After nearly going extinct in the ’60s, vintage streetcars are returning to the rails in downtowns from Philly to San Francisco. These electric-powered trams are so painstakingly restored, they make classic T-Bird owners look like chumps. Here’s what it looks like when mass transit goes retro.

For many residents of affordable housing, transportation and housing costs eat up over half of their income. For a struggling family, this can make healthy food, higher education, and health care seem as far-fetched as President Newt.

Lately, however, there’s been a push to alleviate transportation costs for low-income families. Efforts on the state level show some promise, and officials at the federal level are expressing interest as well.

A growing number of forward-thinking state governments are already factoring in transportation costs when awarding tax breaks and funding for projects, giving preference to housing that is close to public transit. In the Chicago region, for example, 85 percent of the housing funded by the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) is now located within walking distance of bus or train stations.

Still, as a new study by the nonprofit Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) shows, policy changes like those in Illinois take time to have an effect. According to the study, the new policy favoring transit-friendly locales has yet to significantly reduce transportation costs for low-income residents, which range from $750 to $1,000 a month for a family making $3,445 a month, or 80 percent of the area median income.

Part of the reason is that transit systems are not up to snuff. Living near a train station is great, but you’re less apt to ride the train if it only passes through a couple times a day. Ditto with buses that don’t get you where you need to go when you need to get there. In fact, during the study period, from 2001-2008, transit service to neighborhoods with IHDA-financed housing dropped 24 percent.

But “it’s not all about transit,” says CNT’s transportation and community development program director, María Choca Urban. In fact, of the key characteristics that correlate with low transportation costs, transit is the least important. More important than access to mass transit, are densely developed, compact neighborhoods with lots of amenities like grocery stores, schools, and jobs, Urban says — in other words, communities where residents don’t have to travel long distances to meet their basic needs.

Jobs, you say? Dense neighborhoods? We’ve been subsidizing sprawl for decades, and the recession has made jobs few and (literally) far between. If Urban is right, and we’re serious about building truly affordable housing, we’ve got our work cut out for us.

The slow progress on the state level has not deterred officials at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from considering similar measures, however. HUD, which provides rental assistance for low-income families as well as grants and tax credits to affordable housing developments, is in the process of documenting transportation costs, neighborhood by neighborhood. HUD’s model is loosely based on an index developed by CNT, which uses transportation costs to determine the “true affordability of housing based on its location.”

Shelley Poticha, director of the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, says that policy changes like the one in Illinois are one possible tool. Another idea being floated is a labeling system much like what you would see if you were shopping for a new water heater. Instead of a sticker displaying energy costs, you would find information about the transportation costs associated with a house. Families receiving rental assistance could then compare different residences to find a location that fits within their budget.

“I think that consumers are really savvy and if we make this information available, easy to use, and free, then it seems like something the market will pick up,” Poticha says. To illustrate her point, she references Walk Score, which a few years ago began ranking different areas of San Francisco on how many amenities were within walking distance. Within about a year, for sale signs in front of houses were listing their walk scores.

Poticha admits that remaking policy and changing tools is a difficult step that takes time, but she is optimistic about HUD’s current direction. “What I’m seeing is phenomenal demand at the grassroots level,” she says. Across the nation, people are “getting more and more vocal about the changes they want to see.”

Helping low-income families make smarter location decisions and nudging affordable housing developers in the right direction would certainly help. But if the Chicago study is any indication, ditching the long car commute (via car, train, or otherwise) and creating walkable, tight-knit communities is the ultimate goal — and one that we won’t achieve for a good, long while.

"No."

Still reeling from your failed marriage proposal to Jack in the Box’s bacon? (Don’t take it personally — bacon always leaves a greasy trail of heartbreak.) Cheer up, meatlover: You can still make that fast-food-themed forever commitment — but this time, with a human! And it only costs $10,010. Thanks for saving Valentine’s Day, Pizza Hut!

From One Foot Tsunami:

Pizza Hut has decided to get into the wedding business. Not content with ruining dinner, they’re now looking to ruin the wedding proposal too. Specifically, Pizza Hut is hoping to trick as many as ten idiots into proposing to their significant others with a big old box of disgusting.

