Thursday, January 7, 2010

Portland State U -- Like MIT and Johns Hopkins? In the Realm of Sustainability?



On the evening of January 27th, from 7:30 to 9 PM, the Urban Planning Program will host a reception and presentation by Dr. Wim Wiewel, President of Portland State University. Dr. Wiewel, an urban planner by training, is a national expert in University District Redevelopment and will be sharing his experience on that topic in relation to Spokane’s U District’s Revitalization efforts.
Riverpoint Campus.
Contact me for specific location.


From a recent interview:


Is the word “sustainability” in danger of being overused or hijacked by marketing types?


I think there’s a challenge in that regard. Once we announced the gift, I had several people telling me that surely by sustainability we meant — fill in the blank.
We do have a specific definition that talks about the triple bottom line — environmental, economic and social. But I don’t want it to get so broad that it means every good thing in the world.


But when you want to get a real shift in people’s minds, you have to do more than invent new gizmos or manage your resources differently. You have to deal with the issue of culture. So thinking about man’s relation to nature — the sort of thing the philosophy department does — is totally relevant. Sustainability is not a purely technical issue. It’s also a cultural and philosophical issue.


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