Current Stories
Editor's Top Picks
Vancouver redevelopment as social experiment
New York Times
11/24/2009
Downtown Eastside, a notorious high-poverty neighborhood in Vancouver, BC, known for its concentration of homeless people and drug and crime problems is getting a massive makeover that some view as a panacea for the city's social problems.
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Portland's not a global city -- luckily
Oregonian
11/24/2009
Here's an interesting take on why Portland remains a livable, attractive city. Forget about progressive land-use policies or green lifestyles. Turns out we're not globally important enough to have an elite that drives out the middle class and attracts a service class.
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Dignity Village: A place to call home
Oregon Public Broadcasting
11/25/2009
Oregon is conducting a unique social experiment called Dignity Village. It's a collection of about 45 yurts in the corner of a Portland leaf-mulching yard where a group of homeless people live and operate a semi-permanent campground.
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Whidbey Island grocery turns nonprofit
Everett Herald
11/25/2009
A newly nonprofit Whidbey Island supermarket takes the revenue from cereal and lettuce sales and reinvests it into the island community. It's cultivating relationships with local farmers who can sell their harvest to the store seasonally.
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In need of a plan for BC's children in poverty
Vancouver Sun
11/23/2009
BC needs to follow the lead of six other provinces and adopt a clear plan for reducing child poverty if it hopes to shed its reputation as the worst performer in the country, says a report due out Tuesday.
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Data shows health reform would help Oregonians
Salem Statesman Journal
11/24/2009
National health care reform would help thousands of Oregonians, the Obama administration said Monday. Pending health care legislation would allow 715,000 residents who do not currently have insurance and 257,000 residents who have nongroup insurance to get affordable coverage through a health insurance exchange, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates.
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Green redemption
The Economist
11/24/2009
Depending on how you view it, climate change is either the biggest problem mankind faces or its greatest financial opportunity. For example, McKinsey has become known as a climate-change consultant, thanks to its greenhouse gas "cost abatement curve" showing the relative opportunity costs of different abatement activities.
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Views: Signs of hope in our energy future
New York Times
11/24/2009
Is the economic, social and physical deterioration that has caused so much misery in the Motor City a sign of what's in store for larger and larger segments of the United States? Or are there new industries waiting in the wings with new jobs and bright new prospects for whole new generations of American dreamers?
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Life in the slow city
Living on Earth
11/22/2009
With no fast food restaurants or big box stores, the bicycle and pedestrian friendly Cowichan Bay in British Columbia has become North America's first Slow City. An offshoot of the Slow Food movement, it's a quiet resistance to drive-thru homogenization.
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KC Metro won't cut bus service after all
Seattle Times
11/23/2009
Metropolitan King County Council members say they've figured out how to maintain existing bus service for two more years - instead of cutting service 9 percent as earlier proposed.
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Recovery invisible to OR's small towns
Salem Statesman Journal
11/22/2009
Oregon's economy has hit bottom, and a slow recovery is under way, state lawmakers learned from forecasters. But the folks in Willamina, Dallas and countless rural towns across the state - which in some cases are one mill closure away from 80 percent unemployment - aren't celebrating.
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Views: Try spending less, giving more
Oregonian
11/22/2009
For three years now, families and churches - including many in Portland - have given more than 300 communities clean drinking water in an attempt to take back Christmas by worshiping fully, spending less, giving more and loving all.
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Shoppers buy green despite tough economy
Reuters
11/22/2009
Despite the worst US recession in decades, sales of organic and sustainable products have continued to grow, experts say, with shoppers willing to spend a few more dollars in a bid to become more green.
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Oregon tax votes foster competing claims
Oregonian
11/22/2009
Mike Roach makes a decent living selling clothes. Bess Wills doesn't do too badly selling cars. Both believe strongly in the role small business plays in the local economy, and both consider themselves die-hard public school supporters. Yet they stand at opposite poles of Oregon's upcoming tax election.
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Views: The Senate’s duty on climate
New York Times
11/22/2009
We cannot rewrite the Bush years any more than we can persuade the Chinese of the merits of a binding treaty to control greenhouse gases. What the United States can do is assume responsibility for its own emissions, and this the US Senate has manifestly failed to do.
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New economy cities: A Seattle slew of advantages
The Christian Science Monitor
11/22/2009
Seattle is the prototype city of the future. It embodies in one leafy landscape virtually all of the forces driving the New Economy – exports, an educated workforce, a vibrant high-tech base, a budding green-tech sector, and an enviable lifestyle. Still, Seattle is far from perfect.
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Review: An inconvenient solution
The Nation
11/22/2009
Occasionally, truth be told, Al Gore's book Our Choice verges on the nerdy. Taken as a whole, however, this is the most comprehensive and well-informed survey anyone has ever done of what we need to do to get off fossil fuel, writes Bill McKibben.
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RV park tenants face eviction from affordable housing
Oregonian
11/19/2009
A pastoral campground on the banks of the Columbia River has for decades provided about 60 low-income residents with a clean, cheap, and safe place to live in an Oregon county with a dearth of decent affordable housing. But regulators say it's operating illegally and the long-term tenants must go.
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Low-income housing reimagined
Real Change
11/19/2009
The Seattle Housing Authority unveiled a plan last week to remake Yesler Terrace's 561 units of public housing into a mixed-use area of office, housing, and retail with buildings up to 22 stories high.
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Senate to put off climate bill until spring
Wall Street Journal
11/17/2009
Senate Democratic leaders said Tuesday they would put off debate on a big climate-change bill until spring, in a sign of weakening political will to tackle a long-term environmental issue at a time of high unemployment and economic uncertainty.
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OR governor orders review of energy tax credits
Oregonian
11/17/2009
Gov. Ted Kulongoski ordered a hurry-up review Tuesday of Oregon's incentives for renewable energy companies in the face of ongoing criticism of the tax breaks, asking whether the increasingly expensive Business Energy Tax Credit is necessary for continued expansion of renewable and wind energy.
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Record number of Montanans seek food aid
Missoulian
11/17/2009
In the past year, record numbers of western Montana residents have turned to local food pantries and shelters for help. Agencies at the forefront of this unwelcome trend believe more people can't find work in this tight labor market and can't afford regular meals.
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Official: Canada climate change laws years away
CBC BC
11/17/2009
The federal environment minister says it may be a few years before Canada tables regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Jim Prentice said the world has to first negotiate a new climate change treaty and Canada and the United States must finish their continental agreement on the same issue.
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Views: We need another carbon tariff
Toronto Globe and Mail
11/18/2009
A carbon tariff is an indispensable component of any economically viable carbon policy that Western economies must ultimately adopt. A carbon tariff is an indispensable component of any economically viable carbon policy that Western economies must ultimately adopt.
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Oregon's unemployed giving up looking for work
Oregonian
11/17/2009
It's tempting to present the flattening of Oregon's unemployment rate - at 11.3 percent in October - as good news. But economists, dismal scientists to the core, paint a negative picture.
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