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  • SOL: Sustaining Ourselves Locally

    According to the Current TV Studio blog, SOL, a viewer-contributed piece about a sustainable development project in Oakland, will be airing on TV.

    I think this is a good example of how people like you, armed with a camera and a passion, can produce a short film that could potentially reach 28 million homes (according to a company press release [PDF]).

    Here's the synopsis on Current:

    This is specifically a piece on an urban sustainable development project in Oakland that consists of 9 people working together to do community environment work. Amazing project that focuses on everything from compost and farming to food justice.

    Watch it now.

    Chris Schults Cities

  • Oh No He Didn’t

    Chrysler official takes public potshot at oil companies What’s more fun than a quiet, simmering feud between Big Auto and Big Oil? A public catfight! Chief Chrysler spokesflack Jason Vines minced no words on a company blog Monday: “Despite a documented history of … hoarding their bounty by avoiding technologies, policies, and legislation that would […]

    Grist staff Cities

  • Bay City Tollers

    San Francisco looks into congestion charging If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear … a money clip. The city creatively known as “The City” plans to study the possibility of “congestion charges” — making drivers pay to enter downtown during business hours. Critics include some stores in high-traffic areas, which fear that […]

    Grist staff Cities

  • Does Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods say anything new?

    OK, call me a crank, a malcontent, a hypercritical reviewer with a small, crabbed heart. But despite all its earnestness, despite its heartfelt message, which an environmentalist and concerned parent like me should embrace — in brief, that nature is good for children — Richard Louv’s plea to reengage our children with nature left me […]

    Naomi Schalit Cities

  • An interview with Richard Louv about the need to get kids out into nature

    Richard Louv is an anecdote machine. As we milled about near the door of a Seattle cafe awaiting lunch-hour seating, he kept up a constant stream of witty, telling stories — about “no running” signs on playgrounds, clueless environmental leaders, suffering outdoor-gear execs. I started fumbling for my recorder. Richard Louv. It’s no wonder Louv’s […]

    David Roberts Cities

  • Oiling for a Flight

    The top 10 best places to live during an oil crisis Pack yer bags, kids — there’s an oil crisis coming and we’re moving to the Big Apple! Eco-website SustainLane has come up with a list of the 10 U.S. cities best able to weather an oil crisis, and New Yawk is number one. The […]

    Grist staff Cities

  • So 2003

    Luxury SUVs are losing their cool The jerk-offs who drive enormous, fuel-hogging luxury SUVs between their gated McMansions, plastic surgeons, and corporate-whore jobs — not that there’s anything wrong with that — are slowly but surely realizing that they are, in fact, jerk-offs. Sales of all SUVs have dropped, but luxe behemoths like the Hummer […]

    Grist staff Cities

  • The Road to Hell Is Paved With ‘Hood Intentions

    Census estimates show U.S. population shifting to exurbs As the U.S. population rises, more and more people are moving into compact, smartly planned, energy-efficient cities. Ha! Ha! Sigh. Actually, the fastest-growing areas of the country are fringes: suburbs and semi-rural areas on the edges of expanding metropolitan regions. “It’s not just the decade of the […]

    Grist staff Cities

  • City Bickers

    Housing developers compete with manufacturers for urban land You know the story: developers target a tract of land for condos and are met with outraged protests from … manufacturers? Progressive urban planners envision dense cities where housing and clean industry (think solar-panel manufacturing, not smokestacks) co-exist peacefully, with the latter providing jobs for those who […]

    Grist staff Cities

  • Is convenience the drug that salves commuting guilt?

    I sometimes catch the bus at the busy Fremont intersection of 34th and Fremont here in Seattle. I'd estimate that at least 90 percent of the vehicles heading west over the Fremont Bridge have one occupant. This, of course, frustrates me to no end.

    Here are all these people heading in the same general direction, at the same time. I've often wanted to stand on the side of the road with a sign that reads, "Your car seats four, why are you driving alone?"

    So, why are they driving alone? Richard Seven attempts to answer this question in the most recent edition of The Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest Magazine.

    Chris Schults Cities