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American Democracy Reformers Watching British Columbia
Original Sightline Institute graphic by Kelsey Hamlin, available under our free use policy. Photo: Mike Hipple.
An idea has been percolating among American writers and thinkers who care about the function—and future—of US democracy. Lamenting that elections as they now stand alienate so many voters by leaving them “without any say in how the country is run,” David Brooks recently concluded in his New York Times column, “the good news is that we don’t have to live with this system. We could have a much fairer...Read more » -
Is Coal Still Needed in the Pacific Northwest?
The Northwest is not exactly the heart of coal country. Over almost a decade of bruising disputes about whether to build export terminals, communities in Oregon and Washington roundly rejected every single proposal the industry brought forward. Clearly, the region sees coal as a dead end, most especially when it means mile-long trains bearing low-grade coal that would be shipped to power plants in Asia. So when the long-shuttered John...Read more » -
Cascadia’s Three Huge Urbanism Wins of 2018
The winter blanket of clouds finally slid over the Pacific Northwest this week, and as we head indoors this year, it’s worth lighting a candle for some of the good news that Cascadia’s cities continue to deliver themselves—and hopefully shine out into the rest of the world. As urban policy wonks may have noticed, we’ve been doing quite a lot. 1. Portland just approved one of North America’s biggest-ever shifts...Read more » -
Apparently, No One Knows How Much an Oil Spill on Salish Sea Would Cost
There’s much ado about Canada’s insistence on building the Trans Mountain oil pipeline, a colossal delivery mechanism to bring tar sands fuel from Alberta. The project is unusually large but it’s of a piece with the oil industry’s decades of relentless expansion on the shores of the Salish Sea. Despite the industry’s assurances—to say nothing of the thousands of pages of environmental review, activism, and legal challenges—the price tag for...Read more » -
Little Big Shift: PDX’s 2 Percent Restripe Would Boost Roads’ Capacity 60 Percent
Streets are what make a city a city. It’s not the buildings themselves, but the chance to move among and between them, that creates the joys and economic blessings of city life. Of course, those joys and blessings make city life popular—and the popularity of moving between a city’s buildings causes one of the main challenges of city life: traffic. That’s why it’s so exciting when a Cascadian city comes...Read more » -
Cloud Peak Energy: A Coal Company Past its Peak
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Olympia Moves to Further Loosen the Stranglehold of Single-Family Zoning Laws
We can add Olympia, Washington, to the growing list of Cascadian cities moving to loosen zoning laws that ban all but detached houses from most of their residential land. Washington’s state capitol (pop. 52,000) adopted on Monday new rules that would relax restrictions and legalize more types of modest multifamily dwellings citywide. The intention is bold: in most US cities, tampering with single-family zoning laws has been a political third...Read more » -
I-1631 Didn’t Pass, but Neither Do Most of Voters’ Tax or Fee Initiatives
Initiative 1631, which would have charged polluters and used the money for clean energy in Washington, did not pass. Similar efforts in recent years met the same fate. What are people in Washington to make of these results? How does voters’ stated support for climate action reconcile with their action on the ballot? One answer is campaign money. Another is taxes and fees. READ MORE: See how ballot measures on...Read more » -
Cascadia Midterm Election Results 2018: Candidate Edition
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Cascadia Midterm Election Results 2018: Ballot Measure Edition