Here’s a screengrab from their site:

And in case you’re blinded by all the red, here’s Pizza Hut describing the “deal”:

The $10 Dinner Box Proposal Package includes a ruby engagement ring, limo service, flowers, fireworks show, photographer, videographer and of course, most importantly, the mouth-watering new $10 Dinner Box.

That’s an engagement package women would literally shit their pants over. (Oh, calm down — we’ve all ordered a Sausage Deluxe Special in a moment of weakness and lived with the consequences.) Nothing says “eternity” and “one in 7 billion” more than a ruby ring picked out by a team of grease-pawed marketers. All I’m saying is that the bachelor party better have a steady supply of Dr. Pepper Ten. Amirite, fellas?

Seriously, though: For a living, breathing human to say yes to anything like this, either your relationship is more solid than day-old stuffed crust cheese, or you’re romantically involved with Herman Cain.

(h/t to my boyfriend, who better goddamn know better.)

Photos by Gage Skidmore.

How times change. Four years ago, a Washington Post op-ed gushed that the Democratic primary had turned into “a sharp competition among the leading candidates to become champions of urban America.” Skip ahead to the 2012 Republican primaries, and cities are getting dissed. Big time.

The national Conference of Mayors is having its annual meeting in Washington this weekend. Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Rick Perry were all invited. Romney said he had a scheduling conflict. (OK, fair’s fair: The South Carolina primary is a legitimate excuse — but he couldn’t swing by Sunday? Oh, right.) The other two didn’t even bother to reply. The chorus seemed to be: “Cities — who needs ’em?”

Truth be told, cities won’t likely decide this election. America is still firmly rooted in the suburbs. (Emily Badger wrote in The Atlantic Cities last week that both Romney and President Obama have drawn most of their campaign cash from the “moneyed ’burbs.”) But this is just the latest in decades of insults slung at cities by Republicans in Washington.

“The core of the Republican constituency in metropolitan America are the growing, racially and economically exclusive ‘outer suburbs’ whose privileged status Republicans seek to protect at all costs,” former Albuquerque Mayor David Rusk told Daniel Denvir in his excellent primer on the subject for Salon.

But the Republicans currently taking pot shots at each other in the presidential primary never cease to surprise. While there has been almost no mention of urban policy on the campaign trail, a look at their sordid pasts reveals that (surprise!) some of them have actually had some sensible ideas over the years, albeit often grounded in some pretty weird logic. Here’s a quick peek.

Mitt Romney

As governor of Massachusetts, Romney pulled together state housing, transportation, and environmental agencies to create a united front focused on smart growth. That triumvirate sounds familiar if you’ve read our story about President Obama’s Sustainable Communities initiative. As with health care, once upon a time Romney out Obama-ed Obama. (Just please, don’t remind him; under the hawk-like gaze of Gingrich and Santorum, he’d probably rather not think about it.)

Still, the example suggests that as a businessman, Romney understands the value of breaking down silos and getting agencies working together. He also has hereditary roots in urban development: Romney’s father was secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Richard Nixon. He may have houses scattered across the countryside, but he can roll with the city folks.

Since his days as governor, of course, Romney has changed his tune on a lot of things (not least the climate and energy). He has taken up the mantle of domestic energy production, calling, notably, for fast-tracking the Keystone oil pipeline. (Didn’t happen.)

And there was the time as governor that Romney wanted to take his official SUV to a photo op at a new transit-friendly development (as told by Alec MacGillis in the New Republic). So it’s entirely possible all the smart-growthy talk really was just a dog-and-pony show to keep the New England liberals he served at the time at bay.

Rick Santorum

Don’t hate Santorum because he lives in the ’burbs and campaigns in a Dodge RAM pickup truck — hate him for this comment: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

Still, even Santorum shows some small glimmers of urban intelligence. As a senator, he was a fan of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and worked on the issues of poverty and homelessness. Matt Dellinger writes in Transportation Nation that he helped create a program that helped welfare recipients access mass transit as a means of getting to work.

