'Greenest Street in America' is in Chicago

Found on PSFK and Inhabitat, the City of Chicago recently unveiled a green project in the city's Pilsen neighborhood. They have installed features to keep block drainage sewers from flooding the streets and diverting the overflow and photocatalytic cement, which is self-cleaning and removes smog from the air. Sounds pretty hip and futuristic. One street down, only 54,600 more miles to go.

As a resident of Chicago, this is really exciting to see. It shows an acknowledgement of the issues we face as urban dwellers and creative solutions. To use the pavement to control the pollution of cars strikes me as a wonderful and innovative idea. To set up attractive mini-drainage areas to control runoff is a great use of the curbspace. Solar bus shelters? Yes please. Why not throw some of these urban dweller innovations in the mix too?

I deal with a lot of Chicago's warts on a daily basis but I love this city. Things like this are the reasons why. Thank you to the City of Chicago for thinking differently here.