From Metro –

Metro Councilors Carlotta Collette and Rex Burkholder invite you to a brown bag lunch presentation by Peter Newman, one of the world’s foremost experts on greening cities and urban planning.

• Date: Thursday, March 6
• Time: Noon – 1 p.m.
• Location: Metro Council Chambers, 600 NE Grand Ave. Portland, OR, 97232
• No RSVP is required

Peter Newman is a renowned Australian academic and planner who invented the term ‘automobile dependence’ to describe how we have created cities where we have to drive everywhere. For 30 years since he attended Stanford University during the first oil crisis he has been warning cities about preparing for peak oil. Peter’s book with Jeff Kenworthy ‘Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence’ was launched in the White House in 1999 and his new book from Island Press is ‘Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems’. Peter is the Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, where he is best known for his work in reviving and extending the city’s rail system. In 2001-3 Peter directed the production of WA’s Sustainability Strategy in the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. It was the first state sustainability strategy in the world. In 2004-5 he was a Sustainability Commissioner in Sydney advising the government on planning issues. In 2006/7 he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Virginia Charlottesville and he returns there in early 2008 as Harry Porter Visiting Professor. He was the first Australian author invited to contribute a chapter in the Worldwatch Institute’s annual State of the World publication – the 2007 edition being on cities.