Cities & Planning

I've drooled over Makita's battery-powered wheelbarrows, which would make yardwork and homesteading far easier. But they run about $5,000, and they're Japanese-market only. Another Japanese company, CuboRex, designed this E-Cat. It's a retrofittable electric wheel that can be added to any wheelbarrow. However, it costs $1,261.

Tax increment financing (TIF) is a public financing method that is used as a subsidy for redevelopment, infrastructure, and other community-improvement projects in many countries, including the United States. The original intent of a TIF program is to stimulate private investment in a blighted area that has been designated to be in need of economic revitalization. Similar or related value capture strategies are used around the world.

Almost 2.5 kilometres of Mont-Royal Ave. has been blocked off to traffic, with art installations and greenery creating a daily festival, packed with crowds almost around the clock

# The Seattle City Council again voted against completing the Center City Streetcar. But it remains a prudent investment, vastly improving Seattle Streetcar network and walkability on First Avenue.

# In shift away from office and toward housing growth, Downtown Bellevue's development pipeline has seen nearly 4,000 additional homes proposed and more than two million square feet of office space abandoned in just the last couple of years. Once built, the pipeline of 14,000 homes would more than double the population of downtown.

# New renderings, created by Neiman Taber Architects, present a vision for voters of what publicly-funded social housing would look like in Seattle. A dedicated funding source for social housing is on the ballot in February via Prop 1A.

We can fix our staggering car fatality crisis. Start with these roads.

By David Helps Jorge Cruz Cortes was still a teenager when the Los Angeles Police Department arrested him for selling household goods without a license in 1989. The eighteen-year-old from Oaxaca, M…

# The area around a future light rail station in South Federal Way could see a significant amount of new housing and retail uses under the plan approved earlier this month. It is currently dominated by big box stores and industry.

The majority of the world’s ammonia is produced using the 115-year-old Haber-Bosch process, which is heavily reliant on natural gas. NitroVolt could change that.

# Restrictive zoning has contributed to the housing crisis across the U.S. and exacerbated inequality, but solutions exist to undo the damage. Here's an overview.

Cities around the world have recognised the primacy of buses in their transport systems. In India, this remains a missed opportunity.

# King County Metro deleted the Route 20 bus in September without full replacement service. Residents along the route are mourning the loss and asking for more service.

Editor’s note: This is the second post in our theme for November, The Latinx City. By Andres Villatoro A friend from graduate school recently visited Chicago for the first time ever to presen…

Specializing in the design of custom solar systems, Sunwind Energy will launch the Delta Flore solar PV planter onto the market by the end of the year.

Hong Kong Tramways (HKT) is a 3 ft 6 in narrow-gauge tram system in Hong Kong. Owned and operated by RATP Dev, the tramway runs on Hong Kong Island between Kennedy Town and Shau Kei Wan, with a branch circulating through Happy Valley.

A groundbreaking study suggests your farmed shrimp and salmon might have a much bigger environmental toll than previously thought.

With energy prices in Greece among the highest in Europe, Greek citizens are grabbing new opportunities to generate their own energy. But problems such as a lack of grid space persist.

It’s easy to use electricity — solar-generated or otherwise — to desalinate water. However, traditional systems require a steady source of power. Since solar panels don’t al…

ExxonMobil has already started drilling for it.

Bringing empty homes back into use can be tricky, but campaigners say a lot more could be done to help.

Instead of needing constant power, new system adjusts to use whatever’s available.

Agrivoltaics, which pairs solar panels with farming, offers a path to decarbonise agriculture. But how do we make it work for crops and energy? A new tool may hold the answer.

Filling in around the edges of a recent 99% Invisible episode.

Project Footprint was founded in 2018 with a mission of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of emergency responses.

# Several high profile officials are pushing for the next update to the central Puget Sound's Regional Transportation Plan to be more transformative than it might otherwise have been. The plan sways which projects get grants.

If you’ve been paying attention to our Power Broker series, then you know that bad infrastructure can cause harm. That makes it all the more important to recognize the thought and care that goes into the objects we use and see everyday. Nothing embodies that spirit of recognition more than the history of manhole covers

# Amtrak is updating its Seattle rail yard to handle an expanded modern fleet of trains via a newly announced $300 million in funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Vertical solar panels are proving to be a new solution for northern regions, yielding 20 per cent more energy than traditional panels.