Foundations 19 – Infrastructure Space

Maria Atkinson raised the question of why everyone during the Forum failed to consider money in a positive light. It’s worth asking what is even meant by economic opportunity. “If we’re not linking sustainable construction, sustainable infrastructure, sus- tainable lifestyle with the money, then we’re not in sync with the great opportunity to bring on the new economy and the solutions we so desperately need and want to see.” Today we are still stand- ing with one foot in the old economy, and instead of finding and working out new ways from scratch, we have remained content to make the most of new challenges using tried and true tools – or by adapting tried and true solutions as well as possible.

Maria Atkinson AM is a Sustainability Business Advisor as well as Co-Founder and Founding CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia, of which she is now a Life Fellow. She is a mem- ber of the Board of the LafargeHolcim Foundation.

If we’re not linking sustainable lifestyle with money, then we’re not in sync with the great opportunity to bring on the new economy.

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Edgar Mora Altamirano is in the position to permit concepts and plans to be implemented – because he is mayor of Curridabat in Costa Rica. He noted that the creation of new infrastructure often creates barriers instead of making things more permeable. “Unfor- tunately, today it is either the political establishment or the market forces that decide what kind of infrastructure is built,” he said. He would prefer – and considers it necessary – that citizens have a certain say in things. This type of participation is an issue that was often raised and discussed during the Forum. “This is especially important when you don’t have a lot of resources to invest,” said the politician. That’s why it was significant to hold this Forum in Detroit, because here it is clear that one can make much from little – an example for many other cities with similar problems!

Edgar Mora Altamirano is Mayor of Curridabat, Costa Rica and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance & Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Today it is either the political establishment or the market forces that decide what kind of infrastructure is built.

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