Search Results
-
Could State-Led Upzones Happen Here? 7 Lessons from Modern Cascadia
For housing advocates, could there be a better way? As urban housing shortages drive poor people out of job-rich cities, as middle-class families risk their life savings on exurban tract housing because it’s what they can afford, and as the planet keeps ticking toward deeper climate-driven disasters, is there some path to fair, abundant, transit-friendly housing that doesn’t require battling the forces of stasis up an endless staircase of 2...Read more » -
What Could I-1631 Do for Washington’s Suburbs and Cities?
When a ballot initiative touts raising a whopping $1 billion per year for the foreseeable future, voters understandably want to know how the money will be spent. In a previous article, we showed what Initiative 1631 could provide for rural areas of Washington. But what about cities and suburbs? In the coming decade, I-1631 could direct billions of dollars into building energy efficiency retrofits, solar rooftop installations, electric vehicles and...Read more » -
How Cascadian Cities Can Be Smarter about Their Surplus Land
As cities across Cascadia look to technological solutions, such as modular construction, to help address the region-wide shortage of affordable housing, one of the biggest factors currently driving up costs is also one of the most resistant to intervention: Land prices, which can add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of producing a single subsidized apartment. Cities don’t have a lot of tools for lowering land costs, but...Read more » -
Would Rural Washington Benefit from I-1631?
Initiative 1631 is poised to bring a host of benefits to all corners of Washington, including rural communities. The climate action bill could make way for wind and solar farms located in rural areas, encourage the use of manure digesters on Washington dairy farms, and protect remote communities against flooding and wildfires. I-1631 would charge the state’s big polluters a fee, raising close to $1 billion per year for the...Read more » -
Heritage Foundation Will Peddle Anti-climate Agenda at Crucial Oregon Hearing
The success of the right-wing Heritage Foundation has been so effective in Washington DC with the Trump administration that its dangerous agenda is now getting peddled in Oregon. The Heritage Foundation’s work can be seen by looking at the most destructive members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet. It recommended Scott Pruitt, Betsy DeVos (whose in-laws endowed Heritage’s Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society), Mick Mulvaney, Rick...Read more » -
Weekend Reading 9/21/2018
Kelsey H. Spent some time reading a pretty lengthy NYT article on sustainable farming and possibly using the natural processes of carbon, compost, and farming to get carbon out of the air and into the ground. Sounds ridiculous, I know. But there’s so much good stuff in there — just when you think it might be time to click away, you find new information and keep going. Plus I know...Read more » -
Washington Voters Could Make History in 2018–and Keep Billions in Revenue in-State
People in Washington spend billions of dollars each year on dirty fuels. A big chunk of that money goes to out-of-state oil companies instead of staying in Washington to help create local jobs or improve quality of life. Initiative 1631, a citizen-backed measure to pass a Washington carbon fee, could change that by shifting the transportation sector away from fossil fuels and toward walking, biking, transit, cleaner fuels, and electric...Read more » -
What Makes Portland’s New Apartments So Expensive?
An earlier version of this project was published in March by the Portland Tribune and KGW as part of the Open:Housing journalism collaborative. Everybody in the real estate business wants a piece of Robert Cheney. The recent Portland State University master’s grad and his girlfriend are fairly typical of the Pacific Northwest’s 2.2 million tenant households, looking for a fair deal in their price range. But Cheney and his girlfriend...Read more » -
Climate Change is Wedge Issue for 2018 Midterms, Polls Indicate
Raise your hand if you think talking about climate change is a risky move on the campaign trail in 2018 midterms. Okay, now put your hands down. Recent polling makes climate change look more like a wedge issue than a hot potato—especially for younger and Latino voters. Polling shows that US voters not only understand climate science, but more and more are increasingly worried about it—including hefty shares of moderate...Read more » -
Jordan Cove Energy Project, LNG facility may harm water quality, salmon runs
Southern Oregon regulators, Native American tribes, and local communities are worried that a proposed fossil fuel facility will, among other chaos, pollute water resources and irreversibly damage wildlife populations. If approved, the Jordan Cove Energy Project would put a behemoth liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in Coos Bay. The plan was believed to be dead in 2016 after federal regulators denied key permits, but the latest incarnation enjoys the...Read more »