Rohit Aggarwala

After Mayor Bloomberg's December announcement of his PlaNYC initiative to prepare for a sustainable New York of 9 million people by 2030, New York New Visions, the group of architects and planners originally organized around Ground Zero rebuilding, announced it was expanding its scope to tackle the new challenge. Last night, in a stark white room in the basement of the American Institute of Architects building in Greenwich Village, a collection of almost equally stark white faces began reimagining the New York of the future.  

Chris Smith has an outstanding story in this week's New York Magazine pointing out that New York City has fallen behind other world cities in addressing climate change and challenging the Bloomberg Administration to do more. An excerpt:

At an event hosted by the League of Conservation Voters, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will deliver a major speech outlining sustainability challenges and goals for the City of New York through the year 2030. This will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by NBC News Special Correspondent Tom Brokaw.

As we reported this morning, Mayor Bloomberg is in California with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to make a major policy announcement on a major, long-term, environmental sustainability initiative. The key components of the Mayor's plan include: