Demolished Town Rebuilding Green
Greensburg, Kansas, about 100 miles west of Wichita, is making the proverbial lemonade from its lemons, and gaining big-time recognition and resources in the process.
Last year Greensburg was utterly demolished by a brutal tornado, to the extent that President Bush saw fit to make a trip to the town of no more than 1,400 people at the time. however, Greenberg has chosen a novel way to rebuild their town: do it green.
As a result, the town has offered itself as something of a living laboratory to see how many of the green building initiatives will function in a real-world economy. In a sense this is a dream come true for green designers and builders, but it’s something quite like that as well to the residents of Greenberg. The town’s mayor, John Janssen, told the USA Today, “The tornado was one of the biggest blessings to hit our town. “We were like every other town in the Rust Belt and the Midwest. We were dying a slow, agonizing death. Suddenly, we don’t have a town. So we’re rebuilding a new green town.”
Consequently Greensburg became the first city in America to pledge that all of its city-owned buildings in excess of 4,000 square feet will meet the highest rating of the U.S. Green Building Council, called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum. Those buildings will use just half the energy that an ordinary building would.
While homeowners aren’t required to rebuild ‘green’, the town is encouraging them to do so.
Source: USA Today
Date: May 22, 2008
