The Ecocity World Summit is used to attracting top talent and minds, and Raquel Pinderhughes is no exception. Raquel Pinderhughes, Ph.D. is Professor of Urban Studies at San Francisco State University, author of many books, and a visionary in the focus on how smart urban planning can minimize a city’s environmental footprint. One of her areas of expertise are green collar jobs and the potential they have for revitalizing many areas of modern life, not just our ecology. They’ve been a hot topic politically as well, with such luminaries as former candidate John Edwards behind an initiative to make them part of an economic recovery package. NPR featured the topic, and briefly interviewed Dr. Pinderhughes.
Want to know more? The Golden Gate XPress has a great article too.
More on Raquel and her recent work after the jump…
Her most recent book, Alternative Urban Futures: Planning for Sustainable Development in Cities throughout the World, focuses on planning and policy approaches and appropriate technologies that can be used to minimize a city’s impact on the environment while providing urban residents with the infrastructure and services they need to sustain a high quality of urban life. Professor Pinderhughes is Director of the SFSU/Delancey Street College Program, an innovative program that provides ex-felons and drug addicts with an opportunity to pursue a college education on site at the Delancey Street Foundation facility. She is President of the Board of Directors of two Berkeley based organizations that provide workers with green collar jobs – the Ecology Center, which runs the city of Berkeley’s recycling and farmers market programs and Rising Sun Energy Services which runs California Youth Energy Services and Energy Partners; both programs are designed to increase residential energy and water efficiency and conservation in the Bay Area. She is also a member of the board of directors of Clean City in San Francisco.
Ecocity Media 
Cant wait to hear the speach. Infil housing is such an important topic if you plan on toughing upon it.
Kudos to Eco-Cities for bringing Raquel to our region! Professor Pinderhughes has been assisting us with a plan for green business inventory and capacity ananlysis in NJ and we are very pleased to be able to promote your conference.
Building Open Opportunity Structures Together (BOOST) and Partners will launch their Green, Smart, and Sustainable Stakeholder Education and Training (GSS-SET 2008-09) series of public awareness forums and community capacity building workshops on Saturday, June 7, at Classics Used and Rare Books located at 117 South Warren Street in downtown Trenton (NJ) at 12 noon with a screening of the Sundance Channels “Big Ideas for a Small Planet, the Build” episode and a special guest presentation by one of the films featured designers, Mitchell Joachim of Terreform Studios, a nonprofit philanthropic architectural design collaborative that integrates ecological principles in the urban environment.
This event is free to the public and will coincide with Classics Book Fair and Trenton’s 30th annual Heritage Days Celebration which draws upwards of 25,000 people each year to New Jersey’s capital’s district and FREE signed copies of “From Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage” will be available at the launch for BOOST’s Green, Smart, and Sustainable Stakeholder Education and Training (GSS-SET 2008-09) for the first 30 individuals to register for the ten-month series of community capacity building seminars. For more information about GSS-SET, please call our voice-mail/fax center at (206) 202-2883 and email us at gss-se t@gss-set.com and for more GSS-SET events, resources, and opport unities – visit http://www.gss-set.blogspot.com.& ;nbs p; ; Web site http://www.gss-set.com is currently under development and feel free to bookmark now.