Pittsburgh, PA is Architecture 2030 District #3

Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the Duquesne Incline (foreground) as seen from nearby Mt. Washington. Photo: David Owen/ Artifice Images

Architecture 2030 has announced that Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is the third U.S. city to launch a "2030 District," a zone designated to meet the energy, water, and transportation emissions targets in the 2030 Challenge for Planning.

The Pittsburgh 2030 District currently includes 61 properties and more than 23 million square feet (over 7 million square meters) of the city's downtown area. Pittsburgh joins Seattle, Washington and Cleveland, Ohio, which have already established 2030 Districts.

Graph of proposed reductions to energy, water, and carbon dioxide from transportation, for existing developments under the 2030 Challenge for Planning. Image: © Architecture 2030

The challenge identifies different target reductions, depending on whether a project is new or existing. For existing developments in these urban areas, the plan calls for an immediate 10% reduction  -- compared with the regional average -- in each of  those three categories, stepping down to a 50% overall reduction by 2030.

Likewise, the 2030 Challenge for Planning calls for carbon neutrality in all new and renovated developments within the designated districts by 2030, with a 60% beginning reduction from the regional average, with additional targets to meet every 5 years, starting in 2015.

Graph of proposed reductions for new developments under the 2030 Challenge for Planning. Image: © Architecture 2030