Economics | ModeShift

Single Staircase Apartments Make Sense For Cities

by Keith SchneiderMarch 4, 2026March 4, 20260

SEATTLE – One of this Pacific Coast city’s newest apartment buildings is the eight-story Fremont View. Set in Seattle’s bohemian Fremont neighborhood, the $12.75 million project encompasses 29 airy and well-lit apartments that rise from a tight 9,600-square foot city lot. What makes such a tall and compact multi-family residence possible is a crucial design feature allowed by Seattle’s building code: the apartment’s single staircase. Until 2024 allowing one staircase in multi-family buildings more …

Copper Riches Lead Congress to Try Shortcut for Boundary Waters Mining

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 25, 2026February 25, 20260

The U.S. Senate this week is poised to vote on a narrowly-cast resolution intended to clear a new pathway to eventually open a long-disputed copper mine close to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeast Minnesota. There’s a lot more, though, riding on the Senate vote, and not just for a region of the American north country adored for its towering pines, and deep, clear waters. If it’s approved and signed by President Trump, …

How Crucial Was 2022 Election? Thank You Sane America

by Keith SchneiderNovember 24, 2022November 24, 20221

BENZONIA – This could have been a miserable Thanksgiving. It’s not. On November 8 sane Americans voted their disapproval for the dreadful politics of MAGA America. Never more so than in Michigan. Even in our three-county corner of the lower peninsula Democrats and sufficient numbers of disgusted Republicans voted to reject election-denying, Trump-supported candidates and re-elect the incumbent Democratic governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. Having cast off the psychic weight of election dread, …

Craft Distilleries Are More Numerous Than Ever. The Pandemic Looks To Have Helped.

by Keith SchneiderJune 22, 2021June 23, 20210

GETHSEMANE, KY. â€“ Conditions last year could hardly have looked worse for craft distilling in Kentucky or any other state. Built on the intimacy of locally-produced spirits, virtually all of the more than 2,000 craft distilleries that operated around the country were imperiled by state health directives that closed tasting rooms. Yet while the virus produced financial pain, it did not lead to many distillery deaths. Federal pandemic-related aid, consumer demand, important changes in state …

Kentucky Coal Fields Display How Hard It Is To Redevelop Rural America

by Keith SchneiderJune 19, 2021June 23, 20210

PAINTSVILLE, KY. â€“ On April 23, 12 weeks after President Joe Biden signed an executive order that promised to help rural regions of the East and Great Plains move past their dependence on fossil energy markets, the administration identified $37.9 billion in existing federal grant and loan accounts to meet the presidentâ€™s job creation and revitalization goals. One of those accounts, administered since 2016 by the Department of the Interior, helped start a high-tech manufacturing …

Benzie County’s Summer and Fall COVID Tourist Economy – Surprise! – Was Very Strong

by Keith SchneiderDecember 5, 2020March 7, 20210

BENZONIA — On May 15, persuaded that COVID-19 infections and deaths were convincingly low, Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) lifted the executive order that for eight weeks had closed most businesses in Benzie and neighboring Northern Michigan counties. Six months later, as COVID-19 infections and deaths mounted as never before in Benzie and the rest of the state, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reinstated parts of the shutdownâ€”calling for a three-week â€œpauseâ€â€”from November …

Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum Opens in Owensboro, Kentucky

by Keith SchneiderOctober 21, 2018January 15, 20190

OWENSBORO, KY. â€” This flourishing city of more than 59,000 residents has occupied the high ground on a big bend of the Ohio River so long that its history includes being the winter encampment for the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804. Owensboroâ€™s famous sons include Johnny Depp, who was born here in 1963. Among its notable achievements is surviving the loss of 6,000 General Electric manufacturing jobs at the end of the 20th century, …

The White House Wants To Disrupt Elko County and a Whole Lot of Other Places in the West

by Keith SchneiderDecember 24, 2017January 19, 20182

ELKO, NEV. â€“ From this rest stop desert city midway between Salt Lake City and Reno the snow peaks of the Ruby Mountains are like finely crafted wainscoting in an elegant ballroom. The slopes rise sharply to form triangles in the sky. In 1989, Congress approved permanently safeguarding 92,650 wooded acres along the ridge lines from any intrusions in the Ruby Mountain Wilderness. The big flat sagebrush valley that runs up to the base of …

Parks and Promise in Emalahleni, South Africa

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 12, 2016February 19, 20161

EMALAHLENI, South Africa — There’s enough disturbing news in the world. I’ve reported my share of it. So when a story crosses my path that is part of the global garden of embryonic hope, I relish telling it. One of those stories, about two young guys here in South Africa who turned trash dumps into a program to build neighborhood parks, was brought to my attention by environmental activists living in Mpumalanga province, the coal …

Donghao Chung, Guangzhou’s Daylighted Refuge

by Keith SchneiderOctober 25, 2015November 11, 20152

GUANGZHOU, China — Can a polluted stormwater drain newly constructed as an urban park speak for a city? Can a place of refuge, where clear water slips past slick rocks and families gather near the sound and mist of fountains, be an extension of a nation? There’s always risk in heaping such rhapsody on a single example. Still, in the characteristically handsome Chinese design, and in the cooling embrace of its flowing water, the Donghao …