Where will you live in 2030?

According to Worldchanging: "By 2030, about half of the buildings in America will have been built after 2000," and the majority of that new construction will be residential. This comes from a Brookings Institute report that came out in 2004, but which Worldchanging has chosen to re-examine in light of what they call the mainstreaming of the green movement. 

According to the original report, the proportion is even higher in the West and Southwest, where up to 87 percent of our buildings will be spanking new. In all, the country will need over 100 billion square feet of new residential space by 2030.

The Worldchangers go on to make the optimistic point that what we now face is a real opportunity to affect the quality of our built environment on a very large scale, and we at Building Green are happy to echo their rousing call to action:  "Every quirky blueprint idea, every design doodled on a cocktail napkin, every out-of-the-box concept -- they're all fair game in light of our supreme need for residential and commercial space in the coming decades. Here we stand, fewer than 10 years into the mainstream U.S. green movement, and we're faced with a monumental opportunity."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves, and we hope that all of you napkin-doodlers and dreamers will continue to share your ideas right here in these pages.