Reitz, Talitta

Reitz, Talitta

Research Fellow

Rachel Carson Center, LMU Munich, Germany

Research Interest

Talitta is interested in participatory design and urban planning solutions that address collective memory, historical perspectives, sustainability and  the critical needs of marginalized communities. Her goal is to consistently incorporate such concerns within the urbanism and the landscape architecture framework.

Biography

Talitta Reitz is a graduate landscape architect and urbanist, and a certified heritage conservationist from University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Originally from Brazil, she has a background in architecture and urbanism from Federal University of Parana, Curitiba, where she worked for architecture offices and local and federal institutions for heritage conservation. In 2016, she was the recipient of the ASLA “Student Design Merit Award”, and of the Tau Sigma Delta Honor Society in Architecture and Allied Arts “Design Excellence” Medal. Currently, she is an early stage researcher of the RECOMS Innovative Training Network and a PhD student of environmental humanities at the Rachel Carson Center in Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Project summary

This study attempts to compare the sustainability initiatives and practices of Munich, (Germany), and Portland, Oregon (USA) since the 1970s. Munich calls itself a “green city” and is striving to be “climate-neutral” before 2050. Portland, Oregon, once a highly industrialized and polluted city, is today celebrated as the “most sustainable” city in the U.S. Portland was the first city to ban plastic, the first to tear down an urban highway, the first to develop an overarching energy and climate change policy, and it has the highest number in the U.S. of a working population that commutes by bike or carpool. The comparison of two cities of similar size in historical perspective (in the U.S. and Germany) will analyze regional planning histories, environmental awareness initiatives, and community life.