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In September, the ES Program welcomed Professor Chris Wilson as this year’s Keynote speaker. Wilson is the J.B. Jackson Professor of Cultural Landscape Studies at the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning in Albuquerque and the founding director of its Historic Preservation and Regionalism Program. His current research focus is on the role of the on-going reurbanization of the US as a central sustainability strategy. In his public lecture, he addressed this topic in his talk entitled “City Planning and Reurbanization: A Field Guide to Cool Neighborhoods”.

Professor Wilson began his talk by sketching the history of how urban centers have changed over the past century. According to Wilson, the design of a city often reflects historical and current patterns of transit systems and zoning. Traditional design of a neighborhood focused on mixed-use zoning, with a mix of commercial areas, shared community space, transit, and housing. Streetcars and other forms of public transportation created transit-oriented neighborhood nodes as well as business blocks and community centers, which was highly sustainable and provided compact development.

However, cars ultimately had a huge impact on the built environment and intentionally changed urban areas and other places into single- use zoning. This single-use zoning has created decentralized cities and suburbs that are intensely energy dependent, take up excessive amounts of land, and create more carbon emissions because of the lack of public transportation. It also deprives a community of urban meeting places for social interaction, also known as “third spaces,” that are often created by buildings in a mixed-use zone.

Wilson argued that cities are the greenest places to live. Residential building that house multiple families are both space- and energy-efficient. High populations support public transportation, and mixed-use development assures that people live near the things they need.

As cities are being rethought, passenger rail systems, bus lines, and even streetcars are being brought back, to once again form transit-oriented cities. Wilson said we need to redesign our business blocks and other public areas to encourage less driving and more effective use of mass public transit as a way to green our cities.

“Cool neighborhoods” are compact, flexible, and resilient. Their structure harkens back to the pre-

automobile era, with walkable commercial main streets, mixed-use buildings, and ample green space. They resist the sprawl that characterizes modern day suburbs, striving to become urban meeting places instead of spaces devoid of significance.

In addition to his public lecture, Professor Wilson, together with Brad Birge, the Administrator of Planning and Economic Development for Saratoga Springs, led a walking tour of downtown Saratoga Springs to illustrate some of the major points from his lecture. A group of about 15 students, Skidmore staff, and community members joined the tour, which focused largely on recent developments along Broadway and near Franklin Square. Wilson gave an overview of the building typology of downtown Saratoga, while Mr. Birge supplemented the tour with information about how City regulations have guided the development of the downtown area over the past 20 years.

This past year brought several engaging speakers to campus. The ES Keynote speaker this year was Professor Chris Wilson, a cultural landscape studies professor who spoke about sustainable city planning. Dr. David Sobel gave a lecture on the value of place-based education. Dr. Rebecca Klaper spoke about her research on emerging contaminants in Lake Michigan and their effects on fish. Dr. Tim Hawthorne gave a lecture on community geography and led a student workshop on GIS mapping techniques.

Last April, the ES Program and the Education Department co-hosted Dr. David Sobel, core faculty at the Department of Education at Antioch University of New England and project director at Antioch New England Institute, home to the Center for Place-Based Education. Place-based education promotes learning that is rooted in the unique environment, culture, economy, and art of one’s place – the local neighborhood, town, or community – and Dr. Sobel has been one of the core developers of this approach to learning.

Dr. Sobel’s talk was entitled “Making School More Like a Farmer’s Market,” and he started his talk with the statement “place-based education is to modern, conventional education as terroir is to fast food.” He then outlined commonalities between farmers markets and place-based education: both reflect the local ecology; both allow people from a range of ages to get involved; neither one can separate the producers from their stories; and neither one is as easy as the modern, conventional alternative.