Climate Cities
All Stories
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Not the coal and gas kind, though we’ve seen lots of that
I’m going to keep this short and sweet, because it’s been a long day. We headed out of St. Louis in the mid-afternoon, but before we did, we spent some time with Laura Cohen, who heads up the Confluence Greenway Project — an incredibly complex (we’re talking Venn diagram here) conglomeration of agencies, nonprofits, and […]
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St. Louis’ City Museum is a treasure
I apologize if the image at left is a bit hard to make out, but if it looks like a bunch of junk to you, then you’re seeing it clearly. This is the outdoor portion of the City Museum in downtown St. Louis. It’s absolutely the most unique place I’ve ever seen, and it’s completely […]
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What’s up with that gated ‘community’ in Montana?
Alice Waters, long-time champion of food as a tool for building community, has done something quite un-Alice Water-like: sold her name to promote a high-dollar gated development "community" in Montana. Over on Ethicurean, there’s a great post by the novelist Charlotte McQuinn Freeman, who lives in Livingston, Montana — near the site of the quote-unquote […]
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In which I say a little prayer for the Sox
Oh, one more thing: today we went to the top of the Gateway Arch, and I got to peer into Busch Stadium, where my Red Sox beat the Cardinals in their still-gives-me-goosebumps 2004 World Series victory. And as I write this, they are handily beating the Colorado Rockies (13-1, bottom of the 8th) in the […]
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Guess what happens when communities cough up cash?
Earlier today, we met with three folks from the Great Rivers Greenway District in St. Louis. Their organization owes its very existence to a voter-approved one-tenth of one cent sales tax that generates $10 million each year. As a result, they’ve been able to complete about 100 miles of trails and greenways in a 1,216-square-mile […]
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Reflections on a changing river
Having spent three days on the Mighty Mississip, I am beginning to see just how mighty it is. In Dubuque, we experienced a river that seemed to meander at a manageable pace. We saw a riverfront plaza with steps leading right into the water, and walked down the steps to reach out our hands to […]
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Danish picturebook, Portland video show how to respect bicyclists
What bicycle-respecting streets, intersections, and neighborhoods look like is largely a mystery to most people, even those who cycle regularly. I’ve offered descriptions twice before. Since then, two wonderful new tools have been completed. StreetFilms.org, the awesome, New York-based outfit that makes movies about cycling, has posted a 30-minute ode to Portland’s bikability (linked above). […]
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Sprawling homes susceptible to flames in California
The impact of the still-raging California fires on humans and their homes is tragic and lamentable — but far from unexpected, thanks to homeowners’ tendency to sprawl out and nestle right up to the fire line. Some two-thirds of new building in southern California in the past decade was on tinder-dry, fire-susceptible land, says historian […]
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$5 could be yours
It’s morning in St Louis, and we’re getting ready to talk with some of the movers and shakers in the world of riverfront greenways. While preparing, we ate at a greasy spoon where Jimmy Kimmel was on the teevee talking about his daily cross-country flights for this week’s double-hosting duty. Yikes. On a side note, […]
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… we’re off to St. Louis
Despite the whirlwindiness of our visit to Dubuque, Sarah and I feel like we got a good picture of the work that’s going on there. It helped to have a view from the country’s shortest, steepest railroad: We’ll write about all of this in more detail later in the fall. But for now, it’s off […]
