In the aftermath of 2001's Nisqually earthquake that damaged the seawall on Seattle's shoreline, the city is still debating how to proceed regarding the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the waterside highway that carries 105,000 vehicles a day. Options being considered: rebuild the viaduct, replace it with a six-lane tunnel and build… more

CNN has identified a rising trend: green is going bipartisan. In red states and blue states alike, ballot measures and other initiatives are showing broad support for government-funded land conversation. CNN profiles Cobb County, Georgia, a suburban Republican stronghold north of Atlanta; despite voting down tax increases frequently, county… more

USA Today reports that "an estimated 30 million Americans, or roughly one-fifth of the nation's workforce, are part of the so-called Kinko's generation, employees who spend significant hours each month working outside of a traditional office." Instead, they plop down for a day's work in a coffee shop like… more

"Ours is the age of lifestyle," writes Rob Walker in The New York Times, describing the latest offering from Umpqua Bank in Portland's trendy Pearl District: a CD ...as in a compact disc, with music on it. Umpqua has positioned itself as a lifestyle choice, not a banking option:… more

Philadelphia is innovating around public health: The Food Trust, a nonprofit there, has teamed up with researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of London to explore the health benefits of making healthy food more accessible in low-income neighborhoods. Progress Plaza, a shopping center initially developed by… more

In an October 20 essay in The Wall Street Journal, Julia Vitullo-Martin explores a controversial cause for urban success: culture. She claims that successful cities share two cultural characteristics: combativeness and cunning. She argues that the heavy presence of these traits in New York and Boston explains why they… more

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on an interesting development: San Francisco is transforming alleys from places pedestrians avoid to homes for design stores, restaurants, bars, and lots of foot traffic. They're "organic" sources of new urbanist revival, and Mayor Gavin Newsome thinks they have lots of potential: "Revitalizing our… more

Robert Putnam, author of "Bowling Alone," says his latest research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone. "In the presence of diversity, we hunker down," Putnam told Financial Times. "The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And… more

Geography is still important, and the best evidence of that is this piece in Sunday's New York Times by Randall Stross "It's Not Who You Know. It's Where You Are."

"Meet the 20-minute rule that guides fateful decisions in Silicon Valley," Stross writes. He quotes a number of key… more

Catching up on my reading... John Leland wrote a wonderful analysis in the New York Times on the changing nature of celebrity -- what he calls a "flattening" of celebrity.

"...celebrity is a narrative form, not a status," Neal Gabler, senior fellow at USC told Leland. "[Internet celebrities like Lonelygirl] understand… more

Here's some good news: 61 percent of 13-25 year-olds feel personally responsible for making a difference in the world, according to a new survey of 1800 young people released today from Cone Inc. and AMP Insights. Sixty-nine percent say they consider a company's social and environmental commitment when deciding where… more

Google has committed to one of the largest corporate solar installations in the country at its Mountain View headquarters. A major consumer of energy, the company estimates that 30 percent of its peak power will essentially be free in a very short time.

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Business Week calculates that since 2001 only one industry in the private sector has produced any net new jobs for the U.S. economy. That industry is health care and the number of jobs added in five years is 1.7 million.

The calculation goes like this: Health-care and related industries added 1.7… more

Here's an interesting idea from Martin Schmidt, professor of economics at the College of William and Mary: Tax drive-through fast food purchases at 10 percent. He predicts the premium would at least get customers out of the car and walking to the counter. With the surgeon general estimating obesity and… more

A recent report from the National Research Council's Transportation Research Board found that commuters are starting earlier -- and later -- than the traditional 6-9 a.m. rush hour. In fact, the number of commuters starting between 5 and 6:30 a.m. was 25 percent of the total number of new commuters… more

With its population growing about 1 percent per year, the U.S. is growing faster than China. The U.S. is the world's fastest growing industrial nation and is the only developed nation among the top 10 countries in annual population growth.

Sixty percent of that comes from birth. Forty percent is the… more

CEO announcements, Spanish lessons, product information are only a few of the ways that employers are now using iPods to distribute information in the workplace -- or at home, according to a story in today's Wall Street Journal. "The boundaries [between work and home] blur quite dramatically," Paul Sanchez, global… more

These days, it seems that anyone and anything can travel: the New York Times reports that the economy of Barre, Vermont, which bills itself as "the granite capital of the world," is struggling in the face of intense competition from foreign headstone manufacturers. Headstones imported from China and India… more

The high cost of housing is no longer news...right? Not to those paying the bills, perhaps, but the New York Times reports today that high rents spread far beyond where most people expect. A study of new census data confirms that Southern California and Manhattan are very expensive--no news… more

From our colleague Sam Newberg at Joe Urban...

The Guthrie Theater opened this summer in its new location overlooking the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Designed by Jean Nouvel, a world-renowned French architect, the Guthrie is a bold, blue, rounded building with a huge cantilever projecting toward the river itself.more

The population of inner city Atlanta is growing, and is slated to continue doing so: the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on two studies showing that "nearly one-quarter of folks now living in the metro Atlanta suburbs are thinking of ditching their big yards and commutes for life in the city."… more

The New York Times identified an interesting trend in college housing: co-ops are making a comeback, and not for the same reasons that they first became popular. While co-ops were first attractive to G.I.s who sought cost-efficient housing alternatives when they returned from World War II, today's college students… more

In "The Man Behind a Greener California," an Oct. 2 BusinessWeek profile of John Doerr (partner at the venture capital firm KPCB), Doerr is quoted as saying that the green-energy market is "probably the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century." That's not just empty rhetoric: since 2001, KPCB has… more

