June 9, 2026

Month: October 2007

$100 Barrel Oil Nears; Streetcars in Portland

by Keith Schneider0

  Two items caught my eye today. World oil prices reached $93 a barrel this week, which is why gasoline at the Wesco down the road is $3.07-a- gallon tonight. The other news is the announcement on Monday that city leaders in Oregon want to dramatically expand the number of neighborhoods served by Portland’s spectacularly successful streetcar. The two developments are related, of course, because as fuel prices rise the sanity and fuel-efficiency of streetcar lines makes ever …

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New Midwest Online News Entry

by Keith Schneider5

John Bebow, an active member of the association of newsies-who-became-public-interest-advocates, sent an interesting item in his weekly email alert about the emergence of online news organizations in the Midwest. John diverged from a decorated daily news career,  that included stops at the Detroit News and Chicago Tribune, to become the executive director of the Center For Michigan, a nearly two-year-old non-profit that focuses on state economic and competitiveness issues that was founded by Phil Powers, the founder and former …

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New Peak Oil Assessment – Not Good

by Keith Schneider6

  Cheap oil was, arguably, the most important driver of prosperity in the industrial world during the 20th century. Expensive energy is one, but not the only significant driver of the economic Mode Shift occuring in the 21st.  Today, just in time for gas prices here in Benzie County to edge close to $3.00 again, and with news of $90 a barrel oil this week, comes the latest independent assessment of global oil stocks. The conclusion that the …

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1Sky, Step it Up, and the Citizen-Media Campaign to Prompt Action on Climate

by Keith Schneider1

[youtube]q71cMRGXx9o[/youtube] When it came to reaching large numbers of people in the 20th century, it was all about mass. Mass marketing. Mass audiences. Mass communication. Journalist David Halberstam published an important book in 1979, The Powers That Be, that documented the influence of a handful of large publishers — Time, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times — and a broadcast company — CBS — in setting the cultural, political, and social agenda in the United States.  One of the …

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The Fourth Sector

by Keith Schneider2

  Mode Shift’s faithful readers know how interested the author is in work that is occurring in metropolitan regions, at the grassroots, in nimble businesses, and the non-proft sector to help institutions be more responsive to the unique requirements of our time. The 20th century’s institutions, particularly government, which built the Interstate highway system, sent men to the moon, enacted enforceable protections for civil rights and endangered species, have turned out to be wholly incapable of meeting …

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What Was Bill Richardson Thinking?

by Keith Schneider8

  On October 4 Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson, who also happens to be the governor of New Mexico, essentially committed a personal political drowning here in the Great Lakes region. Mr. Richardson, who is campaigning hard to win the Nevada’s presidential caucus on January 9, the nation’s second such contest, told the Las Vegas Sun the following: “I want a national water policy,” he is quoted as telling the newspaper. “We need a dialogue between states …

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At Notre Dame, Coming of Age For Young New Urbanists

by Keith Schneider4

  I visited South Bend earlier this month to join a group of students from Notre Dame and several more of the nation’s best universities who held the first Congress of the Students for New Urbanism. The University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, it turns out, was an apt choice for the gathering. Notre Dame reframed its architectural curriculum several decades ago to concentrate on traditional neighborhood and urban design, one of the few architectural schools to …

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