Into the suburbs

Pretty much everyone has seen and continues to see cities expand to meet population growth.

Some call it growth and others call it sprawl. I have mixed feelings on the growth or sprawl of cities. On the one hand people need places to live and on the other hand I don't know if the average citizen, city counsellor, or urban planning and development professional is really thinking about the long term ramifications of either how fast or the way in which cities are expanding.

What I've noticed walking through recently developed neighborhoods is the lack of green energy infrastructure investment; not a single solar panel, wind vein, and perhaps less visible, Geo-thermal energy production.

Perhaps the aforementioned technologies are in newly developed neighborhoods and I simply don't see them. I think if would be reasonable to assume that most new housing developments are being constructed in a green manner; energy efficient windows, furnaces, air conditioners, etc,.

But as more housing developments are hooked up the grid the demand for energy is just going to keep growing and I think green sources of energy production should be integrated where possible into new housing developments.

What is preventing green energy production from making its way into new housing developments? I think the most obvious answer is cost. No one building their dream home from the ground up to the tune of a few hundred thousand dollars is likely to spend another couple thousand on a solar panel. Though if you have the extra money do it!

So, what is the government doing to encourage green energy infrastructure investment? At best I have heard the government encourages but does not offer much in the way of subsidizes, rebates, and/or incentives a small business or homeowner to invest in a green source of energy production.

I will avoid getting into extraneous detail about the status of federal energy policy for now.

Tell me what you have noticed in neighborhoods in the green energy production movement.