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On January 4, Seattle inaugurated a new, ultra-green mayor, which got me thinking comparatively. Which of the three largest Cascadian cities is the greenest? Not in plans and intentions and declarations but in facts? I recently pored over data from the Cascadia Scorecard and other sources. The answer? No contest: Vancouver, BC. It’s not so much Vancouver’s new rail transit line under downtown that goes to the airport (which Seattle...

A stroll down a stretch of 2nd Avenue Northwest in Seattle is practically a walk in the park. The slightly meandering residential street is lined with wide strips of native grasses, small shrubs, and trees. Along the shoulder, interspersed among parking spots, are ponds and swales—gentle depressions—that fill with water during a downpour. What you won’t find are sludgy gutters brimming with muddy water and trash, or deserts of black...

You can adopt a puppy from the pound, or even a soldier fighting in Iraq to whom you can send a care package. And in Seattle, you can adopt a storm drain. That’s right, you can lay claim to your very own portal to the gutter. The city is so understaffed and over-storm drained that it’s asking residents to adopt a drain and remove the leaves and debris that clog...

As a veteran of Seattle’s neighborhood planning process—both as City staff and as a neighborhood planner—I am intrigued by Portland’s Eco District Initiative. It has a nice ring to it. But, what is an Eco District? The Portland Sustainability Institute describes it this way: An EcoDistrict is an integrated and resilient district or neighborhood that is resource efficient; captures, manages, and reuses a majority of energy, water, and waste on...

Remember the good old days when you could self-righteously point to spewing smoke stacks and foul outfalls as the big polluters? These days, when it comes to Puget Sound’s water pollution, we’ve met the enemy and he is us. For the majority of contaminants sullying the Sound, they’re getting there via stormwater. Stormwater is the rain that streams from roads, parking lots, roofs, highways, and some landscapes washing toxic chemicals...

A couple years ago, I mentioned that secure bike parking is important to creating affordable, green transportation. Personally, I’m well provided. Here’s the backyard bike shed I built with my father in-law. Here’s the bike storage room in Sightline’s building in downtown Seattle. (Pretty nice!) And here’s what bike storage looks like in one bike-happy Japanese community, courtesy of video from the Guardian in the United Kingdom. Read about it...

Stormwater—the rainwater that streams off roofs, parking lots, roads, and yards, carrying with it toxic pollutants—poses a costly, intractable problem for governments and businesses. In Washington, efforts to control stormwater have cost its cities hundreds of millions of dollars. The problem with stormwater comes from its massive volume, which floods homes and blasts through streams, flushing salmon eggs, gravel, and everything else out to sea. And it comes from the...

You may have seen the meme circulating around the internet:  some researchers from Australia New Zealand are claiming that owning a dog has as much impact on the planet as owning an SUV.  I’ll let New Scientist summarize their case: [A] medium-sized dog…consume[s] 90 grams of meat and 156 grams of cereals daily in its recommended 300-gram portion of dried dog food…So that gives him a footprint of 0.84 hectares… Meanwhile,...

Editor’s Note: This post is part of Sightline’s Getaway to Seattle Sweepstakes. Sign up for one of our emails and be entered to win a two-day trip to Seattle. Seattle always ranks high on lists of US cities with green buildings, with more than 80 large buildings and nearly 50 homes now certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. Since the city began mandating green construction practices...

First-grade teacher Linda Erickson is a devout believer in the power of summer school. After 14 years in the classroom, she knows that for struggling students, the extra lessons help them keep hold of newly gained reading skills. Summer school provides them with breakfast and lunch—possibly their only solid meals of the day. And the routine of school can anchor young lives unhinged by parents absent because of work demands,...