Via Verde project in Mexico City (citizen-led)

Have you seen this?  Even just looking at this image makes me feel calm!  I'd love to drive on a highway like this - imagine if Toronto did this to their highway downtown!

Great facts about the project:

- 40,000 meters of roadways and concrete pillars will be covered
- will fight pollution, beautify the city and decrease stress levels of motorists
- the green walls will generate oxygen, absorb pollutants and moderate traffic noise
- an automated irrigation system supplied by rainwater will be used
- the project is being funded by private donors, government and advertisers

From Upworthy and Now This:

What biophilic means to me...

Prenzlauer Berg District, Berlin - "Long one of Europe’s shabbier locales, 
the area is now one of its most livable." (Photograph by Westrich/laif/Redux)

One of botanists Patrick Blanc's most famous green walls in Paris.
(Photograph found here.)

"Swifting" - Chapman School in Portland Oregon.
(Photographs by K. Kendall & S. Benoit)

Green roof in Downtown Ottawa, Canada.
(Photograph by D&C Blog Author)

Montreal subway entrance surrounded by green.
(Photograph by D&C Blog Author)

Bat watching in Austin, Texas.
(Photograph from Fastcoexist)

New green roof at Algonquin College, Ottawa, Canada.
(Photograph by D&C Blog Author)

Vertical Forest (Milan)

This is so exciting!  Green skyscrapers are becoming a reality:

Bosco Verticale (in Milan, Italy) is a vertical forest design that will be open later this year.  It will include 900 trees, oaks and amelanchiers, 500 shrubs, and 11,000 ground plants—the equivalent of 2.5-acres of forest. If each residential unit had been constructed as individual stand-alone units, more than 50,000 square meters of land and 10,000 square meters of woodland would have been required.

Each balcony houses a mini-forest complete with a rainwater watering system and construction costs of Bosco Verticale are only 5% more than those required for the usual skyscraper, which will promote replication in other cities.  It will be the first of its kind - providing vital ecological and energy benefits within the confines of an urban area.

All information/images are from Great Ecology.

P.S.  Check out my latest "urban wild" nature blog: Wild. Here. (2016 update)