Search Results
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Higher Prices, Fewer Affordable Homes?
Last time, I broadly assessed the math behind Seattle’s proposed Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) program and found it flawed but repairable. This time, I take a closer look at the thing I said Seattle policymakers most need to do if MHA is going to deliver on its promise—a promise to build more homes for everyone and more affordable homes for low-income residents, a promise to become a new North American...Read more » -
Weekend Reading 12/23/16: Best Books of 2016 Edition
Alan Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We “Catch” Mental IllnesS By Harriet Washington Ever since I read this article on how the growing popularity of pet cats in Europe centuries ago may have brought with it the eruption of severe mental illness, especially schizophrenia, I’ve been fascinated by germ-theory research on mental health. In the case of cats and schizophrenia, the culprit may be a microorganism called Toxoplasma...Read more » -
Weekend Reading 12/9/16: Charity Edition
We at Sightline share our favorite organizations to help inspire your end-of-year giving. We imagine these organizations will need our support more than ever in the coming years and want to amplify the great work that is happening in Cascadia and beyond. Have a favorite organization you’re giving to this year? Share it in the comments below! Tarika For the past month, I’ve found myself vacillating between the patriotic belief that...Read more » -
Inclusionary Zoning: The Most Promising—or Counter-productive—of All Housing Policies
Imagine two towns, both committed to helping their low-income residents but short on funding for social services. Both decide to require retailers to sell 5 or 10 percent of their wares at steeply discounted prices to families who qualify for benefits: milk, jeans, refrigerators, whatever. But they do it two different ways. The first town flat-out forces stores to do it, giving them nothing back in exchange. The place gets...Read more » -
DAPL: “The Fight Will Continue, and It Can Still Be Won”
Editor’s note: Sightline publishes guest articles only rarely. We publish this reflection by Zarina because we feel it highlights a crucial human dimension to the thin green line, the growing movement to obstruct fossil fuel infrastructure. Although the Dakota Access Pipeline is beyond the borders of Cascadia, the opposition movement is of monumental importance to the tribes and First Nations of the Northwest, as well as many others in our...Read more » -
Cascadia, Let’s Rise Up
I grew up in coal country USA, the heart of Appalachia, eastern Kentucky. An oil refinery, a coke plant, and a steel mill were all within a fifteen-minute drive from my elementary school. Each of my fellow classmates had their own nickname for these colossal structures that dominated my hometown horizon: the Big Hot, Mordor, Hell, and the Cloud Factory are a few of the names that I remember. My...Read more » -
The Portland Plan: Down with McMansions, Up with Abundant Housing Options
Editor’s note: This article combines and adapts three articles by the Portland for Everyone coalition’s Michael Andersen. See the originals on this blog, and learn more about the group here. Portland’s approach shares similarities with the Seattle Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda recommendation to allow small duplexes and triplexes in single-family zones without letting property owners erect buildings larger than currently zoned. Growing cities across the US and Canada are...Read more » -
Weekend Reading 11/4/16
Eric In the midst of the wettest October on record, the right poem made its way to me. It would be easy to imagine that Robert Frost wrote “A Line-Storm Song” about this season in the Northwest, though of course he didn’t and it’s about much more than the weather. The last stanza breaks my heart in a curious way. Anna A friend of mine, and former Sightline intern (of...Read more » -
Washington Voters, Meet Democracy Credits
In our last two articles in this series, we described the Washington Government Accountability Act’s tough new rules for reducing lobbyists and contractors’ influence in Olympia and for boosting transparency in elections, so that voters have easy access to the information they need about their candidates. In this article, we detail another voter-empowering component of I-1464: Democracy Credits. What are Democracy Credits? Democracy Credits are a powerful tool to dilute...Read more » -
Displacement: The Gnawing Injustice at the Heart of Housing Crises
In Seattle and other fast-growing cities across Cascadia and beyond, bitter stories of people priced out of their homes and of affordable buildings torn down for new construction are all too familiar. The sense of injustice we feel about these stories is well justified. Sightline recently assembled focus groups—random samples of long-time Seattle residents—to talk about the housing crunch, and strong feelings about housing costs ran to a fever pitch...Read more »