Of course, the urbanists among us will blanch at the fact that the program, called the Job Access and Reverse Commute program, was designed to take people who live in cities to work in the suburbs. But given the fact that most of the job growth in the past decade has been in the suburbs, Santorum may score a few points for being a realist on this one.

He loses those points plus a few thousand more when he opens his mouth on the topics of locking up nonviolent drug offenders (“The federal government doesn’t do that”), ending poverty (Americans should suffer more in the Christian tradition, and besides, if everyone just graduated from high school and got married, “poverty would be no more”), or, god forbid, climate change.

Newt Gingrich

Here’s a guy with a lot of sympathy for folks in the hood: Gingrich once suggested that we rewrite child labor laws so that kids could work as school janitors. “Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works,” he said. “They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash,’ unless it’s illegal.”

Honestly, it’s hard to find anything to love about Newt and his stance on urban issues (though he finds himself plenty lovable). As part of his 1994 Contract with America, Gingrich championed the “Taking Back Our Streets Act” that would have addressed urban crime with the subtle and intuitive approach of simply locking up and executing more people. Since then, he has done an about face, joining a group called Right on Crime that pushes for prison reform from a conservative angle. Why? It costs too much to keep all those criminals locked up.

It’s difficult to tell where Newt stands on transportation. He skipped voting on the biggest transit bills of the ’90s. We have to rely on Newt’s rhetoric, and luckily for us, Newt loves to talk. As recently as 2009, Newt called for a national high-speed rail network, saying, “If you want to be the most competitive country in the world in 2040 or 2050, you have to think large.”

Sounds pretty good, eh? But wait. The man who once said he’d like to “go head-to-head with the Chinese” on developing high-speed magnetic levitation trains recently suggested that subways are for fancy people.

Ron Paul

On the one hand, Ron Paul has a lot of cred with young voters and is a maverick when it comes to issues like marijuana legalization (he thinks states should decide whether it’s legal or not), the death penalty (he says he no longer supports it), and the Patriot Act (he was one of three Republicans to vote against it). On the other, he’s Ron Paul. Paul’s take on most issues is rooted in a healthy dose of states’ rights and the gold standard — so it’s probably unfair to expect a charitable approach to federal spending on urban renewal.

Still, sometimes he talks a good game. He seems to believe, for example, that the free market would favor mass transit over highways:

If you didn’t have government subsidized highways, at least at the federal level — and have all these wonderful superhighways sailing from city to city and downtown — there would have been a greater incentive for the market to develop transits, trains going back and forth … By subsidizing highways and destroying mass transit, we ended up with this monstrosity.

But Paul is not about to get government involved in funding transit. He once called public funding of Amtrak “fascist” and voted against increasing its funding several times.

Paul’s greatest asset in the primary is his ability to shake up the debate and stick to his often-contrarian convictions. Let’s hope sentiments like, “I think inner-city folks and minorities are punished unfairly in the war on drugs,” win out over calls to dismantle the federal government.

Of course, all this may or may not tell us anything about what these men would do as president. Lacking any real discussion of cities on the campaign trail, we’re left to read between the lines. But the echoing silence on urban issues suggests that, in all likelihood, the grand Republican tradition of ignoring American cities would continue under a new Republican president. The suburbs, on the other hand, would sure have something to cheer about.

For a look at President Obama’s record on urban policy issues, see our two-part series, here and here.

Looks like a harsh wiener.Photo: Jonathan GillSo, if weather is a dog, and climate is the dog walker, we should be working on trading the pair for a kitten on a turtle. Any questions?

(h/t Climate Central)

Photo: John Cornicello

It’s the company’s fourth foray into dinner theater — although I wince calling it that. Whereas the term conjures up mediocre food and mildly entertaining shlock, Nordo has a refreshing take on the form. Stewardess with “dwinkies”Photo: Alabastro PhotographyAlongside zany, gastronomic fare, made from local sustainable ingredients, they tell compelling stories that illuminate the very foods they serve. Instead of cheesy one-liners and heavy-handed pianists, Nordo’s writing is sharp and funny; all of the tunes are written by the talented composer Annastasia Workman. And rather than a sense that three hours have gone by with nothing to show but a couple of mean marinara shirt stains, Nordo serves up green education, without ever feeling preachy.