San Francisco, the city that will soon enjoy free wireless internet access, continues to innovate when it comes to communications: Mayor Gavin Newsom today announced the launch of AlertSF, a new emergency text-message alerting system for the public. The free system will notify residents who register at http://www.alertsf.org by… more

Sunday's New York Times contained an analysis of the Census Bureau's recently released American Community Survey, showing that married couples have "slipped into a minority," making up 49.7% of the nation's 111.1 million households. That figure is down from 52% five years ago. Although "the total number of married… more

On Friday, Oct. 13, the Wall Street Journal warned that the booming U.S. population--slated to hit 300 million people at 7:46 am on Tuesday, Oct. 17, and bound for 400 million at some point in the next 35 years--will "crowd cities and highways, put new strains on natural resources, end… more

Old-style stadiums stood off to themselves, sometimes in a sea of parking lots, flanked by big roads to enter and exit. New-style stadiums are so intimate that they are spawning new mixed-use neighborhoods.

The Dallas Mavericks, St. Louis Cardinals and Arizona Cardinals will all be playing in centerpieces for new neighborhoods.

As… more

The Weekend Journal featured a major story on the mounting consensus in the philanthropy world that a new type of giver concerned with wiping out disease, poverty and global warming is setting the agenda -- and culture is effectively becoming unfashionable.

Last year, donations to cultural groups accounted for 5.2% of… more

A new study by the Center for Housing Policy finds that moving to an area with lower housing costs often doesn't pay off for low-income Americans. In the 28 markets the center studied, the cost to travel to outlying areas is so expensive that it offsets any savings on… more

Fortune sat down with the top female executives of Viacom for a roundtable interview and asked them to reveal something readers may find surprising about youth.

MTV Networks Chairman and CEO Judy McGrath said, "For years we've asked, 'Who do you admire?' The answer would usually be Bill Gates or Serena… more

Chicago's Mayor Daley is about to lease yet another asset to private operators. This time, it's the City's downtown parking garages, including those under Millennium Park. The deal is expected to generate $500 million.

The Mayor called the proposal "an outstanding deal for the taxpayers," allowing a "massive shift of… more

Muhammed Yunus, best known for founding the Grameen Bank to provide micro-lending in developing countries, has been awarded the Nobel Peach Prize. In the past 30 years, he has made $5.7 billion dollars in very small loans to help life millions out of povery.

As admirable as his achievements are, the… more

Buying that cheaper home in the suburbs won't save you any money when you factor in the cost of commuting to work, according to a study of 28 metro areas by the Center for Housing Policy.

"Even if you save a couple of hundred dollars a month on your mortgage, it… more

First it was Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' Climate Protection Agreement, now, it seems colleges and universities are making environmental responsibility a mission as well. The Washington Post reports that a small college in Bar Harbor, Maine, College of the Atlantic, has vowed to become the first higher education institution in… more

One other factor that may drive localization of the type Ping Fun imagines... St. Petersburg developer Grady Pridgen has been working with professors from the University of Florida to green his developments, with everything from solar energy to water reclamation to transit orientation. (The guy is impressive and serious.) He… more

Is mass customization the cure for globalization's ills? Inc.'s 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year, Geomagic CEO Ping Fu, made that interesting assertion in her presentation today at the Sarasota International Design Summit.

She pointed out that the cost of labor is not a significant factor if you can eliminate distribution… more

Ryan Armbruster is the man responsible for redesigning healthcare delivery at the nation's best-known provider, Mayo Clinic.

Ryan's design studio is filled with a multidisciplinary team that employs ethnography, storytelling, frameworks and prototyping to change the way doctors interact with patients and each other to deliver better healthcare results. The studio… more

School libraries seem like a mundane topic. But not in the hands of Henry Myerberg of Rockwell Group and volunteer design director for the LIBRARY initiative led by the Robin Hood Foundation. He and his colleagues have turned NYC's elementary school libraries into inspiring, gorgeous places that anyone would want… more

Rob Lang introduced CEOs for Cities to the idea of the Megapolitan at our national meeting in May 2006. He told us that at the very least, cities need to be thinking about how they'll help and be helped by neighboring metros in the event of a natural disaster or… more

Bill Strickland, the inspirational leader of the Manchester Craftsman's Guild and Bidwell Training Center based in Pittsburgh, last night told a group attending the Sarasota International Design Summit that design and beauty are cures for the spiritual cancer that afflicts poor people.

"I am in the attitude business, not just the… more

Imagine a Green GDP that subtracts the costs associated with environmental degradation from traditional GDP. Wouldn't that provide a more realistic picture of the health of a nation's economy?

Last month Beijing released the results of a two-year green accounting that showed persistent pollution problems are undermining its economy. The Green… more

Clear Channel is selling two- and five-second radio ads called "blinks" and tucked between songs.

What's your city's message? Can you express it in 2 seconds? Try the name of the city and one adjective. Could make an interesting contest.

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Today's retirees are looking for something different, according to The Wall Street Journal (10.2.06). Instead of the typical retirement retreats, retirees now look for community, a place where they can make friends and connections quickly. "Moving to a mixed-use development, a small town or seeking an urban experience are all… more

It's hard to believe, but Americans are sticking with transit, even as gasoline prices fall back to pre-summer prices.

USA Today's Barbara Hagenbaugh reports that transit ridership increased 3.2 percent in the first half of 2006 over 2005 numbers, and transit agencies around the country report those increases seem to be… more

What IS a nonprofit? What IS philanthropy? And, whatever these terms mean, who should NOT pay taxes?

Those questions are raised by Dr. Susan Raymond writing in On Philanthropy in response to the creation of Google.org as a for-profit philanthropy.

"Google.org will be a “foundation” that will invest in (and expect to… more