Will Walmart, not Whole Foods, save the small farm and make America healthy? by Corby Kummer | Atlantic Monthly | March 2010 BUY MY FOOD at Walmart? No thanks. Until recently, I had been to exactly one Walmart in my life, at the insistence of a friend I was visiting in Natchez, Mississippi, about 10 [...]
By Timothy Egan | The New York Times | February 12, 2010 LATHROP, Calif. — Drive along foreclosure alley, through new planned communities that look like tile-roofed versions of a 21st century ghost town, and you see what happens when people gamble with houses instead of casino chips. Dirty flags advertise rock-bottom discounts on empty [...]
By Greg Lindsay | FAST COMPANY | February 1, 2010 The world is bracing for an influx of billions of new urbanites in the coming decades, and tech companies are rushing to build new green cities to house them. Are these companies creating a smarter metropolis — or just making money? Stan Gale is exultant. [...]
Los Angeles architect Fritz Haeg looks to change the world by changing our notions about landscaping by John Bentley Mays | The Globe And Mail | January 22, 2010 For millions of Americans and Canadians, the front lawn is a sacred place. It symbolizes home ownership quite as forcefully as the house itself does. Kept vividly [...]
We’re less mobile and more place-bound, and it’s not just the recession that’s slowing restless America’s nomadic habits. This is good news for Seattle, the environment, and mossbacks. by Knute Berger | Crosscut | January 20, 2010 Developers love predicting that growth isunstoppable and inevitable, but the Great Recession is showing how untrue this really is. [...]
From EduPunks to food jewelers, people are using new tools to take learning, art, entertainment, technology, politics, and even science into their own hands. Behold the growing Maker Movement. By Pia Bahile, Curtis File and Kevin Young | TheTyee.ca | Today (as good as any day) [Editor's note: The Tyee is proud to co-publish with Rabble.ca a multi-part, multi-media [...]
by Jerry Large | Seattle Times | January 13, 2010 It is possible to improve the lives of the poor, the middle class and the well off, by addressing one big problem. It turns out that reducing economic inequality can reduce a whole range of social problems, from teenage pregnancy and youth violence, to heart [...]
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL | The New York Times | November 13, 2009 PLAYA GRANDE, Costa Rica — This resort town was long known forLeatherback Sea Turtle National Park, nightly turtle beach tours and even a sea turtle museum. So Kaja Michelson, a Swedish tourist, arrived with high expectations. “Of course we’re hoping to see turtles — [...]
‘Community solar park’: State hopes Ellensburg idea takes off LEAH BETH WARD | YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC | December 13, 2009 ELLENSBURG – Gary Nystedt was brainstorming with a group of colleagues at a solar energy conference a few years ago when the idea hit him. What if Ellensburg put up solar panels in a park and [...]
By Martin Shankleman | Employment correspondent, BBC News | December 14, 2009 Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, a study suggests. The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid. It claims bankers are a drain on [...]