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Denny-Blaine, Madrona, and Leschi are among Seattle’s most coveted neighborhoods. Laced with lush parks and beautiful houses commanding magnificent views of Lake Washington and the Cascades, they are closer to downtown than any other lakefront neighborhoods. Yet for all their desirability, in the more than four decades since 1970—as Seattle’s  population has increased by more than 130,000—the total population of these neighborhoods has decreased by more than 800 people, or...

It only takes a few minutes talking to transport honchos in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC, to get a sense of the intense, if friendly, competition among their cities to be king of the cycling hill. But in many ways the three largest urban centers of Cascadia form one big, soggy petri dish of experimentation in bike infrastructure. All three are North American leaders in prioritizing complete streets and bicycle...

Margaret There is nothing that will make you care about something as much as a little personal investment. I recently came across this amazing list titled 101 small ways you can improve your city. Reading through it, it’s more like 101 ways you can love your city. My goals: set up a little free library and install a homemade bench near my bus stop. Next year I am building a...

“The Pacific Northwest is an expensive place to be poor,” says Scott Bernstein, who has spent much of the last three years studying trends and solutions to poverty in North America. And in many ways the region’s suburbs are even more costly for people of lesser means, notes Bernstein, founder of the Center for Neighborhood Technology and lead author of the organization’s Urban Opportunity Agenda. That is despite the lower...

Northwest fossil fuel export schemes have brought a flood of coal and oil proposals to the region’s shores. But the fossil export tsunami has a third wave as well: fracked fuels, including the massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) export proposals in British Columbia, as well as several projects that would export liquid petroleum gases (LPGs) such as propane and butane. In fact, West Coast propane exports have increased six-fold in...

Even before amendments come in about its environmental impacts, the last of six coal terminals proposed for the Pacific Northwest is on the ropes, having been denied a crucial sublease by the Washington Department of Natural Resources. And the coal dust it would release into the surroundings may be the final nail in its coffin. First proposed in 2012 at a projected cost of $680 million, the Millennium Bulk Terminal...

If energy giant Kinder Morgan gets its way, British Columbia will soon be home to a new $7.4 billion oil pipeline carrying 590,000 barrels of Alberta oil per day to an export terminal near Vancouver, BC, on the Salish Sea. The Canadian federal government recently approved the proposal, and it is now likely the single biggest threat to the Northwest’s thin green line, the opposition movement that has staved off...

Alan At this week’s staff meeting, we were discussing the relentless rains this winter in Cascadia and wondering if it was a record (days of rain? Inches of rain? Days without sun? etc.) So the staff decided to do some digging and compiled what we’ve found in this week’s weekend reading. Seattle has had few sunny days since October. According to the Seattle PI, “Of the 178 days that had passed since the...

Most businesses would jump at the opportunity to invest a dollar that saves them $5.85 over the next three years and then keeps on returning savings, all the while improving service to their customers. That’s what the state of Colorado accomplished by upgrading family planning services between 2009 and 2014, and other jurisdictions have reported even greater returns over the long run. For instance, when Delaware governor Jack Markell saw...