To Savor Tomorrow takes a look at the bright-eyed era when convenience food was first proposed as the solution to everything from world hunger to long hours in the kitchen. The Nordo crew captures the hopeful sentiment of the day while never forgetting — and often foreshadowing — the dark turns and ills highly-processed convenience food and industrial agriculture have brought us.

The performances have developed something of a cult following among Seattle foodies. To Savor Tomorrow has been so popular, in fact, that they’ve extended the run time by a weekend and are sold out on all but their extended dates.

I can see why. I had my complaints about the other two productions I attended — the writing was overshadowed by the food in Bounty! An Epic Adventure in Seafood and Sauced felt a little too polished. To Savor Tomorrow was nothing short of delightful.

The relationship between the plot and the plate was brilliant and multi-faceted. Cold War caricatures of Russians, Chinese people, and Americans took the stage while the audience was served “Red Martinis,” “People’s Mai Tais,” and “Old Glory’s Old Fashioneds.” Food scientists gave adoring monologues about the wonders of the Green Revolution. Chinese spies threw down bets next to dinner plates. The rise of convenient food was deconstructed and repackaged into a tale of double agents and secret briefcases; airline food was re-imagined and reinvigorated by molecular gastronomy. Both were much more sexy and palpable than their inspiration.

That’s not to say the flight went off without a hitch. The first course was nowhere in sight (unless I was asleep when the deconstructed airline peanuts made the rounds) and while the sound design was impressive, the sound production was off (the scattering of the musicians around the room and offstage caused songs to be out of sync at times).

But — if you’re anywhere near Seattle — don’t let these small details stop you. In fact, if you blink, they might sell out anyway. I’d join the Nordo cult before it’s too late, because it just keeps getting better.

Find more information here.

Thank godessa.Image: Dr. Pepper Snapple Group

Instead of the dainty tan bubbles on the diet can, Ten will be wrapped in gunmetal grey packaging with silver bullets … A Facebook page for the drink contains an application that allows it to exclude women from viewing content, which includes games and videos aimed at being “manly.” For instance, there’s a shooting gallery where you shoot things like high heels and lipstick.

The campaign makes me so sick to my stomach, I feel like I’ve drunk a Dr. Pepper Ten. Beyond the casual (if boneheaded) sexism, the most infuriating part of the ad campaign is that it’s using such tired stereotypes to stir up media attention (yeah yeah, including here) and thus sales. If men actually buy into this, it’s scarier for our future than the 2012 Mayan Prophecy.

All that aside, what exactly makes this diet soda more macho than the standard fare? The AP attempts to shed some light:

To appeal to men, Dr Pepper made its Ten drink 180 degrees different than Diet Dr Pepper … [U]nlike its diet counterpart … the drink has 10 calories and 2 grams of sugar, which gives it a sweeter taste.

Really? Adding a little high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to the standard (and spooky) sweetener aspartame is the cold fusion of the diet soda world? Besides gunky HFCS, the only additional ingredients include the sweetener acesulfame potassium and sodium phosphate. I was curious, so I looked up sodium phosphate. What I found was quite manly indeed. Sodium phosphate is commonly used:

to completely empty the colon (large intestine, bowel) before a colonoscopy (examination of the inside of the colon to check for colon cancer and other abnormalities) so that the doctor will have a clear view of the walls of the colon.

It’s also used as a meat preservative. Make of that what you will.

So let me get this straight: Dr. Pepper doesn’t want me to buy their colon-rattling blasts of HFCS and aspartame? I think my ovaries just leapt for joy.

The saucy crew of Sauced.Photo: Cafe Nordo

What do you get? No, not the strangest, most analogy-strained drink ever. It’s Sauced, the third production from innovative dinner theater Cafe Nordo.

