TheSpec - Walkability and the new urbanism

TheSpec - Walkability and the new urbanism: "Leinberger says demand for homes in urban, walkable neighbourhoods is outstripping supply in most United States cities and that for the first time since the suburbs became king in the 1960s, housing values there have fallen below those of their urban counterparts.

The same trend is evident in Canada’s biggest cities of Toronto and Vancouver, he says, and is likely inevitably coming to other metro areas. While cities are thriving and growing, suburbs have grown more congested, less green, even more car-centric and been pushed further out into the hinterland."

Gas and Oil Party wants to suppress voting

The Republican Threat to Voting - NYTimes.com: "Less than a year before the 2012 presidential voting begins, Republican legislatures and governors across the country are rewriting voting laws to make it much harder for the young, the poor and African-Americans — groups that typically vote Democratic — to cast a ballot."

Raising Baltimore - Walkability Compromised in Southeast Baltimore

No crosswalk signal at Aliceanna and Wolfe — a very busy intersection

Raising Baltimore: "I am writing to ask you to stand up for neighborhoods and walkability in Baltimore City — to move Baltimore forward as a progressive, walkable city that is safe and hospitable to residents, businesses, and visitors — instead of taking us backward to a far less enlightened time when cities were designed only around the needs of the car.

As you know, in November, the Baltimore City Council adopted a 'Complete Streets' initiative, which binds the city to consider ALL users in transportation and planning decisions — this means, as you know, that decisions about our streets should consider the needs of walkers, bikers, and transit riders, NOT just automobiles."

US business is much more than fossil-fuel industry

Daily Kos: US Chamber, Biggest Front Group for Fossil Fuel Industry, Has No Idea What's About to Hit Them: "The time to strip away that respectability has come, and it starts today in DC. But it doesn't end here. Across the nation, a campaign to get businesses to declare 'The US Chamber Doesn't Speak for Me' has begun to make real progress--thousands and thousands of small businesses have already signed up to say they can speak for themselves, thank you--and that they're nimble enough capitalists to deal with a planet that runs on wind and sun. It's not just small companies either--Apple Computer has quit the chamber, and local chambers of commerce from Seattle to New York have broken their ties with the US Chamber."

US is not broke, just not collecting corporate taxes

Blog | US Uncut: "While millions of Americans pay their taxes this weekend, many have begun to wonder why those who profit most off a system of public services in America pay so little to maintain it. In fact, the Government Accountability Office reports that 83 of the top 100 US companies use tax havens to dodge taxes."

U.S. History - the deliberate destruction of the streetcar - Chomsky

Public Transport shut down for private gain. Notes & Chomsky on National City Lines, the demise of the streetcar.: "The private sector operated in parallel: 'Between 1936 and 1950, National City Lines, a holding company sponsored and funded by GM, Firestone, and Standard Oil of California, bought out more than 100 electric surface-traction systems in 45 cities (including New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Tulsa, and Los Angeles) to be dismantled and replaced with GM buses... In 1949 GM and its partners were convicted in U.S.district court in Chicago of criminal conspiracy in this matter and fined $5,000.'"

DC City Council member: Let students ride transit fare-free

Biddle said teachers have told him that some students miss school at the end of the month because the family doesn’t have train or bus fare.

WashingtonPost