Houle

"Green is essential today in all business," said David Houle, an award-winning author and futurist consultant from Chicago and keynote speaker for ICSC's first greev conference. "Green is now main stream." About 500 retail professionals from development, financing, design and brokerage circles in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico attended the conference at the Hotel Inter-Continental Dallas in Addison.

Houle first laid out the energy situation and where it's headed and then told the roomful of professionals that "the future of shopping centers is going to be retro." High-density, mixed-use development in and around transit stops or stations will hearken the return of Main Street America if for no other reason than the spiking cost of gasoline. "Historians will look back to 2005 to 2010 as the beginning of a new age," he said, citing climate change and global warming, regardless of its cause, as the force behind companies now thinking about the future. Among the certainties will be electric cars, possibly with plug-ins to recharge batteries lining city streets much like parking meters.

Houle recognizes there are science breakthroughs that first must occur before his futurist predictions become reality, but what he does know is the acceptance of the green movement in the past few years is now deep-rooted enough to be the catalyst for change. The outcome is destined to be a mix of renewable energy sources, possibly including space solar panels, so the world can be on track for a zero carbon footprint. "I believe by 2050 that 40% of all the energy we consume in the US will be from renewable [sources]," he said.

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