I attended Nordo’s second production, Bounty! An Epic Adventure last spring and had just that. An epic adventure. It was a combination of tastes and entertainment I had never experienced before. (Raw geoduck, anyone?) Chef Nordo Lefesczki — an enigma, mystery, and collaboration in his own right — created something beyond the usual foray of dinner theater. The setting was a sinking ship. We learned about the unknown fate of ocean creatures and the mysteries of what was on our dinner plates while our waiters danced, teased, and waxed poetic about the seas.

Alcohol runs in my blood, both literally (tonight) and figuratively, from the Irish whiskey-loving side of my family. I thought the combination of Nordo and my familial vice would blow the lid off Bounty!

But I couldn’t help but feel like the production was missing something. The performance and plot was much more polished than Bounty! I fear they used a little too much elbow grease and lost their most endearing ingredient: zaniness.

At the last performance, we were served squid ink. This time, I couldn’t stretch my imagination to believe that mixed nuts with a subtle lime glaze was bar food “deconstructed, reconstructed, and then deconstructed again.” Last time, we sat in both fear and awe of the food, the scene around us, and our sassy waiters. This time, I waited in anticipation merely out of hunger, thirst, and the hope that something wacky would go down.

The plot of Bounty! was definitely green-themed, but the plot of Sauced, as far as I could tell, was not. The press release described it as the “sexy, dirty, soul-baring darkness of humanity under the influence,” which could have easily translated over to mindless consumption and environmental destruction, but I didn’t get the sense that they were making that connection.

I don’t mean to be too harsh; I definitely enjoyed the show, and judging by the roars of laughter, the crowd did too. Chef Lefesczki has the uncanny ability to pull together some of Seattle’s best talent, food, drinks, and jokers in a way that makes you forget you’re sitting in the backroom of a chocolate shop.

And Seattleites, my words should be taken with a grain of tequila salt. If you’ve got the money and want to drink away a rainy evening outside of your apartment, by all means go. This is ultimately an enjoyable performance.

But first, a plea to that mysterious Chef Lefesczki, wherever you may be: Keep Nordo Weird.

Sauced runs on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays through November 13.

Chocolate fashion show in New York. Photo: Bosh

So in honor of comestible couture and fashion in general, we’ve compiled some of the more delectable rags you can sport from the kitchen table to the catwalk. Photographer Ted Sabarese was generous enough to lend us incredible shots from his “Hunger Pains” project. He was inspired by the relationship between people and the food they eat. And of course, here at Grist, we are too. So check out this wacky wear and tips on how to tear your teeth into fashion.

Nutella DeVille: While you don’t want this outfit to melt on your body, you definitely don’t want it melting the planet either. Before you start sewing together your chocolate nibs, check out which varieties are best for the planet. Fortunately, our pal Ask Umbra has compiled a handy overview to help you figure out how to purchase ecologically and humanitarianly correct cocoa.

Hey Snooks, listen up. I have something green to say.Photo: Wikipedia commons

Short in stature, but never in spirit (or spirits), Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi is my favorite cast member. That’s why I need to offer Snooks a little unsolicited green advice. But I’m no Angelina. I freely admit I’m about to talk some shit:

1. Voting on orange issues, not green: This little snookit caused my skin to burn:

I don’t go tanning anymore because Obama put a 10 percent tax on tanning. McCain would never put a 10 percent tax on tanning. Because he’s pale and would probably want to be tan.

Now I’m not claiming Obama has been perfect on environmental issues. Far from it. Or that Snooki likely votes. But Jesus Christo, can you think of a more shallow swing issue? And besides, judging by her income and burnt sienna shade, Snooks still hits the tanning salon all-too-frequently.

Tanning has obvious health implications, none of them good. Tanning beds are on par with cigarettes for cancer risk. And then there’s the environmental concerns. Most tanning lotions ranked by the Environmental Working Group received a 7 or higher (on a scale of 10) for high levels of toxins. Bulbs contain heavy metals such as mercury, and consume 100-160 watts every hour. The sunlight that hits the earth in just one hour is enough to power the world for a year. There’s no reason to believe it couldn’t power guido and guidette‘s mega-tans too.

