Five miles southwest of Chicago’s Loop sit three nearly vacant buildings that were once part of the Central Manufacturing District (CMD), one of the first industrial parks in the country. In their heyday, these three buildings housed tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs, the sort of well paying, blue collar work that is largely a relic of a bygone era. Each building is about a half million square feet, and a freight rail line runs adjacent to the site (though investment would be needed to... Read the rest of this entry »

The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) has been contracted through the City of Chicago’s Residential Flood Assistance Program to provide streamlined flood damage repair and prevention for 70 homes victimized by the April 2013 flooding that crippled parts of Chicago’s south and west sides. Through CNT’s RainReady Home service, each eligible homeowner will receive a free home inspection to identify opportunities for flood repair and prevention. The RainReady Home team will then make... Read the rest of this entry »

What if you could predict where flooding would happen next in your community or get a text alert when basements in your neighborhood are flooding? Often, when flooding occurs, there’s little warning beyond weather forecasts about the presence of flash flooding.  The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) and the Army Corps of Engineers are working together on a new initiative called RainReadySM Alert, a predictive flood monitoring and alert system based on aggregated data from sump... Read the rest of this entry »

Like many regions across the country, Ohio’s Toledo-Lucas County grew up around manufacturing. The economic shifts of the past few decades have hit the region hard, and the county has taken an integrated approach to make the region more economically and environmentally sustainable. The Toledo-Lucas County Sustainability Commission, along with CNT and other project partners like the Brendle Group, created the Going Beyond Green plan as a roadmap to meeting its... Read the rest of this entry »

The State of California will devote billions of dollars in new cap-and-trade revenue to fund projects intended to further curb climate impacts. In addition to investments in high-speed rail and public transit, millions of dollars will support affordable transit-oriented development (TOD). CNT research helped make the case that building affordable housing near transit can significantly reduce GHG from auto emissions. Home to the 12th-highest carbon emissions in the world, the State of... Read the rest of this entry »

Northern Ohio has enough wind, solar and biogas potential to meet all of its electricity needs, but only a small fraction of the region's energy comes from these sources. CNT contributed to a report by Oberlin College that lays the analytical roadmap for a healthy, efficient, and sustainable energy economy in the city of Oberlin and throughout Northern Ohio.  CNT helped develop a sustainable transportation plan to reduce carbon emissions in the city of Oberlin over the next 40 years.... Read the rest of this entry »