Clark
I missed this last week: according to a landmark study of injury-related deaths, major cities are the safest places in the United States. From the abstract:
Using total injury death rate as an overall safety metric, US urban counties were safer than their rural counterparts, and injury death risk increased steadily as counties became more rural.
In case you’re wondering, the study found that cars and guns were involved in nearly half of all injury deaths between 1999 and 2006. Many folks think of big cities as being inherently dangerous, yet Americans are actually safer in places where they don’t drive much. This has been true for a while; heck, we wrote about it way back in the mid-1990s in The Car and the City. Death rates from both cars and guns have declined since then, but the basic geography of injury—with cities safer than both suburbs and rural areas—remains the same.
And here’s a cool find: according to a recent study by Seattle-area researchers Erica Wygonik and Anne Goodchild, a well-designed home grocery delivery service can be vastly more energy-efficient, and lead to much less vehicle travel overall, than driving yourself to the store.
Eric
Proof that the most perfect summers in America are in Cascadia. But you already knew that, right?
A must-watch comedic look at the insanely sexist political assault on women’s choices and family planning that’s well underway in some quarters of the US. (If you haven’t clicked yet, consider that it features David Cross in a role that’s discomfiting even by his standards.)
Stephan Michaels and Fred Felleman connect the dots between Northwest fossil fuel export proposals and the Obama administration’s stated interest in reducing carbon emissions.
Environmental Justice in comic book form.
Anna
Here’s a question for anybody raising a girl: Do you want your daughter to be nice? Catherine Newman looks at the culture of “nice” through a mother’s feminist lens.
Can cultural expectations in America actually drive you insane (the influence of Big Pharma on mental health trends aside)?
This was covered in Sightline Daily already, but here’s a map of what it would look like if LA’s freeways magically turned into subways. Let’s see this map for Seattle and Portland too!
Serena
Sightline is throwing a garden party, super-gourmet-style, at the Corson Building in Seattle. And you’re invited! Please join us to celebrate 20 years in business as your trusty, regional sustainability policy think tank!
If you’re in Seattle next Tuesday night, you might consider spending your evening with Tony Juniper, author, environmentalist, campaigner and currently adviser to His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. He’s the author of the best-selling book What Has Nature Ever Done for Us? and he’ll be discussing “the new bioeconomics.” (The event is hosted by Stewardship Partners). Get your tickets here!
