By Rosie Powers, CNT Young Innovators Attendees of this year’s CNT Young Innovators’ Summer Fundraiser were greeted by a day full of sunshine, locally-sourced fare, and an engaging discussion about sustainable food systems. This year’s event was held at Homestead on the Roof in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood. The restaurant’s rooftop garden was a perfect setting for a discussion about sustainable food systems in the Chicago region. CNT’s new CEO Bob Dean introduced the event,... Continue reading »

The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) and King County Metro have released an update to rightsizeparking.org. This update uses new data collected over the past year at 75 multifamily properties around King County, making the parking use model more robust, supported by a count of actual parking use in the middle of the night. Now, along with all the features of the previous version, a user can vary the proposed multifamily housing development’s parking supply and see how that affects the... Continue reading »

As an innovation-focused organization, the Center for Neighborhood Technology needs to constantly generate and explore new ideas and relationships. I was happy to discover early in my time here (I’m now three weeks in) that CNT hosts an excellent network of young professionals who help accomplish this mission. CNT’s Young Innovators group is a community of young professionals working to actively engage with new ideas about urban sustainability and resilience. The Young Innovators host events... Continue reading »

As the new CEO of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a top priority is finding new partnerships. But I didn’t expect that one would emerge in my first week on the job. Through an opportunity made available through the Earthwatch Institute and IBM, CNT is part of a cohort of four nonprofits – also including the Alliance for the Great Lakes, Openlands, and Teach for America – that received pro bono assistance from IBM’s Corporate Service Corps. Over the past month, IBM’s management... Continue reading »

(Chicago, July 17, 2018) CNT Board Chair Robert Henderson is pleased to announce the appointment of Robert Dean as the organization’s new CEO. Dean joins CNT in August. “Bob Dean brings deep experience, devotion to equity, expert knowledge of CNT’s work in urban sustainability, and demonstrated leadership in working collaboratively to bring out the best in organizations and people,” said Henderson. “We think he is exactly the right person to lead CNT in the next chapter of its mission of... Continue reading »

The Illinois Legislature took a major step toward reducing urban flooding by passing HB4748 and giving 86 Illinois counties the authority to adopt stormwater management plans and standards and provide essential flood protection services to their villages, homeowners and businesses.  On May 17, 2018, House Bill 4748 (HB4748) easily passed in the Senate having passed in the House unanimously in March.  Illinois has 102 counties, 32 of which meet the definition of “urban”. Under the... Continue reading »

CNT was delighted to participate again in the Chicago Community Trust’s On the Table on May 8th, 2018. Over lunch at CNT’s offices, we hosted a range of guests in a conversation about environmental justice. Attendees included chairs and co-chairs from the Robbins and Chatham RainReady community steering committees, students from a local high school, and members of the Elevated Chicago coalition. The topic was “Beyond Baby Boomers: Passing the Torch on Local Environmental Justice,” addressing... Continue reading »

I recently had the honor to sit down with Ben Brown from PlaceMakers to talk about Community Affordability in the PlaceMaker’s blog “PlaceShakers and Newsmakers”  CNT has had a long relationship with PlaceMakers, a planning and design firm that works in the United States and Canada.  Ben and I spoke about affordability and place, in advance of the Congress for New Urbanism 2018 Conference to be held May 15-19, 2018. Follows is the beginning of Part II of our conversation about... Continue reading »

I recently had the honor to sit down with Ben Brown from PlaceMakers to talk about Community Affordability in the PlaceMaker’s blog “PlaceShakers and Newsmakers”  CNT has had a long relationship with PlaceMakers, a planning and design firm that works in the United States and Canada.  Ben and I spoke about affordability and place, in advance of the Congress for New Urbanism 2018 Conference to be held May 15-19, 2018. You can read the entire discussion on PlaceMaker’s website Ben... Continue reading »

Over and over again we hear that infrastructure in the U.S. has a terrible report card and millions, billions, even trillions of dollars are needed to fix it. Discussed less, however, are the benefits of investing, in particular to upgrade infrastructure beyond the replacement of 100-year-old pipes. We also don’t hear about the high costs of pursuing business as usual—what are we losing by continuing to do things the same way, rather than adapting to changing local needs with systems... Continue reading »