In a fire lasting from October 8th to October 10th, 1871, Chicago suffered one of the greatest disasters of the 19th century but the city built back with a vengeance. Rubble from the fire was pushed toward the lake front and now sits under areas beyond the sidewalk of Michigan Avenue and under such landmarks as the Art Institute of Chicago.

By comparison, Greensburg, Kansas was leveled on May 4th, 2007 by a powerful tornado that all but shattered hopes of residents of ever building the city back to its previous state. Instead of just picking things up and moving on, Greensburg has become a one-of-a-kind city where a chance was given to go completely green.

Greensburg is now building back homes that once stood, but LEED Gold certification is now the norm for such construction. All new city buildings, for example, are required to meet LEED Platinum certifcation and businesses are making a go of the 'green' lifestyle changes as well. Google is considering placing a wind-powered data center in Greensburg.

Should Greensburg be a role model to other cities and towns across America and the world? Any thoughts on Greensburg or other cities that may be keeping tabs on the success of projects in Greensburg?

An opportunity like this rarely presents itself. I applaud the people and town of Greensburg for taking this route after suffering such a terrible calamity. Should they be a role model? If that means watching them to see how this all works out, then yes. I am sure there will be much to learn from there efforts.

This is amazing, in the face of such incredible adversity these people are showing remarkable courage by going this route and should be greatly applauded. Not only should their methods be a model it should be a standard, but alas...

Go Greensburg!

I wish New Orleans had taken an approach similar to this.. I applaud Greensburg and the residents who are rebuilding and their efforts to make the city 'greener.' I wish everyone would take these measures into consideration when reconstructing/rebuilding after a disaster...

If they implemented LEED standards combined with the new urban transect and design principles, then I think it would be a model worth following. You can build any generic snout house to LEED standards and it will still be inherently bad for the environment because it promotes an unsustainable way of life.

You are absolutely correct spartan. I think a large flaw in the green movement is the focus on stuff like solar panels and hybrid cars. The movement must also give equal consideration to sustainable, mixed use development thats walkable/bikeable. I would like to see how Greensburg addresses this issue.

For anyone interested, Discovery Channel's new Planet Green channel is running a series on Greensburg (started last weekend) but will be re-running the first episode tomorrow (Saturday) evening at 9:00PM EST and Sunday at 8:00PM. The second (new) episode comes on Sunday at 9:00PM. I missed the first episode so I'll be catching the first episode re-run and I'm going to set my DVR to record the rest of this series.

Hopefully some of the questions posed here will be answered. For more information on the Greensburg special playing on Planet Green you can visit TreeHugger.com (owned by Discovery) here: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/pl...do-dicaprio.php

If you're unsure if you get Planet Green, you can visit the following website to see if you do receive it and if so, what channel: http://planetgreen.channelfinder.net/

I've been watching the series. Some good, some bad. Taylor Schmidt is an inspiration! The bud light drinking "green is just a color" guy is the norm I'm afraid.