Snooki, your greenest (and healthiest) option is to forgo tanning altogether and embrace your natural hue. Since I somehow doubt that will happen, I advise opting for a green sunless tanner instead.

2. Taking hair to new un-green heights: Thumbs up for ditching the giant hair bump, Snooki. You look better and are obviously using much, much less hair product. But I’ve noticed your hair has a new red hue, which means it’s time to check out Umbra’s advice on hair dye. And please, let Pauly D know that his beloved Spiker Gel contains vinyl. As Umbra says, “No on vinyl and that’s final.” There are many, many green hair products out there — some truly eco-friendly, many green-washed — so check the ingredients at the aforementioned Environmental Working Group site.

3. Making no one want to vacation in Florida: OK, so this is a stretch. But hear me out: the gang’s absurd antics even had New Jersey politicians clamoring to distance themselves and the Garden State from the show. While their, um, rowdy style might be good for MTV ratings, no state wants to be associated with them.

In season two, they relocate from Seaside Heights to the Sunshine State. Florida’s tourism industry is worth $4 billion annually and employs one million people, making tourism a vital part of Florida’s economy. The state has been mighty worried about all those haunting images of oily, dead sea life prompting families to cancel their beach vacations. Thanks to Jersey Shore, they now have oily, dead-drunk Seaside Heights life to deal with.

My girl Snooki even got arrested at a Jersey beach for annoying her fellow sunbathers. I can’t say Snooki directly caused any Florida vacation cancellations. But she can’t have helped.

That said, Snooki is stumbling in the right direction. She recently auctioned some of her personal items on eBay to benefit the Gulf cleanup. So keep up the good work, Snooki, and Florida might proudly adopt you. OK, so THAT is a stretch. But if you tone down the guidette stereotypes and use your fame for good, heck, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist might even give you tanning tips.

4. Falling drunk off bikes instead of riding them: While I appreciate Snooki’s attempt to get up on something besides a guido, she should do it more often — and sober. Plus, with the recent disappearance of the giant hair bump, there’s no reason a helmet wouldn’t fit.

5. Birth control: This really is none of my business, but, oh well … Grist doesn’t have an official stance on casual sex. It’s a fairly alien concept to us environmental journalists. But we do have a strong opinion on birth control.

When the gang was interviewed on The View, Joy Behar asked them about condom use. Snooki, Mike (who calls himself “The Situation”), and Pauly D all said they use them (hooray!). But the following exchange casts some doubts on their birth control know-how:

Behar followed up by asking if safe sex extends to the hot tub and Sherri Shepherd suggested it was unnecessary because “hot water kills all the sperm.”

“It’s really hot water,” The Situation agreed. “It takes care of business.”

Bad Situation. Especially since the crew tends to hook up with one another. So, memo to Snooki: when you’re splashing in the hot tub with Mike, USE PROTECTION. When you’re smooshin tipsy Vinnie, USE PROTECTION. If you spin with Pauly D, USE PROTECTION. And if Ron ever stumbles into your bed, run, Snooki, run!

Snooki, your
un-green antics make me quite sure you’re not a GINK (Green Inclinations, No Kids). But as an avid partier who can’t keep a job, I pray you remain a DINK (Drink Inclinations, No Kids). There are no official estimations on how much your carbon footprint would climb with the addition of a Snooki cookie. My best guess is more MTV shows and the end of the natural world as we know it.

Despite being made of rubber, using a condom is still a greener choice than not using one. But if you want to keep the planet clean while getting down and dirty, there are a growing number of eco-friendly sex toys and forms of protection out there. Like vegan condoms and lube, or condoms that benefit endangered animals. Poke around, Snooki. You’ll find an eco-fit.

Word to the wise (who don’t watch Jersey Shore): If this memo to Snooki seems out of character for Grist, or perhaps a little too much like a shameless ploy to boost page views, let me be perfectly clear: these musings and the need to share them are entirely my own. I’m sure you have your guilty TV habits too. Speaking of, what are they? Do you ever cringe at the habits of your favorite characters? Or are you surprised to find hidden green values?