Aug 8, 08
The Future of Shopping Malls: An Image Essay
By Morgan Greenseth Mall culture in the United States -- at least as we know it -- is coming to an end. Last month, the fall of Steve & Barry's became the next addition to a series of recent retailer bankruptcies we've been witnessing across the nation. This trend is likely to continue, as the U.S. economic downturn causes people to reduce their trips to stores and to shop less...
Get Your Tweak On! Joe Bar Offers Free Bike Care While you Caffeinate
On Friday, the Worldchanging Seattle crew decided to conduct our business from Joe Bar, a favorite coffeehouse/creperie located on the north end of Capitol Hill. The lengthy line gave me ample time to scope our their new art display, as...
Emergency Food Services Respond to Bag Fees
Another day, another angle on the disposable shopping bag fee. Today I learned of an issue that not only identifies a real problem … it also offers an opportunity for Seattle's community to respond with solutions that will help everyone...
Spare the Air: Seattle Smog Watch in Effect
(Editor's note: The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency canceled the Smog Watch for King, Kitsap, Pierce and Snohomish counties on Aug. 7, 2008. Onshore winds are dispersing the air pollution, allowing the Agency to cancel the watch and raise the...
Tell SDOT How to Make Seattle Walkable
The city of Seattle wants to know how, why and where you walk. The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is conducting a survey to find out the walking habits of residents all over the city. The results of the survey...
Seattle's 100 Best: Send Us Your Ideas!
On Worldchanging, we're always shouting out the best new ideas and innovations from all around the globe – from South Africa's PlayPump to San Francisco's recent traffic-reduction measures. But now it's time to be a little self-centered: here on our...
Car-Free Sundays: A Business Plan
Want a taste of life in a car-free neighborhood? This August and September, Seattleites will have three chances to experience a major urban corridor where traffic is limited to pedestrians and cyclists. Mayor Nickels announced the events, called "Car-Free Sundays...
Say Goodbye to Free Shopping Bags
Seattle's City Council approved the proposed disposable bag fee yesterday with a 6-1 vote. Starting in January 2009, shoppers will have the option of either bringing their own bags to the store, or paying 20 cents per disposable bag to...
Citizens Report: Climate Action Lab
By Neel Blair Editor's note: There is always so much going on around Seattle, and we'd all like to take in more than our schedules allow. Posts titled "Citizen's Report" are notes from others in your community who have found...
A Price Tag on Puget Sound
For as long as there has been an environmental movement, there's been what amounts to a language barrier between environmental advocates and more practically minded economic and business thinkers. In much of the developed world, and in the U.S. in...
Outside ideas: Northwest Institute for Community Energy
By JP Kemmick Not long ago, green jobs were just an idea spurred on by a few green pioneers, frontiersman Van Jones among them. But the buzz has slowly built around green jobs over the past year, and Washington State...
Washington's Wolves Are Back
Wolf-less no longer as Washington's wildlife returns. Last week, we got proof-positive that wild wolves are back in Washington. An animal that was struck and killed on a road in northeast Washington was genetically confirmed to be a wolf, not...
Where Do Arts and the Environment Intersect?
If we are to be effective stewards of the natural environment, we must be stewards of the urban environment. Until most of the human population can live well and thrive in cities, we will not stand much chance of reliably...
Who Will Build the First Vertical Farm?
As we've discussed, designs for urban "vertical farms" provide some of the most titillating locavore porn around. Imagine the view from your condo provided not just a landscape of sparkling glass and concrete, but also lush, inspiring (and nutritious!) greenery...
Driven to Extinction
How Transportation Wonks Can Make Your City Rank Here's an interesting ranking. For each major US city, the list-happy editors at Men's Health calculated the negative effects of driving. They aggregated scores on transit ridership, air pollution, fuel consumption, and...
Outside Ideas: Norwegian Bike Lift
Does loving this idea make me a lazy person? I don't think so. I think that Seattle could take a lesson from Trondheim, Norway, which built this bike lift (called the Trampe) in 1993. The motorized bike escalator carries a...
Guide to Compost in the City
By Jackie White Turning unwanted food scraps into nutrient-rich, natural fertilizer instead of sending them to a landfill -- sounds great, right? But if you're new to the composting process, it may seem daunting to have yet another thing to...
New Tool Shows Gas Spending By Neighborhood
By Eric Hess As you may have noticed, we love maps, especially interactive ones. I just came across a nifty new little tool from the Center for Neighborhood Technologies that shows annual spending per household on gasoline in 52 major...
Environment, Attitudes and Behavior
Does where we live shape how we think and act? This isn't the sort of thing I blog about regularly, but it strikes me that this New York Times article on suicide, of all things, has an important lesson about...
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