobby then pushed through Congress a vast network of urban freeways that doubled the cost of the Interstates, fueled suburban development and increased auto dependence.  The film presents a revealing history of our cities in the 20th century that is also a revelation on corporate power, city form, citizen protest and the social and environmental implications of transportation.
3. “Moving Beyond the Automobile:  Traffic Calming”
   Summary:  Discussion of engineering and other practical techniques which help to make streets and roadways safer for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.
4. “Moving Beyond the Automobile:  Road Diet”
   Summary:  Discussion of the specific traffic calming practice of putting a road on a “diet” or reducing the number of lanes for automobile movement.  The short film points out the ways this practice boosts safety for all roadway users–motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.
5. “Moving Beyond the Automobile”
   Summary:  Visit the site to view all 10 short films on suggested practices which communities might take advantage of in order to create economic well being, improve safety and reduce traffic congestion.
6. “Curitibas BRT:  Inspired Bus Rapid Transit Around the World”
   Summary:  Curitiba’s Bus Rapid Transit system is the source of inspiration for many other cities.  This video illustrates how Curitiba’s public transportation system operates and the urban planning and land use principles on which it is based.  Current city employees also discuss the improvements that are being made to the system to keep it up to date and functioning at the capacity of a typical subway system.
7. “Brazil’s Sweet Revolution” Ethanol
   Summary:  In developing a cost-effective alternative to petrol, Brazil has succeeded where much of the industrial world has failed.  It now plans to export its ethanol revolution to other countries.  When faced with an escalating fuel bill, Brazil’s leaders decided to break the country’s reliance on oil.  As well as funding research into ethanol production from sugar cane, they encouraged car manufacturers to develop ‘flex cars.’
8. Bike path history in Holland
   Summary:  The video highlights how it came about that the Dutch feel a main road is not complete without a cycle path.
9. Case for Separated Bike Lanes
   Summary:  Advocates from Transportation Alternatives, The Project for Public Spaces, and The Open Planning Project join “Gridlock Sam” Schwartz and Enrique Penalosa to call for New York City to consider experimenting with some form of physically separated bike lanes.  Featuring ample footage and photos from over a dozen cities worldwide, this video makes the case that America is behind the curve in protecting its cyclists in big cities.
10. Conversation with an Engineer, Street Project
    Summary:  Satirical Cartoon—a resident has a conversation with a project engineer about the proposed improvements to her street.

CORPORATE FARMING:

1. “As We Sow”
   Summary:  As farmers leave the land in record numbers, agribusiness and the associated industrialization of agriculture continue to expand.  The consequences—intended and unintended—of this rapid restructuring of our food system reach well beyond the boundaries of what we think of as “the family farm.”  The film documents the stories of survival and failure in the heartland, a struggle pitting family against family, neighbor against neighbor, citizens against their government, and small, independent farmers against the giants of global agribusiness. At the center is the land itself:  who will control it and how, and at what cost to people and communities, to our health and our environment, and, ultimately, to our democracy.

ENERGY:

1. “Green Builders”
   Summary:  The film profiles a cast of green building pioneers who have taken the leap into making their part of the “built environment” a more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly place.
2. “Kilowatt Ours”
   Summary:  Filmmaker Jeff Barrie offers hope as he turns the camera on himself and asks, “How can I make a difference?”  In his journey Barrie explores the sources of our electricity and the problems caused by energy production including mountain top removal, childhood asthma and global climate change.  Along the way he encounters individuals, businesses, organizations, and communities who are leading the way, using energy conservation, efficiency and renewable, green power all while saving money and the environment.

Workplace ethic:

1. “The Caring Capitalist”
   Summary:  Some call it anarchic socialism, some cutting edge capitalism.  At Brazilian manufacturer Semco, the workers have sacked the boss, and run the company themselves.