It’s Monday morning and I’m sitting in a local coffee shop with John Konior, Assistant to the City Manager of Urbandale and one of the leaders in Central Iowa’s movement towards energy efficiency. Less than two months ago, Konior and his team launched ShareGoodEnergy.org, a website dedicated to sharing stories on energy efficiency in our communities.

What is beauty? Who “gets” it? Why have we, as a society, put so much stock in that which is “beautiful” that we easily ignore our health, finances, family and other valued portions of our life to achieve that which is considered beautiful.

Let’s take the Green & Main Initiative for example.

The trick—to reference my blog post of November 13th—is not to be overwhelmed by the enormity of any task. As a friend once said to me years ago, ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.’

Collective visions are tough to come by, particularly in the face of competing needs, cultural and social commitments, economic infrastructures and layers of political policies. The facilitator of the meeting—a focus group on sustainability and the Des Moines region that was hosted by the Greater Des Moines Partnership—began with all things positive as the group members jumped in to the conversation, which flowed without pause.

On Tuesday afternoon (yesterday) I attended a focus group on sustainability and the Des Moines region that was hosted by the Greater Des Moines Partnership. A wide variety of interested people were in attendance, from a regional mayor to small- and medium-sized business owners, architects, city planners and those interested in what green space meant for this region and its inhabitants.