History of the Green City Project
In 1986, Planet Drum facilitated a series of meetings which brought together 150 knowledgeable individuals to discuss mutual sustainable public policy goals for cities. They included educators, planners, government agencies, businesses, ecologists and activists. Their goal was to develop visions and proposals for change in nine specific Green City theme areas: Urban Planting, Smart Transportation, Sustainable Planning, Renewal Energy, Neighborhood Character and Empowerment, Recycling and Reuse, Celebrating Life-Place Vitality, Urban Wild Habitat, and Socially Responsible Small Businesses and Cooperatives. Planet Drum published the results in our 1989 book A Green City Program for the San Francisco Bay Area and Beyond.
The Green City Project was established as a project of Planet Drum to bring ideas from this book into action in the San Francisco Bay Area. It strove to make cities compatible with bioregions, and developed model programs showing easy and enjoyable ways to get involved with local “greening culture.” The Green City Project was the central information and organizing service for the Bay Area environmental movement, linking urban sustainability/environmental groups before the internet.
Green City co-coordinated special events and supported the following four major services to businesses, schools, and local activists in the San Francisco Bay Area community. [The book also inspired Planet Drum’s Eco-Ecuador Project]
• The Volunteer Network Referral Service: Linking businesses, schools, activists and the community to volunteer opportunities at non-proft environmental organizations on every aspect of urban sustainability database, The Volunteer Network database listed more than 425 groups and served as a free information referral service.
• Education+Action (Education Plus Action): providing educators and curricula to teachers for hands-on classroom activities and service learning projects—empowering school children to improve the local environment.
• Workshop/Workdays: coordinating and co-sponsoring monthly hands-on and educational work parties for adults at Bay Area sites with a variety of organizations to make a positive green impact on urban neighborhoods.
• The Green City Calendar: originally was the most comprehensive guide to exciting ecological activities in the Bay Area—a printed calendar of events with topical articles. It continues, maintained by Planet Drum, as an online calendar listing hands-on environmental/sustainable volunteer opportunities, classes, workshops, hikes, special events, and celebrations.
The Green City Project was a Project of Planet Drum Foundation from 1986 until 2000 when it became an independent 501(c) (3) non-profit. An archive of these years (photos, newsletters, contests and events) is being posted on this website.
Except for the Green City Calendar which continues online on this website, the Green City Project went into hibernation in 2001. It has recently awoken and currently facilitates The New Farm at Bay Natives with native plants, goats, chickens, music and more. Click here to see their facebook page.