General News News
Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#4 Solar Greenhouses
Growing tomatoes in a hydroponic greenhouse on a rooftop in West Garfield Park. It was audacious—and caught the attention of the New York Times, resulting in CNT’s first national press story (NYT subscription required).
Christian Action Ministry (CAM) was a faith-based community development organization on Chicago’s West Side. CAM ran a range of programs, including preschool and job training. For the late 1970s, they were on the cutting edge. When Scott Bernstein proposed building a rooftop greenhouse on their building at West Madison between Homan and Pulaski to increase local access to fresh fruits and vegetables, they embraced the idea enthusiastically.
A skeptical Christian Science Monitor took note, as well, observing that “this kind of urban self-help agriculture is very new. There is much excitement about the possibilities, but little proof of how things will work out.” Read more »
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Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#3 Deep Tunnel
Maybe we were just ahead of our time. In the late 1970s, the early days of CNT, we had the radical notion that multiple, smaller investments in infrastructure were better than a gargantuan, one-size-fits-all approach. It’s a concept that’s certainly more in vogue now, in fields from planning to engineering to fundraising. (Heck, just ask a certain former CNT board member about the impact of thousands of small donations…)
Back then, though, we were attempting to advocate our position as relative Davids in the face of a Goliath called “Deep Tunnel.” This time, David didn’t fare as well.
Photo: Chicago Tribune (Oct. 9, 1980)
The Deep Tunnel Project, officially known as the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP), was commissioned in the mid-1970s and billed as a solution to reduce flooding in the Chicago region and curtail the flow of raw sewage into Lake Michigan. As civil engineering projects go, Deep Tunnel was in a league of its own: a megaproject.
CNT was part of a larger coalition of organizations and individuals called the TARP Impacts Project (TIP), which initially came together over the proposed price tag of Deep Tunnel relative to its projected impact. The $7.3 billion budget translated to $4,000 per Chicago-area household, or over $100 million per neighborhood in the region. TIP, and CNT, believed that smaller, more affordable, and more direct actions could work as well or better than the pricy Deep Tunnel. Read more »
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Wednesday, March 20th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#2 The Neighborhood Works
They were the days of disco. Saturday Night Fever was #1 at the box office. The BeeGees had two of Billboard’s Top 10 singles. Jimmy Carter, while not so “disco,” was president. Inflation was on the rise, and the U.S. was creeping towards the precipice of an unprecedented energy crisis. It was January, 1978.
In Chicago, a team of community activists led by Scott Bernstein, Jesse Auerbach, and Kathy Tholin launched an information service, in print form. It was designed to help neighborhood organizations, economic development groups, and individuals take action to improve the viability and health of communities. They called it The Neighborhood Works, and its spirit and influence are felt yet today.
The founding editors (Scott, Jesse, and Kathy) opened the inaugural issue with a welcome, a bit of a mission statement, and a definition of what “neighborhood technology” meant at the time and how it could be developed. In a way, it was the Google Reader or news aggregator of its time, compiling news stories, scientific research and DIY tips on topics from food to energy to housing to jobs.
Over the years, several committed individuals served as volunteers, artists, advisors, and editors. Their efforts were widely appreciated and remembered fondly. Mary Fran Riley, Vice President of Development & Communications at Accion Chicago, described how, “In days before the Internet, The Neighborhood Works was an invaluable source of information for those of us working in community development.” Read more »
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Wednesday, March 13th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#1 Scott Bernstein – Champion of Cities
Scott Bernstein started working in Chicago’s West Garfield Park neighborhood in the ‘70s and envisioned innovative strategies that could turn around this community. In 1978, he, along with Stan Hallett, co-founded the organization that would become CNT to stimulate creative solutions to neighborhood problems. CNT began with three projects: community greenhouses, opposition to the Deep Tunnel and the publication of The Neighborhood Works. Read more »
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Friday, March 1st, 2013
Photo credit: Anthony May Photography
At this year’s Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards, CNT board member Patricia Saldaña Natke and her firm UrbanWorks won the 2013 Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award for Architectural Excellence in Community Design for La Casa Student Dormitory, located in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. Designed as a new innovative model in student housing, the project incorporates all of the benefits and resources of on-campus living while serving nearly all major colleges and universities in the Chicago area. Read more »
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Friday, January 18th, 2013
As part of the “fiscal cliff” legislation signed into law early this year, Congress provided a number of 2012 and 2013 tax credits for home energy efficiency improvements. These tax credits, coupled with financial incentives available for energy efficiency improvements, make right now a lucrative time to invest in home energy efficiency.
