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July 6th, 2011 Portland-based Sustainable Business Oregon reported yesterday that Stumptown once again won silver in Site Selection Magazine‘s Rankings of the nation’s most sustainable metroplitan communities. Once again coming in second to the Bay Area (Site Selection‘s lede about San Francisco’s ban on unsolicited Yellow Pages was cornily fantastic), Portland ranked high alongside Oregon, which came [...] January 5th, 2011 Before the second day of my trip from Portland to Missoula for the 2010 Society of Environmental Journalists conference I’d hoped to visit Hell’s Canyon. That morning – if I could really call it that – I realized I didn’t want to make the solo trip down a gravel road from Imnaha after a freeze, not the way I felt. Lonesomeness had crept in a little, too, and I didn’t want to experience the gorge alone, knowing then that there was a traveling companion not there with whom I’d want to share the marvel. Anyhow, I didn’t know exactly yet how much time I had to linger. Still, this was my time on the road, my time made uniquely possible by a few key people. I didn’t want to miss this world, knowing how remote this landscape was for me, and how rare my opportunities to visit might be. Though fatigued, it was important to me to let my spirit move me, even if it moved me slowly, even if it moved me differently than I’d expected or hoped. [...] January 4th, 2011 For the next week or so, each day I’ll recount some element of my October trip to and from the 2010 Society of Environmental Journalists conference. I’ll combine my recollection of what I saw, experienced or learned, tweets I made at the time, photographs and links to some of the cool things I learned. Check back each day for new reflections, tales and reports. At the end of my updates I’ll post a link to read the story as one narrative (and post a complete photo album as well). Be prepared. This series will include a mix of storytelling styles — don’t expect straight journalism, or complete creativity. In fact, don’t expect anything but a journey. More than two months after I’ve returned from one journey, though, I’ve yet to trace its path. I still haven’t traced my trip from Portland to Missoula and back, and I can’t quite express why not. Perhaps I don’t feel like the trip’s over, like I’ve truly returned. Perhaps I can’t record it until I’ve described it, until I’ve wrapped the journey in words and pictures and recollections that I realize are fading with each day. Some of you might not be interested in such ponderings. “Get to the point,” you’ll say. “Tell me about the conference. Tell me what you learned, what you saw along the way, what the latest news is. I only have so much time. Don’t you know attention spans are ever so slight? Haven’t you ever heard of an editor?” Indeed I do, and I have. As I’ve noted elsewhere, as so many have noted before, though, to truly travel you can’t simply move from Point A to Point B. You can’t experience this world’s multiplicity of dimensions through a straight line. The truth is, of course, I did wait to write this down. I let the story fester. I let it fall away and apart. Like anyone might, I’ve been making excuses for months now for not chronicling my trip. My terrible cold on the road. Assignments due just upon my return. Job applications. Novel Writing. Story development. Other conferences to attend as a reporter. Holidays. I could think of any number of reasons why you’re reading this now, today, this very second, and only now, but this is the moment, this is when these words take shape. [...] November 3rd, 2010 Photo of Portland bike lane courtesy Flickr user Eric Fredericks. This week’s post for High Country News‘s “A Just West” blog explored discussions that came out of last week’s Ecodistricts Summit in Portland. Check it out here or read it — and many other great stories — on HCN. Hundreds of urban planners, architects, [...] October 13th, 2010 I’ve been driving and fighting off a cold while traveling to the 2010 Society of Environmental Journalists Conference. Now I’m here and diving right into the event. For now here are a few thousand words — in the form of a few dozen photos — describing what I saw. [...] August 27th, 2010 For the first time in decades it’s cool to be a renter. So why is it so hard to rent a home and still be “green”? This week, as news outlets across the board reported a steep decline in home sales and prices in July, especially in the West, some reported increased preferences for renting, especially with the added uncertainty wrought by high unemployment levels. Particia Orsini of AOL’s Housing Watch reported Aug. 26 that Americans, particularly homeowners, are now more likely to think that renting a home is more prudent than buying one. Other news outlets, such as Forbes and the Real Estate Channel and Time’s “Curious Capitalist” blog, also recently dissected the growing preference for renting. Orsini cited statistics from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. I took a glance at that report – titled State of the Nation’s Housing 2010 – and found it shows that rental vacancies grew from 2006 to 2009, even though the renter pool was growing at the same time. In fact, U.S. Census Bureau housing vacancy survey data cited by the report shows that fewer people own homes in the West compared to any other region in the nation. The same numbers also show that nearly three-quarters of white Americans own homes while fewer than half of minority populations do. So, what does this all have to do with the environment? [...] August 14th, 2010 For High Country News’s A Just West blog this week I explored the interplay between race, economic status and access to parks and outdoor recreation. The post originally appeared here. [...] August 6th, 2010 I’ve begun blogging about environmental justice and the West for High Country News My first post went up July 30 and discussed growth, economics and justice.HCN has been kind enough to allow me to cross-post, so beginning with this week’s edition I’ll also be putting my posts up here at Lascher at Large. On [...] |
     
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