Bricks and Bathrooms
Peter Steinbrueck former Seattle city councilmember and Sightline board member Gordon Price got together for a lively debate last night in Seattle’s downtown library. The question: whose home town was the greatest city – Seattle or Vancouver, BC. The premise, however, was that each advocate had to argue for the other guy’s hometown.
Steinbrueck launched his argument noting the fact that Vancouver had accessible and safe bathrooms in public places. Seattle has had a struggle with this issue and just recently scrubbed an effort to put more pay toilets in high traffic areas. It’s a great point. How can a city be vibrant if people are concerned about what they are going to do if one of them has to “go,” especially families with children?
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Remodels + Retrofits = Smarts
A recent piece in the New York Times’ Home and Garden section featured the growing eco-consulting industry—entrepreneurs who give up-close and personal advice to people about how to live their lives more sustainably. The writer questions whether or not the small stuff adds up to real impacts. In fact, she reminds us that the biggest impacts are much farther “upstream”:
There is also debate about whether individual action matters at all, with some experts noting that the most effective greening people can do is in the voting booth. No individual action could compare, for instance, to the emissions avoided if the government found a way to replace coal with other technologies to reduce dependence on fossil fuels
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