Activist Cleveland

The Center for Regional Sustainability educates the public about the design of ecological cities and how human beings can live sustainably on Earth in the 21st century. The Center was formed in 2007 from the merger of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and EcoCity Cleveland. In recent years, the Earth has become a rapidly urbanizing planet. The great sustainability challenge of the coming decades will be to provide a high quality of life for people in growing cities while conserving nature’s capacity to sustain human civilization with a stable climate, clean water, fertile soils, and natural areas with abundant biological diversity. Therefore, it is critical to develop greener cities that consume fewer resources, produce less waste and pollution, and sprawl less into the surrounding countryside. With a focus on urban design in Northeast Ohio, the Center for Regional Sustainability will promote sustainable land use, energy systems, transportation systems, buildings, and green space. This will complement the Museum’s longstanding conservation work in the region. Urban revitalization and the conservation of natural areas are really two sides of the same coin, since the creation of a more livable city helps reduce the pressure to develop outlying areas that are home to rare and endangered natural habitats. The Center’s activities will include the facilitation of planning and implementation projects to help cities in Northeast Ohio reduce their ecological footprint and build a positive identity as a green cities on a blue lake; making the Museum a hub for sustainability exhibits, projects, seminars, events and outreach; and creating long-term visions of a sustainable future in the region. The Center will work with many partners in the region. As a service to the local sustainability community, it maintains the GreenCityBlueLake website, which tracks the projects and events that are making Northeast Ohio greener, healthier, and more prosperous.

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