You’ll get twice the deal when you take advantage of an incentive program from Energy Impact Illinois, an alliance to help Illinois residents lower energy costs. The program helps you reduce energy bills and also provides financial incentives to make recommended improvements to your home. If you enroll in the program and install energy efficiency measures this year, you’ll receive an instant rebate of up to $1750 from Energy Impact Illinois and your local utility and, you can now also claim a credit of up to $500 for the very same improvements, so long as the improvements are eligible under the tax extension. Read more »
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Thursday, December 27th, 2012
2012 was a truly eventful year at CNT. We hit the ground running and we have many exciting new projects in the pipeline for 2013. Thank you for your interest in our work! Please consider a year-end gift to support our work!
Take a look at our highlights of 2012 ››
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Monday, October 22nd, 2012
CNT held its first Urban Sustainability Hackathon from Thursday October 4th to Sunday October 7th. On Thursday night, Hackathon participants joined with Chicago’s civic, business, and IT communities at Reinventing Chicago, CNT’s Public Conversation about Technology and Place. Energized by the discussion on Thursday night, teams formed up at Illinois Technology Association’s TechNexus office on Friday evening.
Over the weekend, the six teams worked on different projects. On Saturday, Chuck Templeton, founder of OpenTable and Impact Engine, shared his valuable insights and gave feedback to the teams. Jason Kunesh, an expert on usability design, also met with each team. On Sunday, the teams presented to the panel of judges: Jamie Jones, Kellogg School of Management; Daniel X. O’Neil, Smart Chicago Collaborative; Orlando Saez, CityScan; and Ira Weis, Hyde Park Venture Partners. Read more »
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Friday, October 12th, 2012
CNT's "Reinventing Chicago" event at Red Frog Events brought in a full crowd to hear about the nexus of technology and place.
CNT’s ”Reinventing Chicago” event last Thursday brought together compelling visionaries on urban issues and technology with an eager crowd in a fun, engaging space. Speakers, CNT president and co-founder Scott Bernstein, urban planner and architect Andrés Duany, and Chief Technology Officer for Chicago John Tolva, gave an hour-long talk and conversation about how technology can address some problems of urban sustainability.
John Tolva kicked off the conversation by outlining what he’s set out to accomplish since taking the reins as CTO, namely his focus on what he’s termed the “digital public way”— the common sight of networked devices fixed in place on the street. He argued that these devices make the city run more smoothly and lives easier, and that continuing to overlay the internet across the city will result in greater efficiency. Read more »
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Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012
CNT’s very first Urban Sustainability Hackathon is this weekend, October 5-7, and we’re very excited to see what the coders and developers are going to come up. The event follows the Reinventing Chicago conversation, where Scott Bernstein, Andrés Duany, and John Tolva will talk with Laura Washington, a veteran Chicago-area journalist, about how technology can address problems raised by urban planning to make it easier to build and live in smart cities.
The hackathon is a way to crowdsource the effort it takes to bring an exciting new idea to fruition: the developers will meet to discuss the topics and ideas raised and brainstorm what they want to do and, finally, split into teams based on interest. They’ll then have 33 hours with access to CNT and the City of Chicago’s proprietary models and datasets to work on their ideas. Read more »
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